Books like Bittersweet by Susan Wittig Albert

This Thanksgiving, China Bayles returns to Pecan Springs to visit her mother Leatha and her step‑father Sam, who are turning their former game ranch into a birding retreat. China’s friend, game warden Mackenzie "Mack" Chambers, has recently been transferred to the area. When Leatha calls with the news that Sam has suffered a heart attack, the family’s plans hang in the balance. China soon discovers that Sue Ellen Krause, a local ranch hand and estranged wife of the lessees’ foreman, may have a hidden danger. Before she can explain, Sue Ellen’s car crashes and she is killed. Meanwhile, a local veterinarian is shot during a burglary at his clinic, and Mack believes the murder may be linked to fawns stolen from a nearby ranch. As China and Mack investigate, they begin to suspect that Sue Ellen’s death was no accident and that the stolen animals and the murders are connected—threatening to put the investigation itself at risk.

First publish date: 2015