Grounds for Remorse (A Tallie Graver Mystery #2) by Misty Simon

No more cheating . . .

Best friends Tallie Graver and Gina Laudermilch both seem to spend a lot of time around urns. For Tallie, they're part and parcel of the family business, Graver's Funeral Home. Even though she's traded ashes for dusting with her own cleaning business, she still works part-time for her folks and lives above the funeral parlor. For Gina, they're the vessels that contain her heavenly brew at her coffee shop, Bean There, Done That. And both women are learning that owning a business can make finding time for romance challenging.

But when Gina's new beau turns out to have a wife, who barges into the coffee shop to take him home, she can't contain her bitterness and loudly threatens to poison his cup or boil him in a vat of coffee. So when Mr. Wrong turns up dead at the bottom of a staircase inside Gina's locked home, she finds herself at the top of the police's suspect list. Tallie needs to sweep in to save her friend. But she'll need to watch her step, or she may go from being a funeral home employee to becoming their next client . . . (Summary via Goodreads)

Grounds for Remorse by Misty Simon is the second book in the Tallie Graver Mystery series and I LOVED it !!

Tallie Gravers is a very busy woman.  She is trying to rebuild her life after her marriage fell apart.  She is also trying to rebuild friendships that she damaged while she was a snob in her married life.  She is living on the thrid floor of the family business, Graver's Funeral Home, working for the family business part time as well as running her own cleaning business.  She is cleaning houses for the rich people that she thought were friends during her marriage.  And she has reconnected with Max, a childhood friend of her brother and they are taking it to the next level.

Max lives 3 hours away currently but in Grounds for Remorse he is back in town for a 10 day vacation.  Max and Tallie are looking forward to spending time together.  Unfortunately when Gina, Tallie's best friend ends up in trouble, they drop everything to help her.  Gina had been seeing Craig who is a guy that she thought was amazing....until his wife storms into the cafe and practically drags him out !!  Early the next morning when Gina is heading downstairs to open up the cafe, she stumbles across Craig's body.  Things do not look good for Gina seeing as the staircase that he is found in is locked and only she could have let him in.  She was also overheard by everyone in the cafe threatening what she would do to him if she saw him again and it wasn't pretty !!!

Tallie and Max put their alone time aside to help prove Gina's innocence.  Unfortunately doing that may be impossible when they find out Craig had 2 wives, numerous girlfriends and possibly one of them is pregnant.

Readers cannot help but fall in love with everything about this series.  You cannot help but love the relationship and tension between Tallie and Chief of Police James Burton.  The family dynamic, business and relationships will tug on your heartstrings....especially the growing relationship between Tallie and Max.  The way that Tallie puts herself out there and in the middle of the investigations and how she helps solves the murders will keep you turning the pages and looking forward to the next installment in this series.  I know I cannot wait to open up Deceased and Desist to see what trouble Tallie gets into......

Review by Missi M.