The Weekenders by Mary Kay Andrews

 

Mary Kay Andrews novels were recommended by a friend and I found it a great summer read. The location for the story is Belle Isle in North Carolina, an island purchased by Riley's grandfather and his brother. Riley's family had partially developed the land without being overly intrusive on the landscape, but when her father died and her husband assumed running the family business, he had other ideas for money making schemes. Riley and her daughter arrived  on the island Memorial Day weekend and it was then that their lives began to unravel and the extent of her husband's bad business decisions came to light. Throw in a best friend, a Southern eccentric family and an ex-boyfriend and the story takes many twists and turns before the mysteries are solved.

The Fixer Upper by Mary Kay Andrews

Once a year, our local YMCA has a fund raiser and sells used books for next to nothing (3 for $1) and Fixer Upper by Mary Kay Andrews was one I picked up. It's definitely a light read, but a nice story of a young woman who, as a Washington lobbyist, is a fish out of water in a small Georgia town.
The book has been referred to as Southern Chic Lit and I must admit I did skip quite a few pages where it just didn't hold my interest. FBI agents saying "you go girl" didn't seem realistic to me. The 400+ pages could have been condensed quite a bit.
You can read Goodreads reviews here

From the cover:
After her boss is caught in a political scandal, fledgling Washington lobbyist Dempsey Jo Killebrew is left broke, unemployed, and homeless. Out of options, she reluctantly accepts her father's offer to help turn Birdsong - a fading Victorian mansion he recently inherited in Guthrie, Georgia - into a real estate cash cow. But Birdsong turn out to be a moldering Pepto-Bismol-pink dump with duct-taped windows, a driveway full of junk, and a grumpy distant relation who's claiming squatter's rights. Stuck in a tiny town where everyone seems to know her business, Dempsey grits her teeth and rolls up her sleeves, and begins her journey back to the last place she ever expected: home.