Avery Baker was a textile designer living in New York when she inherited a dilapidated Victorian cottage in Waterfield, Maine. She moved to the small coastal town planning to fix up the house and sell it. Instead, she found a dead body, a handyman named Derek Ellis, and a new career renovating old properties.
The renovation details are real in these books. Jennie Bentley (Jenna Bennett’s pen name for this series) fills each story with actual home improvement — stripping wallpaper, pulling up floors, replumbing bathrooms. Avery learns the trade from Derek as they work together, and the DIY projects are woven into the mystery plots. Hidden rooms behind walls, bodies under floorboards, clues in old plaster — the houses themselves are part of the puzzle.
Avery and Derek’s partnership starts professional and gets personal over the seven books. Between the renovation work and the murder investigations, they build something together in Waterfield that neither of them expected when they started.
Reading Order
See the complete Do-It-Yourself Mysteries reading order for all books in the series.