Book excerpt: Sometimes a kind gesture is a simple cup of coffee. Carol Green is a divorcee two weeks shy of the big Five-O, with a lot to shoulder. Her daughter, Mary, has been booted out of job and room by her ex-boyfriend’s father. Carol offers her a place to stay in her campervan – something Mary point-blank refuses. To help her daughter, Carol must tether down her life. When Carol pulls into a town called Tinsel Pine, she overhears a man walk away from a deal with a woman, Miss Lucy Inkerman, selling a stable and horses. One man’s loss is another’s gain – and Carol doesn’t hesitate to put a bid in. It is a place that needs some tender loving care, something Carol has in spades. She feels like a fish out of water as she gets to know the town. William Goudy, a good-natured storeowner, is willing to point her in the right direction... until he is found murdered on his doorstep. Carol finds herself at the center of a crime she did not commit in a town she is a stranger to. She must work with the Scrooge-incarnate Chief of Police, Brogan Peterson, to find out who killed William before anyone else is targeted. Carol is a tough woman, but could her own need for mystery put what is precious to her in the firing line?