Val Fremden Midlife Misadventures

"Think Eat, Pray, Love but with a lot more redneck and a lot more sass." Kerrie Irish, Comfy Reading Blog

We’ve all dreamed of ditching everything and running off to another country -- but almost no one actually ever does. Well, Val feels like she's almost no one. Invisible to her husband and dissatisfied with her life, deep in her soul Val yearns to be someone else. Someone sexy. Someone happy. So she buys a ticket and takes off to Italy with only her favorite romance novel to guide her. Val’s got her heart set on relaxation, romance and reinvention. But she soon finds out that handsome men, like life, have plans of their own. In the race to rediscover herself, Val soon finds herself in over her head. What awaits her at the finish line may be a completely unexpected type of victory. Will Val score a home run? Or will she just want to run home?

Join Val on a roller-coaster ride through Europe that will leave you gasping! From gut-busting hilarity to gut-wrenching gaffs, finding yourself again is always worth the price of admission. Pick up a copy and come along for a tour of Italy, Germany, and the human heart.

Glad One is a hilarious, no-murder cozy mystery about a broke middle-aged woman who must find the true heir of her best friend’s will before it falls into the wrong hands. Perfect for readers who enjoy quirky, flawed characters and gonzo situational humor similar to that of Janet Evanovich, Jana DeLeon, & Helen Fielding. An Amazon best seller in nine humor and mystery categories, Glad One is the first book in the Val Fremden Midlife Misadventures series by Margaret Lashley.

After 50 years of bumbling around on the planet, Val Fremden’s got nothing to show for her life but a long string of dead-end jobs and a two-digit bank balance. But just as she’s about to toss her champagne dreams and caviar wishes into the dumpster, Val discovers that Marco Shamway—the jerk who plagued her all through high school—is now a millionaire. Worse yet, the idea that catapulted Marco to fame and fortune was one he’d stolen … from her! In an instant, Val’s flimsy bubble of midlife complacency bursts like a rotten tomato, splattering sour-grape juice all over her mediocre existence. Out for revenge, Val’s determined to make her mark on the world even if it kills her—or better yet, him.  That Time I Kinda Killed a Guy is book one in A Val Fremden Humorous Mystery, the spinoff series to the Val Fremden Midlife Misadventures series.

It’s moving day for Val. And, as usual, anything that can go wrong does--beginning with her new boyfriend, Tom. When he shows up at her doorstep with an unwelcome delivery, Val becomes the unwitting center of attention for a whole new world of weirdos… wackos whose antics could have Val charged for human dismemberment. Plagued with a hot cop on her tail and a mean one on her trail, Val is forced to turn to old friends and new ones in her attempt to point the finger of blame on somebody else. But when an unexpected witness identifies Val as the guilty party, it may be time for her to skip town.

If you like deeply flawed characters and laugh-out-loud situations, the Val Fremden Midlife Misadventures are for you! Get set for a wickedly witty slide down the social ladder with a surprising cast of unexpected misfits!

When Val's longtime boyfriend Tom Foreman takes off without even saying goodbye—well, that’s just the kind of thing that can make a good woman go bad.
Out to track down Tom or die trying, everyone Val meets seems like a potential suspect. Especially her new coworker, Gary. Ever since he showed up, people around town have begun disappearing. On the trail of a possible serial killer, Val must keep a cool head and follow the clues. Will the weird and wacky chain of events that follows lead her to Tom, or send her over the edge? It’s gonna take an ex-Vegas showgirl, a Florida good ol’ boy, and an attorney of questionable stature to find out.  There's Something About Gary is book two in the A Val Fremden Humorous Mystery series.

Val Fremden is a lot of things. Quirky. Jaded. Disaster prone – to name a few. But more than anything, she’s afraid of commitment. So it's no wonder that when boyfriend Tom tells her he loves her, Val plays it cool. But when he accidently hauls her mom’s ashes to a junkyard, Val loses it like Chernobyl 2.0.

On the warpath with Tom, Val turns to her quirky, low-rent friends to help track down her mom’s cremains. But three botched stakeouts and two disasters later, she still hasn't got peanuts. Through trial (but mostly error), Val discovers it's not easy to outwit a mobile master of disguise when you're driving around a paddy-wagon full of nutcases. She loves Tom...she loves him not. Knowing Val, she’s gonna need a bigger flower.

Three Dumb is a satirical comedy about how life, over time, changes our perception of love and the things we value. It’s told through the eyes of a snarky, middle-aged woman with legendary commitment issues and a gnawing reluctance toward romance. Bet you can relate. ;)

Stuck working in a rundown thrift shop, Val yearns for a way out—a destiny that doesn’t involve sorting used clothes by how repulsive they smell. The only problem is, Val is in debt to her boss all the way up to her sweaty armpits. Desperate to find a way out of her dead-end job, Val decides to clean up her act, even if it means giving up her most precious possessions. But her attempt to turn over a new leaf won't be easy. And Val is about to find out that one good deed doesn’t necessarily lead to another. Especially when it comes to money. Will Val end up awash in cash? Or go tumbling back into the poorhouse? Either way, someone’s about to learn that paybacks can be hell.  Show Me the Funny Money is book three in A Val Fremden Humorous Mystery series.

What Four: Family Fruitcake Frenzy is a satirical look at something we've all come to love and dread -- spending time with our nutcase relatives during the holidays. It's told through the eyes of Val, a middle-aged woman who can't escape her redneck roots, no matter how far out on a limb she climbs.

