The Bennett Sisters

When Merle's husband dies suddenly the will is quite a shock. And so is an intriguing surprise - Harry left her a family home in a tiny French village. She had no idea he owned the house where he was born. Merle sets out to claim her inheritance, adolescent son in tow, and thus begins a sojourn reminiscent of A Year in Provence, or perhaps Under The Tuscan Sun.

Lise McClendon’s second Bennett Sisters mystery chronicles the traditional hunt for priceless European truffles, the unexpected thrill of romance overseas, the ups and downs of sisterly bonding, and murderous intrigue in the heart of France. The Girl in the Empty Dress is a delicate mix of sisterly laughs and international intrigue, sure to delight cozy mystery fans and armchair travelers alike.

One of the Bennett Sisters got engaged at the end of The Girl in the Empty Dress. Now it's Christmas and time for an engagement party. Merle's French lover arrives just in time and sweeps her off her feet again. But is he really here for the engagement party and the holidays, or does he have a secret agenda?

Another summer, another Bennett Sisters adventure. This time the whole family travels to Scotland for oldest sister Annie's wedding to a handsome Scot. They take over his family hunting lodge in the Highlands for a week. But is Annie, 14 years older than her groom and a confirmed bohemian, ready to give up her independence in her middle 50s?

Merle Bennett goes back to France - and her Frenchman - in this fifth installment of the Bennett Sisters mysteries. Sure that la belle France will cure all her ills and help her write a novel about the French Revolution, she sets out to prove her theory correct. Pascal, her Frenchman, scoffs at this. As a policeman, he knows France is pretty to look at but not all that pretty under surface. While Merle writes and renovates her stone cottage, Pascal encounters an old enemy, a man he put in prison years before. When Pascal disappears, Merle isn't sure if their relationship is over or something terrible has happened to Pascal.

Deep in the French countryside - as the country reels through rebellion, beheadings, and starvation - a goat herder named Odette is trying to survive. Just that is on her mind - survival. Since she marched to Versailles with a group of Parisian women to protest the high prices of wheat, her life has spun out of control. She's fled the capital for the countryside. But what will happen to her? Can she stay in the Dordogne, where the kindly farmers have taken pity on her?

When Francie Bennett, fourth in the line of lawyer/sisters, comes under suspicion at her law firm, she is mortified to learn she must take a leave of absence. Just a formality, they say, but she is sure this is the end of her law career. Will she sit around her apartment and eat cheese, drink wine, and binge Netflix while it gets worked out? Zut alors! Non! She is off to Paris to help spring a student jailed for serious drug crimes. She stays with her sister Merle and her boyfriend, the debonair policier Pascal, while trying to navigate the murky waters of the French criminal system.

The next-to-youngest Bennett sister, Francie Bennett (blame it on Paris!) is a hard-charging attorney whose boyfriend Dylan Hardy invites her to join him in Paris to help with a client. When Axelle Fourcier left Paris behind after the student riots of 1968, she vowed never to go back. She made a life for herself in America as a professor. But now, a beloved aunt, aged 104, has died and left her an inheritance to be shared with a cousin she never met.

Dead Flat is a mystery in three parts in the Bennett Sisters Mystery Series. Featuring Frenchman, Pascal d'Onscon. Pascal is a wine fraud policeman who is called out of the Dordogne to investigate a bottle scam in Champagne as a favor to his boss. Thus begins a whirlwind August for Pascal and Merle, as he must also rescue his sister from a bad domestic situation, investigate the suspicious death of a vintner, and decide if he will accept a desirable promotion that will take him to headquarters in Paris - and away from his life with Merle Bennett.

Facing a crossroads - both career-wise and personal - Elise, the youngest of the five Bennett Sisters, does what she does best: She runs away to think. This time, she runs to a farm in Provence that produces heaven-scented lavender for oils. The area is famous for the beautiful purple flower, the symbol of this southern region of France. Her sisters are stumped.

Pascal d'Onscon, once terrorizing wine fraud scammers across southern France, is now pushing papers for the French bureaucracy in the modern Cité du Vin in Bordeaux. But not for long. He dreams of being a vintner, his hands in the dirt, the grape on his tongue, blending his very own creation: a bottle of wine with his own label. His companion, Merle Bennett, the middle of five lawyer sisters, has her own aspirations. Two tiny cottages are begging to be renovated for summer rentals. Will the person camping in the back garden scuttle her plans?

Stretched thin between her sisters in the US and her new life in France, Merle Bennett is feeling the strain of obligations. That is even before Pascal's grape harvest goes sideways, her father falls ill, and her older sister shows up in France unexpectedly. Her son Tristan and sister Stasia then inexplicably disappear.