Well, I've revised my opinion considerably upon reading Bring Your Own Poison. I really liked this book a great deal.

Wanda Nell Culpepper has three very different children. Her son TJ, her daughter Miranda who has a child of her own, and then her youngest, Juliet. She also has a cantankerous and wealthy former mother-in-law, Lucretia Culpepper, who never liked her.

Wanda Nell works two jobs, one as a waitress at the Kountry Kitchen. It is this one that generally leads to her finding herself involved in things.

This time she's the waitress at the bachelor party of a deputy named Travis Blakely. He's getting married for the third time. His first two wives all died under suspicious circumstances, and he's about to marry a young woman who inherited a fair amount of money. Nobody seems happy about the upcoming nuptials.

So when Travis keels over at the party and it turns out he's been poisoned, well, there are a lot of suspects to be found. The first turns out to be the dead man's brother, who is left standing with an empty vial. He's too drunk to know where he got it, and Bill Warren of the State Police is brought in to handle the case since there are deputies under suspicion.

Wanda Nell dated Bill Warren in high school before she ended up with Bobby Ray Culpepper, whom she married. Thus she's really surprised and totally outraged when Bill makes rude comments to her about her son, TJ, and his partner Tuck Hamilton. She slaps him silly, and this does not bode well for anyone involved. (Though the reader will definitely cheer her for doing it!)

Tuck, a lawyer, takes the accused on as a client at Wanda Nell's urging. She does not believe he's the murderer, and she knows that Tuck is a good lawyer. He helped her when she was accused of having murdered Bobby Ray, and now that he and TJ are together, she has double the reason to believe in his ability to right wrongs.

A secondary story line involves Wanda's boyfriend, Jack, and his cousin Lisa. She's moved to town after being stalked by a deputy in another area. She's being stalked again as the man has found her. So Wanda Nell enlists Mayrene in helping the young woman. Mayrene and her trusty shotgun have come to Wanda Nell's aid before.

There were all sorts of things to like about this book. I really liked Wanda Nell's involvement with Jack, and her relationships with her children and those around her felt right to me. The murder of Travis Blakely was intriguing and the numerous suspects and the ultimate solution were well-crafted. Even the secondary story with Lisa had an unsuspected twist to it.

This is a mystery not to be missed.