The Secret Life of Rosie Mauer, Wallflower

A Secret Life. A Mystery.

Rosie Mauer is Laurel Grove High School’s quiet librarian—brilliant but invisible, fading into the background like the honeysuckle outside her mother’s garden. But when she’s hired incognito as a nanny for a wealthy man’s troubled son—a prime suspect in the murders of two girls—her life takes a dangerous turn.
To investigate without being recognized, Rosie creates a bold alter ego: Violet Popovich. As Violet, she slips into a world of secrets, attention, and rising danger—one that may connect to her aunt’s disappearance forty years earlier.
Balancing two identities and racing against time, Rosie is drawn into a mystery darker than anyone in town imagines. A killer may be watching. And Rosie’s secret life is becoming impossible to hide.

The Secret Life of Rosie Mauer, Wallflower by Jannette Quackenbush

From small-town secrets to big revelations—a mystery at the core. Always a mystery. Never the same ride.

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About the author

Small Towns. Big Secrets. Fierce Heroines.

Shay Lawless is known for creating small-town mystery romances filled with sharp wit, unexpected twists, and amateur sleuths.
Her stories blend cozy suspense with warm, slow-burn romance, weaving crime, community secrets, and complicated relationships into page-turning mysteries. Whether it’s an amateur sleuth stumbling into danger, a long-buried family mystery resurfacing, or a romance sparked in the middle of chaos, Shay’s heroines always bring heart, humor, and grit to the journey.
If you enjoy character-driven mysteries with a touch of romance, small towns with big secrets, and heroines who refuse to give up, you’ll feel right at home in the world of Shay Lawless.

Shay Lawless creates twist-filled mysteries rooted in small-town life, family secrets, and women who solve their own problems—even when things get messy.
Romance, danger, and sharp-witted heroines meet in stories full of tension and heart.
“Loved every twist. The characters felt real, flawed, and unforgettable.” — Amazon Reviewer

Shay Lawless Books: Find your Journey!

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More romance. More Mystery. And even some fantasy…for those who dare.

The Dance Card: Romance and Mystery by Shay Lawless - Find Your Journey
The Dance Card

Shay Lawless

Journey Bacon thinks her life is destined to stay small and predictable—working at the bank and marrying the controlling man she’s dated since high school—until an old dance card with a mysterious promise sends everything spiraling into a new direction. Suddenly she’s facing a secret romance, a rising gift for country music, and a tangle of long-buried truths in this heartfelt small-town inspirational romance. . .

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Redneck Run: Shay Lawless
The Redneck Run

Shay Lawless

Brandy just wants to be the first in her family to finish college… and win the National Fire Mountain Redneck Run, triumphing over the hometown dream team of four mean girls. Is that too much to ask?

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Ghost Town, A Fairy Tale

Shay Lawless

No-nonsense Jericho McGovern is a college graduate ready to start her internship in archeology. Then, unexpectedly, she finds herself tossed into a nightmare world of magic and fantasy that is being torn apart by Irish beings thought to be nothing but folklore of the past. Still, she’s not alone. She ends up with her ex-boyfriend’s three rebellious kids and an angry, romantic fairy with irrational behavior who has taken up residence inside her.

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Lost Hollow by Shay Lawless: Fresh Starts. Mystery. Short Journeys
Lost Hollow

Shay Lawless

Harley Davidson hasn’t always made the right choices. She’s trying to turn that around. But when an ex-boyfriend vanishes along with antiques from the local museum, Harley’s life spins out of control while she digs into the past to find clues to the mystery behind the town—and perhaps, find the missing man and solve a crime. 

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Secret Life by Shay Lawless: A mystery. Fresh Starts. Short Journeys
Secret Life of Rosie Mauer, Wallflower

Shay Lawless

Is there more to life than just being a quiet school librarian and wallflower? Maybe so if you have to solve a few missing person cases and a murder or two. . . and hang out with your sister’s hot fireman boyfriend.

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The Boney Dump by Shay Lawless-Mystery and  Haunting
The Boney Dump

Shay Lawless

Every town has its secrets— horrifying, horrible secrets from its past better left to rest. Glen Estes just has a few more than most. It’s a curse that won’t rest. The town was only one stick poke away from letting things loose again. Then Addie showed up with the stick. She poked the nest. And stirred the ghostly things up, released what lay within.

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Monster Collector: Shay Lawless
Monster Collector

Shay Lawless

Austin Jackson had come to accept her life is simply going to be less ordinary. She collects monsters, mutants and freaks for her rich, eccentric boss. She’s got ADHD and a powerful urge to protect. But when destiny knocks at her door and she receives a cryptic message for help, she returns to her small town along with her collection of peculiarities and confronts an old love.

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Dead Broke Hearts by Shay Lawless: Mystery and Crime books
Dead Broke Hearts

Shay Lawless

Boone is country music, chaps and cowboy hats. Waylon is rock and roll and loud music. The one thing they have in common, though, are hearts that are as beaten down as the dead broke horses for sale in an old farm outside the town where Waylon finds herself stranded with a newborn. Well, of course, and a few secrets probably better left unspoken.

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Dark Pines: by Shay Lawless: Mystery and Crime books
Dark Pines

Shay Lawless

Part-time crime scene photographer, Piper LaRue, gets called in to take pictures of a young woman’s body found in the old coal mining ghost town of Dark Pines, Kentucky. When another dead body shows up, she begins to wonder if all that seems clear through the viewfinder of her camera, really isn’t something dark and secret the neighboring townspeople are trying to hide from outsider eyes. 

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Whiskey Tango: Romance, Dance, and Mystery by Shay Lawless - Quirky, Strong Heroines.
Whiskey Tango

Shay Lawless

A young woman is found brutally murdered in the close-knit college town of Hensley Grove, Kentucky. But she wasn’t the first in a series of shockingly similar killings occurring over a span of nearly sixty years. The main suspect is the father of college student and graffiti artist, Tango Baldwin. Her dad is notorious for breaking into houses, and he has seemed to vanish into thin air. But could he be a cold-blooded murderer too? 

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