Since returning to Appalachia, artist Miranda Trent has carved out an exhilarating and exhausting career. She inherited a rundown family farmhouse in rural Kentucky, which serves as her base of operations. Miranda organizes and leads hikes to a variety of scenic venues. Not ordinary tours, rather “a unique experience blending art, adventure, food, and drink…
Young men and women who leave their Amish communities to seek a new life among the English do not always find happiness even though sometimes it’s cruel circumstances in their childhood that necessitate a fresh start. Such was the case with Rachael Schwartz. Why did she come back years later to the fictional town of…
Chicagoan Tracy Clark writes what she knows. Part of a rich tradition, she stands on the shoulders of Black writers who led the way, even when they were the antithesis of mainstream. In a recent essay, she rounds up Black detective novels “from then until now.” These black writers, these pioneers, did the heavy lifting.…
The aftermath of events described in Sarah Stewart Taylor’s 2020 “critically acclaimed The Mountains Wild,” have complicated Long Island detective Maggie D’arcy’s life. Her relationship with her teenage daughter Lilly is quite fraught. Maggie’s boyfriend lives in Dublin and while every long-distance relationship has problems, she’s not sure there’s a long-term future with Conor. Jay…
Road trip! Man and wolf are off to visit the vet and afterward, conduct a cold-case inquiry. Maine game warden Mike Bowditch’s cold-case is “the suspicious drowning of a wealthy professor.” The death was deemed accidental, but the professor’s persistent and unconventional daughter-in-law is sure he was murdered. After speaking with her, Mike interviews “a…
A Rogue’s Company, set in 1946 London, is the third and last Sparks and Bainbridge mystery. Readers will be sad to say farewell to this clever series, which shifts seamlessly from Mayfair to the London docks. Londoners grieve their personal losses post World War II, but they are resilient, embodying the motto “keep calm and…
Perveen Mistry holds a unique status in 1920’s Bombay as India’s sole female solicitor. The title of Sujata Massey’s mystery, The Bombay Prince, refers to The Prince of Wales, son of King Edward VII and grandson of Queen Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom and Empress of India, who is about to embark on a…
On Skein of Death, Allie Pleiter’s first Riverbank Knitting Mystery, has all the elements needed for a successful series, particularly a great hook. Libby Beckett is a recent divorcée who has returned to her Maryland hometown to make a fresh start in familiar surroundings. Locals and tourists are drawn to Collinstown and adore the picturesque,…
Meet Paislee Shaw, single parent to her ten-year-old son Brody and the proprietor of Cashmere Crush, a specialty sweater and yarn shop in Nairn, Scotland. Nairn, known as “the Brighton of the North,” is a seaside town in the Loch Ness region of Scotland. Paislee inherited her interest in knitting from her dear departed grandmother,…
Sarah Blair, first met in One Taste Too Many, is a woman at the crossroads. The unpleasantness of her divorce is firmly in the rearview mirror and lingering memories of her late ex-husband have dissipated. It’s unfortunate that her ex’s lover, Jane Clark, is ubiquitous in the fictional town of Wheaton, Alabama, located in the…
