Sing It To Her Bones Marcia Talley by Marcia Talley 9780307808950, 0307808955 instant download after payment.

**After the long, difficult battle with breast cancer, Hannah Ives thought her life was going to be smooth-sailing.

Boy, was she wrong.**

When she’s unexpectedly laid off, for reasons that are probably ageist and almost certainly have to do with her health history, Hannah finds herself at loose ends, cast adrift in a world in which she seems to serve no purpose.

Invited by her sister-in-law, Connie, to take a break from life and visit her at the Ives farm in Pearson’s Corner, Hannah heads out on what she expects will be a peaceful, relaxing vacation — a few days with nothing to do but read novels and sleep.

Wearing a wig and her heart on her sleeve, Hannah arrives in Pearson’s Corner…and almost immediately makes a gruesome discovery that will shock the small Chesapeake Bay town to its core. On an abandoned farm near Connie’s house is a body — a body that belongs to a girl who disappeared without a trace eight years earlier following her high school homecoming dance.

Feeling drawn to the case because of the similarity in age between the victim and her own daughter, Hannah is driven by a need to discover the truth of what happened to the murdered girl. As she begins to delve deep and peel back the layers of what at first seems to be the perfect small town, Hannah can feel her own spirit and body surging back to life.

But investigating a murder goes hand-in-hand with the threat of danger. Someone in Pearson’s Corner has something to hide, and they’re not keen on Hannah digging out the truth.

As she begins to uncover dangerous secrets, Hannah becomes the target of a dangerous killer seeking to preserve long-buried secrets. Too stubborn to give up, she soon finds herself face-to-face with a deadly foe…

“A shining new talent … Hannah Ives tackles life’s ups and downs with humor, intelligence and courage.” Deborah Crombie, Macavity Award-winning author of *Dreaming of the Bones*

“Marcia Talley’s terrific debut novel has wit, warmth, and a spunky new heroine who must not be missed.” Sujata Massey, Agatha-winning author of *The Salaryman’s Wife*

“Hannah Ives is a welcome addition to the mystery landscape — smart, brave, wonderfully human, the kind of woman you want for your new best friend. Sing It to Her Bones is an impressive, polished debut from a writer to watch.” Laura Lippman, Edgar Award-winning author of *Butchers Hill*

“Scenes of Annapolis and the Chesapeake Bay area add an authentic tang of sunlit salt air to this suspenseful debut novel. Hannah Ives is an appealing, believable heroine.” Margaret Maron, author of *Home Fires Burning*

Marcia Talley was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and spent much of her childhood moving from place to place as the daughter of a career Marine officer. Sing It to Her Bones is not only the first of thirteen in the Hannah Ives series, but her writing debut, for which she won the Malice Domestic Grant for unpublished writers in 1998. She met her husband, a professor at the U.S. Naval Academy, at Oberlin College, and shares with him a love of sailing. They divide their time between Annapolis, Maryland, and Dickie’s Cay in the Abacos, Bahamas.

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Hannah Ives, recovering from a mastectomy and recently the victim of downsizing, accepts her sister-in-law's offer to spend some quiet time in Pearson's Corner, Maryland, away from the stress of D.C. Characters in mystery novels should know better. Soon Hannah has discovered a body, become involved in the murder investigation, and must deal with the fact that her husband has been accused of sexual harassment. Talley's debut is a gentle mystery with a likable narrator. Despite the straight-from-headlines nature of the plot, the novel relies not on sensationalism but on quiet character development for its charm. And, unlike many gentle mysteries, this one doesn't peter out long before the end. Readers expecting nail-biting tension may be a tad disappointed, but the majority of mystery fans will be well pleased. Buy this paperback original now; it won't be long before the Hannah Ives series makes the jump to hardcover. David Pitt

Marcia Talley’s first Hannah Ives novel, Sing It to Her Bones, won the Malice Domestic Grant in 1998 and was nominated for an Agatha Award as Best First Novel of 1999. Unbreathed Memories, the second in the series, appeared in 2000. Both were featured alternates of the Mystery Guild. She is also the editor of a collaborative serial novel, Naked Came the Phoenix, where she joined with twelve bestselling women authors to pen a tongue-in-cheek mystery about murder in an exclusive health spa. Her short stories have appeared in magazines and collections. Talley lives in Annapolis, Maryland, with her husband, Barry, a professor at the US Naval Academy. When she isn’t writing, she spends her time traveling or sailing.