Bubbles Unbound

Book 1

Meet Bubbles Yablonsky, beautician-reporter-sleuth and blazing star of Strohmeyer’s entertaining, establishment-bashing debut as a mystery writer. Like the mills that gird the book’s seen-better-days steel town of Lehigh, Pa., the city is itself a seething cauldron. Battle lines are sharply drawn between the haves and have-nots. Bubbles is hell-bent on getting even with the overlords, especially her former husband, a heel who has gone over to the other side. Opportunity knocks when Bubbles incriminates a wealthy socialite in a brutal murder and then uncovers a murky past, where corpses are littered around the accused’s steel-magnate husband.

The going is never easy, as Bubbles faces more perils than Pauline: falling off a bridge in the arms of a potential suicide; dodging drive-by gunmen and car bombers; being handcuffed and fitted for cement boots; and always searching for a better way to display her cleavage. Armed with her certificate from Two Guys Community College, abetted by a quirky array of social castoffs and fueled by Doritos, Velveeta and Diet Pepsi, Bubbles overcomes every obstacle on her way to shaking the foundations of the corporate world and, in the process, leaving more than a few wrinkles in her ex’s tailored Brooks Brothers suits. Hop in the Camaro and buckle up: Bubbles is behind the wheel, and a wild ride awaits.

Winner of the Agatha Award and Romantic Times Award for Best First Novel!

Bubbles In Trouble

Book 2

Bubbles Yablonsky is in trouble. Her exposè of corruption in Lehigh’s social heights has infuriated the local paper’s editor, so she’s still a fulltime hairdresser and only an occasional reporter. Her freeloading ex is back on her sofa after his socialite wife threw him out, her daughter’s in love, and her mother thinks she’s Jackie Onassis. Plus, Bubbles’ chastity vow is not yet broken, which means sexy photographer Steve Stiletto’s heart has remained just out of reach…

“Strohmeyer successfully navigates the fine line between humorous stereotype and sympathetic amateur investigator.”
—Publishers Weekly

Bubbles Ablaze

Book 3

A romantic getaway in the Poconos with Stiletto leads to a bizarre murder that sends Bubbles to a perpetually burning town, pierogi-wielding female assassins (think Pussy Galore in support hose with potatoes), and a mysterious assassin who wants Bubbles’s investigation to go up in flames.

“Some mystery series lose steam as they go on, but this third installment in the Bubbles Yablonsky series is a page-turner. The zany characters and plot are similar to the popular Janet Evanovich Stephanie Plum series”
—BookReporter

Bubbles A Broad

Book 4

After a catfight at a stuffy historical society meeting nearly kills her career, Bubbles is given just one week to prove her worth to her editors at the News-Times and earn a real job there by cracking her biggest story ever: uncovering who really murdered Carol Weaver’s steel-executive husband with cyanide-tipped fingernails. More than Carol’s own jail sentence for the homicide is riding on Bubbles’s investigation. Also at stake is the possibility of corruption in the highest level of Lehigh Steel.

Nothing will deter Bubbles this time! Not trying to drive with a cell phone in one hand a a mascara wand in the other. Not the shenanigans of her mother, Lulu, the pressure of getting her daughter into college (maybe Princeton, maybe Two Guys Community), or the roadblocks posed by Jane’s clueless boyfriend, G. Not even hunky gonzo journalist Steve Stiletto, who finally brings Bubbles to steamy satisfaction between the sheets, can seriously distract her from the investigation. Gutsy, intuitive, and delivering her best one liners along with her latest beauty recipes, Bubbles is “behind the wheel and a wild ride awaits.” (Publisher’s Weekly)

“Strohmeyer’s sharp dialogue gives her fourth an edge even Bubbles’s clippers can’t match.”
—Kirkus Reviews

Bubbles Betrothed

Book 5

Debuting as a full-time reporter, Bubbles lands an interview with a woman accused of murdering a beloved high school principal. When the suspect keels over dead—in mid-revelation—Bubbles’s confidential notes become a life-threatening hot commodity among a romance-obsessed detective, a Polish Mafioso, and a foot fetishist on the lam. If that’s not enough to keep Bubbles on her toes, her ex-husband and her super-stud boyfriend Steve Stiletto are making some unexpected demands of the bleached-blonde sleuth. One comes with the promise of a dazzling Harry Winston rock. The other could be downright dangerous. Lucky for Bubbles she’s equipped—and ready—to handle both…

“Wacky… Strohmeyer pokes fun at Bubbles and her cohorts, but with obvious respect and fondness.”
—Publishers Weekly

Bubbles All the Way

Book 6

For years the local ladies of Lehigh, Pennsylvania, have wished aloud that Debbie Shatsky would meet an untimely end-so they could get their hands on Phil Shatsky, sports-hating, dinner-cooking, massage-giving husband extraordinaire. But when Debbie gets hair extensions at the House of Beauty and dies from a reaction to the glue, it’s salon owner Sandy who gets the blame. Her best friend Bubbles Yablonsky, reporter and sleuth, is determined to investigate-despite distractions from the two men in her life. And from a mysterious Santa Claus, who warns Bubbles not to cry, not to pout and not to scream…when he tries to kill her.

“Bubbles Yablonsky is…bright, slightly trashy, [and] outrageously funny.”
—St. Petersburg Times

Bubbles Reboots

Book 7

Bubbles is back! And so is trouble in an all-new adventure featuring Lehigh, Pennsylvania’s hairdresser/newspaper reporter Bubbles Yablonsky. Having survived a slip-and-fall on Payless heels, Bubbles catapults off a Caddy in the PolkaFest parade and into the arms of danger as she tracks down the whereabouts of two missing beauty queens while also keeping a mascaraed eye out for her hunka hunka burning love, Stiletto. On hand to help—or maybe hinder—are a couple of septuagenarian survivalists shilling their Die-O-Ramas, an office assistant obsessed with UPS drivers, a dude named Stinky and Josh Simon the billionaire casino owner who just might be the knight in shining armor to rescue Bubbles from an aluminum-sided world. Or maybe not. Homemade beauty treatments and recipes featuring authentic Pennsylvania cuisine complement the writing. (It sucks and there’s not nearly enough!) The 7th installment in this award-winning (Agatha, Romantic Times) and bestselling series published in seven language will have you smiling with relief that you didn’t pay more.

“Well-written, witty and very tongue in cheek, Bubbles proves you don’t need to be a dyed in the wool feminist to win in a man’s world.”
—Amazon Review