All Val wants is a quiet holiday away from her oddball family. But that just ain't gonna happen. When Val and her boyfriend Tom travel to Hicksville, they find the annual "Family Fruitcake" competition already well underway. And there’s more than a few fruits and nuts in the running. But the biggest contest is between Val and her mom.  As their battle of wills heats up, unexpected ingredients get thrown into both women’s batter. It may be time to call in a game warden…. Who'll win? Who'll get their just desserts? And will Val’s half-baked family finally prove too much for Tom to handle, or will he rise to the occasion?

Treat yourself to What Four today, it's book four in the Val Fremden Midlife Misadventures series. An Amazon #1 Best Seller in Amateur Sleuths, Cozy Mystery, Humor & Satire, Women's Detective Fiction, Comedy, Humorous Dark Comedy, Men, Women & Relationships Humor, and Love, Sex & Marriage Humor!

Starting a new business is scary enough. But when Val Fremden takes on Geraldine Jiggles as her new partner, her smashing new concept for “retail therapy” may soon turn into a Little Shop of Horrors. Has Val signed a pact with the she-devil herself? Just exactly who is that sharp-tongued demon in polyester pantaloons, anyway? When Val starts investigating Geraldine’s past, what she discovers threatens to tear a hole the very fabric of reality itself—or at list rip it one heck of a new unseemly seam. It appears that Geraldine’s caustic wit may not be her only lethal weapon. And when somebody takes a long walk off a short pier, both women find themselves up to their necks in hot water. Come along for the hilarious ride as Val discovers that when you go digging around in someone else's ancient history, you could end up in ruins yourself. The Devil Wears Stretch Pants is book four in A Val Fremden Humorous Mystery series.

When Val's fiancé Tom plans a romantic getaway and can’t go, one of Val’s pals goes instead. On the first day, her friend entangles Val in a prank that ticks off the wrong tourist. On the second day, she gets Val charged with murder. To clear her name, Val must go fishing for the real culprit. But what kind of bait do you use when you don’t want to get caught yourself? With both marriage and jail pressing down on her like potential life sentences, Val’s going to have to do some pretty fancy angling to get herself off the hook this time….

If you like deeply flawed characters and laugh-out-loud situations, you’ll love Five Oh: Mid-Century Meltdown. It’s the fifth book in Margaret Lashley’s hilarious Val Fremden Midlife Misadventures series.

Get set for a wickedly witty slide down the social ladder with a surprising cast of unexpected misfits!

When Val’s forced to take up dog-sitting as a second career, she runs into one tiny snag... She’s afraid of dogs.

In fact, the only thing she’s more afraid of is Tom moving in and wrecking her Sweatpants Saturdays. With neighbor Laverne facing the same impending doom, the two women decide sabotage is the perfect solution to change the plans of their cohabitation-minded boyfriends.

But their scheme soon gets sidetracked when a swarthy guy with a shady past moves in next door and neighborhood dogs start disappearing. With Tom away and a convicted felon grilling mystery meat next door, Val’s forced to rely on Winky and Goober to help her sniff out clues about the suspected canine chef.

I mean, really, what could possibly go wrong?

When Val tries to revive her old writing career, story ideas prove as elusive as a moment alone without her boyfriend Tom breathing down her neck. Tom’s moved in, and Val’s itching to move out – at least temporarily. A last-minute getaway to the country seems like the perfect solution for dissolving her writer’s block. But a fateful fish fry ends up inspiring a whole different kind of dead end.

With an angry horde of RVers pointing the finger at Val, she’s got to out-smart Bigfoot, out-do a seedy crafter, out-wit a psycho killer, and just plain “out” whoever in blue blazes keeps scaring the daylights out of her with those hideous shrunken heads! Whether Val gets out of this alive or not, one thing’s for sure -- she’ll never trust the internet again….

Val can’t solve all the world’s problems, so she’s settled on two: smashing every tacky figurine on the planet…and ridding the universe of her boyfriend’s hideous Barcalounger. During a neighborhood yard sale, the fate of Tom’s beloved chair comes down to a wager. But what Val puts up as an ante proves hard to live without, and soon has her wrestling with the demons she keeps locked inside her closet – both literally and figuratively.

With an old nemesis breathing down her neck and an old friend missing in action, Val soon finds herself jonesing for more than mere justice. Come along for the ride as Val’s “Hammer of Justice” lays waste to atrocities of both the ceramic and non-ceramic kind, and the gang learns that when you mess around with Karma, just who ends up dealing the final blow is anybody’s guess.

If you adore funny, women-centric mysteries like Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum and hilarious-yet-heartfelt stories like Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones, you'll probably find yourself resonating with Val Fremden, too. She's a lovable, bungling mess who's a bit older, a tad more jaded, and a ton more experienced in big-time failure. Life’s been tough for Val. Still, she always manages to find her way with sardonic humor and an intrepid spirit. A gin and tonic now and then helps, too.

If you love quirky heroines and funny, unpredictable stories, the Val Fremden Midlife Misadventures series is for you. Part mystery, part women's fiction, all heart, each book is full of oddly endearing characters, zingy dialogue, and rip-roaring situational humor. Life is full of ups and downs. The bumps don’t seem so bad when you’re laughing along the way. Val and her unexpected friends are the kind of folks who can help you do just that.