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Nobody said teaching was easy, but no one ever mentioned that it could be deadly. When high school basketball coach John Plath is murdered, an unlikely quartet comes together solve the crime, and of course collect the reward money. This is Orange County and a girl’s gotta have shoes!

Katerina (Kat) Jones is a kindergarten teacher who can’t quite seem to wrap her mind around exactly how she ended up there. A Communications major with a promising internship at NBC, Kat can’t help but wonder where her life took a turn to pasting Dixie cups to paper plates in honor of Percy Pig and the letter P. She does love her job, well most of the time, but is this really where she is meant to be? Before she can spend too much time contemplating that, or the return of her rock star ex-boyfriend there’s a murder at the high school, and she’s trying out a new profession as a super sleuth and co-detective.

Felicity Horwitz is the wife of a police officer, mother of two rambunctious boys, caretaker of four dogs, three cats, and an iguana, and a kindergarten teacher to boot. Lately her life seems to be a whirlwind of sticky children, broken DVD players, and animal sheddings. She loves her life, but Felicity can’t help but feel (guiltily of course) that she would like a little more excitement…the kind that doesn’t involve finding forty ways to remove bubble gum from her hair or her child’s head from the stair railing. Then John Plath is murdered, and Felicity sees her opportunity for some action! She channels her inner crime stopper, but will have to keep it under wraps from her husband. This is his investigation after all!

Allison Campbell is the mother of twin boys and the wife of a philandering husband, not that she has fully admitted that to herself yet. After the twins start kindergarten and her husband takes a keen interest in PTA meetings and all night bake sales Allison decides it’s time to nix the closet eating and hit the gym in the hopes of restoring her butt and her marriage. But even fitting into her skinniest of skinny jeans doesn’t seem to be doing the trick. Before Allison can do one more jab upper cut, she finds herself drawn into the investigation of her husband’s high school friend John Plath, a cheating husband himself. What she uncovers could be the key to solving the murder and her husband’s wayward ways.

Mary Beth Mulligan is a student teacher at Lemon-Dill elementary and a recent transplant from the corn fields of Iowa. As a devout Catholic , Mary Beth’s world is turned upside down when she finds herself in the midst of an affair with the father of one of her students. While visions of brimstone and fire dance in her head, she is sucked into solving a totally different kind of sin…murder. Will the solving of one crime atone for the sins of the other? Mary Beth can only pray that’s true.

The Learning Curve is a funhouse of mystery and mayhem that will have readers guessing to the very end, and proves that the power of friendship and the perfect pumps really are a girl’s best friend.