Rescued by a kiss : first in the series, the New Orleans go cup chronicles

It was a kiss to kill for....Brandy Alexander's the real deal. Yes, that's her real name and no, she's not a stripper, but her best friend Julia is. Brandy still lives with her parents in the Irish Channel and she's sort of semi kind of engaged to the boy next door, who's one of New Orleans' finest. In fact, Dante, the BF, is such a thoroughgoing New Orleanian he always manages Mardi Gras parade duty on his own block. So you'd think Brandy might be a little self-conscious when a suave smoothie in one of the gentlemen's walking clubs mesmerizes her into a big fat Mardi Gras smooch right in front of him. But not a bit. Because after all, it's Mardi Gras, and also for another good reason: "That kiss was long, slow, hot, unlike any kiss I'd ever had in my life."A first date that gets bloody...She makes a date to meet Mr. Good Kiss after the parade (Yes! Right in front of Mr. Right Next Door) but she arrives just in time to see him get shot, but fortunately not shot dead. Before he passes out, he pulls her close and whispers, "Save Isabella." Brandy Alexander is blonde, adorable, has a good job, two guys to choose from, and very possibly the poor judgment to pick the wrong one. (Half the fun's watching to see if she's ever going to wind up with the right guy for her.)The other half's watching her life complicate itself in ways that would send the average female sleuth screaming into the night. First, she witnesses a murder at a drive-through joint with the unlikely name of CLUCK IT--CHICKEN BY THE BUCKET. And then it turns out nothing at the scene's what it seems--or at any rate, nobody's what they seem. Seems CLUCK IT's not just a place to clog your arteries, but also a transgender hangout. And with that discovery, you know you're in New Orleans. The local color never stops as Brandy's complex Irish Channel family develops the kind of problem that's a lot more fun on the page than in real life. What to do when your sister gets pregnant with one of the next-door twins who are also the brothers of your lifelong flame--but she doesn't know which twin? (Be glad it's Brandy's problem, not yours.) She also finds a mysterious box of valuable jewelry under her closet floor, becomes the unofficial caretaker of the Tarot reader across the street who knows the future but can never predict when she's going to get so drunk she's going to fall into her own bushes, and develops a strong suspicion about one of her other neighbors, all the while juggling the two Romeos. Good thing she's better at solving mysteries than she is at wrangling her boyfriends. The reader can rest assured she's eventually, and in fine style, going to weave together the myriad mysterious strands that confound the police (who happen to count Boy Friend # 1 among their ranks) and present them the solution with all the panache of an old-style detective like Hercule Poirot--yet none of the pretension Brandy Alexander never set out to be solvng crimes. Just because meeting her new boyfriend, Jeff Heinkel, had once thrust her into one, that's no reason why she should be the first phone call made when her friend discovers a dead bosy at her new Bed & Breakfast. Especially when offering Julia help wil throw Brandy right back together with her ex -- Police Detective Dante Deedler