Mama Gets Hitched: A Mace Bauer Mystery »

Like the main character in her “Mace Bauer Mysteries,’’ her family roots were set in Florida long before Disney or Miami Vice. As a native and former reporter for USA Today, she knows the spots not found on maps: Molasses Junction. Muse, and now, Himmarshee, her own tiny slice of “Authentic Florida.’’

To create Himmarshee, Deborah borrowed from the present-day ranching town of Okeechobee, and from the south Florida of her family’s past.

Not far from Ft. Lauderdale, her dad used to walk to town, leading the family cow. A generation later, Deborah rode her horse over the same citrus- and ranch-dotted terrain. Now, it’s all interstates and strip malls.

The difference between Mace’s hometown and hers: Deborah will never let Himmarshee be spoiled by sprawl.

The News-Press in Fort Myers gave Deborah her first job, in 1982. Her favorite assignment: getting cast as a zombie when Day of the Dead filmed on Sanibel Island. Her fellow extras raved about her lurching.

A News-Press bonus: she met TV reporter Kerry Sanders in Immokalee, both of them shivering at dawn to see whether a winter freeze would ruin the green pepper crop. They’ve been married since 1989. No kids; no pets, but had goldfish once. Turned out badly—not a good omen for higher life forms.

When they moved back to Deborah’s hometown in 1991, the occasional stories she’d been writing for USA Today became a flood. Miami’s loony nature gives it a lock on headlines.

And then, 9/11, and everything changed. One of her last assignments before she left the paper was profiling soldiers killed in war. Grieving parents; spouses; kids. She couldn’t absorb all that sadness anymore.

So, at age fifty, fiction-writing beckoned. She’d get to determine the endings. Punish the bad and reward the good. And, she’d throw in some romance, too.

She likes writing about Mama because the character makes her laugh. And doesn’t everyone need a smile now and then?

TV APPEARANCES

◊ NBC's Today Show from November 4, 2008

◊ "Mayor's Book Talk" from January 14, 2009

◊ NBC6 "South Florida Today." from July 17, 2009

◊ NBC's Today Show from August 4, 2009

◊ WJXT-TV from November 17, 2009

According to Mama, a Gone with the Wind-themed wedding—complete with Scarlett O' Hara bridesmaid gowns and a ring-bearing Pomeranian—is fine and dandy for her fifth trip down the aisle. But what's a bridezilla to do when her caterer is murdered? Thanks to the nonstop gossip train in their small Florida town, Mama's gator-wrestling daughter Mace is getting the dirt on who did it.

Unfortunately, the suspect list is longer than the gift registry. Right at the top are the groom's East Coast Yankee cousins—who may have Mafia ties. With her on-again, off-again beau, Detective Carlos Martinez, Mace must track down the killer before Mama's Special Day turns especially deadly.

Praise:

"[Sharp's] descriptions of a part of Florida most of us know little about add to the appeal of this entertaining mystery."—Booklist

"Who knew that a whodunit would not only keep you guessing-but have you laughing!"—Hoda Kotb, NBC Today Show co-anchor

"Sharp delivers a wide swath of humor and a keen sense of Florida's history and present."—Oline H. Cogdill, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Kirkus Reviews

Wedding bells and funeral bells in cow country Florida. It's no fun for Mace Bauer, who works at a wildlife park, and her proper sisters Maddie and Marty to prepare for their Mama's fifth wedding, this one to New York importer Salvatore Provenza. Sure, Sal's cousin by marriage C'ndee Ciancio is helping with the wedding plans, but she's loud-mouthed and pushy, and they'd rather be working with the caterer who was stabbed to death less than a week before the wedding. Moreover, Mace's on-and-off relationship with handsome police detective Carlos Martinez is bound to be strained once more by her habit of investigating murders. The run-up to the nuptials features some eye-popping revelations. C'ndee's hunky Ivy League-educated nephew Christopher is connected to a mysterious Mafia crime family, and C'ndee has been having affairs with both a violent redneck and the caterer. While Mace is pursued by Christopher, who claims his family's misdeeds have nothing to do with him, Carlos seems to be spending an awful lot of time with a leather-clad biker chick. Mace's insatiable curiosity gets her deeper into trouble as she tries to balance her love life with her crime-solving and pull off Mama's Southern Belle wedding. Not as amusing as Mama Rides Shotgun (2009, etc.), but bound to give tourists a look at a Florida that is fast being paved out of existence.