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The Ballad of Screech and Friday
The Ballad of Screech and Friday, by Joann Keder, is a rowdy Piney Falls mystery in which Lanie Anders-Hill finds herself pulled into a strange tangle of karaoke-club deaths, cult residue, family secrets, and one very suspicious chain of Moonbeam-branded operations. At the center is Pepper Friday, a woman with a bruised past and a complicated connection to November “Vem” Bean, while Sybil Screech storms through the story like a human car alarm in expensive shoes. What begins as small-town mayhem around a disastrous stage performance widens into something sharper: manipulation, poison, undercover work, and the long afterlife of childhood control.
I enjoyed how the book refuses to behave like a tidy little mystery. It has the bones of a cozy whodunit, but the flesh is pure Piney Falls: eccentric, noisy, emotionally dented, and funny in a way that sometimes arrives sideways. Lanie’s narration gives the story its ballast. She’s observant without being chilly, exasperated without turning cruel, and her devotion to Vem gives the more outrageous scenes a real human pulse. The humor is deliberately extravagant, names, clubs, cult slogans, moaning sessions, villainous moles, but beneath the confetti is a serious concern with how people survive being used.
Pepper was the character who lingered with me most. Her arc is not a simple redemption tour; it’s thornier than that. She has jealousy, anger, shame, and a dangerous hunger to be seen, but the novel lets those feelings sit beside courage and moral awakening. That mixture gives the book texture. I also appreciated the way the mystery keeps changing shape. Just when I thought I understood the danger, the story widened from personal revenge to institutional exploitation, from karaoke absurdity to something almost gothic in its pattern of control. The tonal jumps are bold, and while the plot can, at times, feel gloriously overstuffed, the emotional throughline keeps it from becoming mere carnival noise.
This book is best for readers who like cozy mysteries, small-town mysteries, amateur sleuth fiction, quirky mysteries, cult suspense, and character-driven mysteries with a satirical bite. Fans of Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum books may enjoy the same collision of comic chaos, danger, and oddball community, though Joann Keder gives the absurdity a more homespun and wounded heart. The Ballad of Screech and Friday proves that even the loudest, strangest towns can become places where damaged people learn to breathe again.
Pages: 292 | ASIN : B0GKR41SH2
Secrets and Sunflowers
Secrets and Sunflowers (Pepperville Stories series) by Joann Keder is a fiction story about three friends set in the small town of Sandy Salts. Keilah Charmant is a local coffee shop owner who has to move her business to make way for the new construction project to widen the highway through town. Vanessa Withers is a reporter who writes obituaries in the local newspaper, and Deeloriandra Fisher acts as an honorary grandmother to Keilah’s two children. But all three women are keeping secrets from each other. The town is divided between people who want to keep the two-lane highway and others who support the expansion to a four-lane highway. When a dead body is found in a nearby lake, is it connected to the town dispute? Or is it more personal?
This was a fun story to read, filled. However, stereotypical small-town gossip and speculation. There were several elements of mystery in this book, which I liked. This bit of intrigue kept my interest as I tried to guess what would happen next and solve the mysteries along with the characters.
I liked that the author included a list of characters at the beginning of each chapter, which helped to avoid confusion as there were many different people introduced in a short span, especially for readers unfamiliar with the characters from reading the previous books in the series. Although this is not the first book in the Pepperville series, it can be read as a standalone story. The author gives enough details to recap what occurred in the other stories so that readers do not feel lost. The references that were made to mysteries solved in previous books and other intriguing details raised my interest in going back to read the other books in the series to find out the full story of what happened.
I felt some of the characters’ motivation was lacking, especially in regard to some ethical issues concerning the actions of the main characters. For example, I did not feel that the author gave a compelling reason why Vanessa did not want to contact the police when she discovered the dead body. The author, however, did include a lot of small details, such as the inclusion of the obituaries of various townspeople and the weather reports. These help the reader feel more part of the community.
Secrets and Sunflowers is an entertaining family saga novel filled with drama and some mystery. Readers of the Pepperville Stories series will enjoy the latest addition to the collection, and new readers to the series will find new friends they want to read more about.
Pages: 436 | ASIN : B0BB5N3RKS
Welcome to Piney Falls
![Welcome to Piney Falls (Piney Falls Mysteries Book 1) by [Joann Keder]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51WP8WLxK9L.jpg)
Joanne Keder’s novel, Welcome to Piney Falls, is an exhilarating mystery novel that delves into the history of a small town overlooked by most people. That is until Lanie comes along. Follow the stories of two powerful women, connected across time. Fiona Flanagan, a Scottish immigrant, marries and moves to America in the 1900’s. Lanie Anders, a businesswoman turned author, abandons her successful carer in marketing to rediscover herself. Upon her arrival in Piney Falls, she soon realizes is far from normal. She soon finds herself tangled in a curious cult and suspicious suicides.
In this piece, Joanne Keder, clearly demonstrates her knack for witty dialogue and a solid setting. The location is so tangible you’ll hear the sound of the rushing water and smell the Hemlock as you hike up Piney Falls with Lanie. I was also entertained by all the strange and memorable characters. From a nudist named November to a baker who names his pastries after constellations (sounds like they are out of this world, right?) In fact, the author captures their essence in such a lifelike way, you will wish they were real.
While the setting and characters are clearly defined, I did feel that the writing was a bit unclear and long winded in rare moments. The chapters were also surprisingly short, so some scenes felt rushed. It would have been a joy to spend more time sitting in the scenery of this small town. The story is also very plot-focused, as is often the case in a mystery novel. All that said, Keder does have talent when it comes to creating cliff hangers. I breezed through the book in no time at all to find out what happened next.
For the first novel in the series, it does a good job of sticking to the classic mystery novel genre. It starts and ends in a satisfying way and keeps you guessing. The themes of female empowerment and personal growth were also heartwarming and relatable as a reader.
If you want an easy to read mystery novel with quirky characters then Welcome to Piney Falls is the novel for you.
Pages: 224 | ASIN: B083FF56FZ
