Do-It-Yourself Mysteries Books In Order

Publication Order of Do-It-Yourself Mysteries Books

The Do-It yourself Mysteries series is a series of intriguing cozy mystery books written by one of the highly renowned Norwegian novelist named Jenna Bennett under the pen name of Jennie Bentley. This series is comprised of a total of 7 books, which were released between the years 2008 and 2013. Author Bentley has described the main character in each of the books of this series in the role of Avery Baker. She has been described as a textile designer, who lives in New York and used to work as a textile designer for her living. Right at the start of the series, Avery Baker is shown as moving from Manhattan to Maine, where she inherits an old cottage of her aunt. She leaves her career in textile designing and finds a new professional field for herself in home renovation. During the course of her new career, Avery Baker comes across a number of mysterious situations, which are depicted throughout the series. In order to deal with such situations, Avery takes up the job of investigating the mysteries of her own by working as an amateur sleuth. The more she indulges into the sleuthing work, the number of bodies begins to turn up even more during the course of her work. However, Avery Bakery handles every situation very well with the help of her determination, wit, and intelligence. She is also assisted by some of her friends on different occasions in relation to her sleuthing activities. Author Bentley began writing the series in the year 2008 and also came up with the release of its debut novel titled Fatal Fixer-Upper in the same year. This book was also the debut novel of author Bentley’s writing career and helped her to establish herself in this career field. Currently, the series is still ongoing as Bentley is working on the plot development of the series’ next book.

The first book of the Do It Yourself Mysteries series written by author Jennie Bentley was published under the title of ‘Fatal Fixer-Upper’. It was released by the Berkley Prime Crime in the year 2008. Author Bentley has set the plot of this mystery book in Waterfield, Maine, The United States and has introduced the lead characters as Avery Baker and Derek Ellis. At the beginning of the story, Avery Baker is shown to be a former designer from New Manhattan. Due to the inheritance of her aunt’s ancient Maine cottage, she chooses a new career in the field of home renovation and shifts to Maine’s Waterfield town permanently. There, she meets a hunky handyman named Derek Ellis. With the help Derek, Avery Baker learns the basics of home renovation and later becomes an expert in the field. During one of her renovation contracts, the textile designer turned renovator comes across several important clues related to the disappearance of a professor. Avery realizes that she has landed herself in a deadly situation by discovering the clues. And so, she wonders whether she will able to finish the ongoing renovation work of a house without harming herself or getting killed in the process.

When Avery Baker arrives in Waterfield and inherits the old cottage of her distant aunt, she thinks of getting the cluttered and crumbling cottage ready for sale. She thinks of the idea of selling the home as quite overwhelming. When one of the residents of Waterfield offers to buy the cottage in the condition that it was, Avery becomes even more overwhelmed. With this offer, she gets relieved due to the fact that she won’t have to carry out the renovating work of the cottage. She also feels relaxed that she does not have to spend money on getting it repaired. But soon, she realizes the real worth of the home with some repairs and renovation work. When she comes across Derek Ellis, Avery Baker feels relieved that he is there to guide her for carrying out the repairing work of the old cottage. And during the course of the repair work, the two begin to grow closer to each other. On the advice of Derek, Avery begins to think of home renovation as a serious and profitable business. Later, she decides that she will try her hand in this field and try her luck as a renovator.

One of the other popular books published in this series by author Bentley is titled as ‘Wall-To-Wall Dead’. It was released by the Berkeley Prime publication in 2012. The plot of the book shows Avery and Derek working to restore a condominium when they discover that another owner of a condo has been condemned. At the start of the book, Avery Baker is depicted taking up the job of fixing a small and cute condo in Watefield, Maine. She is joined in this work by her partner and sweetheart Derek Ellis, and hopes to get some extra money and a quick turnaround. The fixing of the condo appears to be a simple project and Avery looks forward to use her experience of the big city in small spaces of the Waterfield town. However, both Derek Ellis and Avery Baker did not think that each and every move that they make was being watched by the busybody resident of the condo named Hilda Shaw. It appears that Hilda Shaw has the habit of snooping on the comings and goings of each and every one around the condo. Later, Baker and Ellis discover the dead body of Hilda Shaw in the condo, which makes them suspect some foul play. In order to find out the reason behind the killing of Hilda Shaw, Avery begins to do snooping work on her own.

Based on her investigation she comes to the conclusion that all the people in the complex are keeping some secret. Along with Derek, she sets out to unravel the secrets as she believes that one of those secrets is the reason why Hilda Shaw was murdered. And this time, also, all her actions are being watched, but by the killer. Therefore, Avery needs to solve the mystery as soon as possible or else she might also end up getting fixed by the killer like Hilda Shaw. The book was highly appreciated by one and all throughout the world, just like all the other books of the mystery series. Author Bentley was even praised by numerous critics for her excellent description of the suspense and mystery in the book’s plot. This helped the book to gather many more readers and it eventually went on to become extremely successful. The success motivated author Bentley to write a number of other mystery novels in her writing career.