Cremains of the Day (A Tallie Graver Mystery #1) by Misty Simon

There's no reverse on the hearse . . .

For Tallulah Graver, marrying wealthy Waldo Phillips seemed like the best way out of the family business, the Graver Funeral Home. But when her marriage falls apart and Tallie is left with next to nothing, she turns to cleaning houses to make ends meet. As humbling as it is to tidy the mansions of the snobby socialites she used to call friends, at least she doesn't have to be around dead bodies. Until . . . 
She discovers one of her employers lying in a closet with a knife sticking out of her chest. This unpleasant shock seems to be part of a web of weird experiences: Tallie's friend Gina's shop is broken into, her ex is stun-gunned where it hurts the most, and now she's receiving flowers from the dead woman. Granted the deliveryman is handsome, but seriously, that's enough to cast a pall over anyone's day. Now Tallie needs to dig deep to clean up this mess--before she finds herself in a grave situation.   (Summary via Goodreads)

In Cremains of the Day by Misty Simon there is no way that readers will not be drawn to main character Tallulah "Tallie" Graver and cannot help but feel sorry for her.  Tallie is recently divorced and is living above the family business which is a funeral parlor.  When she was married she was in the "rich, stuck up crowd", now she is cleaning the houses of those so called friends.  She is also rebuilding her friendship with her best friend Gina who she wasn't very nice to when she was married.

In Cremains of the Day Tallie is helping Gina with the food for after a funeral and stumbles upon Gina's cousin Katie tied up in Gina's shop and her ex-husband unresponsive in the alley behind the shop.  Luckily he is not dead, just stun gunned.  While Tallie is trying to wrap her head around all that, she goes to the house of one of her ex-friends who has become unbearable to clean for and finds her dead body in a closet !!

All Tallie wants to do is rebuild her life and open up a tea shop next door to her friend's cafe so that she can stop cleaning houses and helping out at her family's funeral parlor.  Unfortunately that is not going to happen when Max, an old friend of her brother returns to town and tells her that her life is in danger and that her ex-husband hasn't been completely honest with a lot of things.  While Tallie tries to figure things out, she finds it harder and harder to trust anyone....especially Max.

Cremains of the Day is the first book in the Tallie Graver Mystery series and it is full of page turning excitement.  Like I said readers cannot help but want to root for Tallie and hope that she can get out of the trouble that her ex put her in.  Simon's writing will have you captivated in the story and not want to leave....even when it gets scary !!!

Review by Missi M.