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Blackbird Fly by Lise McClendon

Product Description
A house in France connects three women together -- the woman who owns the house, the woman who lives in the house, and the woman who died in the house sixty years before. Who are they? Merle Bennett inherits the house of her late husband, in a small village in the Dordogne. But when she arrives a deranged squatter won't let her inside. Who is the woman? What is her connection to Merle's husband? Secrets from the post-war period, when southwest France was crushed and left to wither by Nazi occupation, and secrets of a newer kind, occupy what should be a fine French summer for Merle. With her teenage son in tow, a sexy roofer in her kitchen, and a nasty discovery in the pissoir, there is plenty to keep her mind off her endless to-do list. A story of murder, self-discovery, and family, deep in the heart of France.

"A heartbreakingly beautiful story of love, loss, sisterhood, and the ties that bind us together," says novelist Jenny Siler.
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The sudden death of her husband turns Merle Bennett's life upside down. Her work for poor legal clients isn't going to pay the bills and her son is kicked out of school. The blows just keep on coming. Merle finds herself doing what she least expected, decamping to France for the summer to fix up her late husband's ancestral home. The village in southwest France should be idyllic: warm sunshine, vineyards, and walls of golden stone. Merle gets an off-the-books job as a tour guide at a local winery and evicts a squatter. But the townspeople are more than merely unfriendly. As the past unravels, colliding with modern tensions and the filthy trials of renovation, the summer takes on a dark cast, full of secrets best left buried. In her first stand-alone suspense novel, Lise McClendon reaches deep into the past to find a France untouched by the outside world of tourism and fashion. Writing in a "lyrical, often humorous style," she brings both the pain and rewards of rebirth and the rich French countryside to life.