Trouble's Turn to Lose: A Carolina Tale

Susan M. Boyer

Apr 2026 · Carolina Tales Book 3 · Stella Maris Books, LLC

About this ebook

Private Investigator Hadley Cooper has a knack for finding trouble—and this time, it’s wearing pearls.

Life on Sullivan's Island is about as close to bliss as it gets—bike rides at sunrise, cases that don't make headlines, and a romance with SLED agent Cash Reynolds that's finally on solid ground. They have one ironclad rule: never work the same case.

When a wealthy Charleston socialite turns up dead, Cash charges her housekeeper, Bridget Donovan, with murder. But the young single mother has a formidable ally in Carolyn Talbot, a local matriarch who implores Hadley to help. Hadley's heart overrides her head, and her agreement with Cash is gone like confetti in a hurricane.

Soon she's wading through a tangle of suspects—blue bloods with deadly secrets, her client's scheming ex-monster-in-law, and the greatest unknown country singer in Nashville. But Hadley's also grappling with a mystery closer to home—one that will shake everything she thought she knew about her family.

To find justice for Bridget, Hadley will have to risk her heart, her life—and maybe her grip on reality.

Ratings and reviews

Trouble always loses when Hadley Cooper is involved. We get to go back to Sullivan's Island again, while Hadley solves another mystery with a bit of romance and a lot of intrigue thrown in for good measure. There are some cameos from familiar Susan M. Boyer characters, so find yourself a comfortable chair, put your feet up, and dive in. You won't want to put it down until you have finished it. Then, like me, you will be anxiously awaiting the next one in the series.

About the author

Susan M. Boyer is the USA Today bestselling author of thirteen novels. Her debut novel, Lowcountry Boil, won the 2012 Agatha Award for Best First Novel, the Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery/Suspense, and garnered several other award nominations. Subsequent books in the Liz Talbot Mystery Series have been nominated for various honors, including Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance Okra Picks, the 2016 Pat Conroy Beach Music Mystery Prize, and the 2017 Southern Book Prize in Mystery & Detective Fiction.

Big Trouble on Sullivan’s Island, the first novel in her Carolina Tales series, won the 2024 Independent Publisher Book award silver medal in Southeast Regional Fiction and was a 2024 National Indie Excellence Award finalist.

Susan is a lifelong Carolinian. She grew up in a small North Carolina town and has lived most of her life in South Carolina. She loves beaches, Southern food, and small towns where everyone knows everyone, and everyone has crazy relatives. You’ll find all of the above in her novels. She and her husband call Greenville, South Carolina, home and spend as much time as possible on the Carolina coast.

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