The Secret in the Sampler Book Tour and Giveaway!

The Secret in the Sampler By Abigail B. Hartwell
Genre: Cozy Mystery

What would you do if the family heirloom hidden in your aunt’s estate could expose a stolen inheritance—and make you the next person someone needs silenced?

Two years after losing her husband, Nora Bell returns to the quiet Ohio Amish-country town of Briar Creek to settle her late aunt’s estate. She expects dusty type drawers, unpaid bills, and enough sympathy casseroles to survive a minor siege. Reopening The Bell & Quill, Aunt Lenora’s old letterpress and stationery shop, is supposed to be a temporary project—not the beginning of an entirely new life.

Then Nora discovers an antique hand-stitched sampler concealed inside a cedar trunk.

Its mismatched initials, reversed border, and nearly invisible name suggest that the sampler is more than a family keepsake. It may be the only surviving record of a child erased from Briar Creek’s history—and an inheritance quietly stolen decades ago.

Before Nora can uncover what her aunt knew, a local estate appraiser is found dead. He had been asking questions about the sampler, searching for a missing auction ledger, and meeting privately with someone determined to keep an old land transfer from being examined too closely.

Now Nora is following a trail of altered records, old letters, disputed property, and carefully guarded family secrets. Her unexpected ally is Eli Yoder, a reserved Amish widower and auction clerk who knows Briar Creek’s family histories almost as well as he knows when people are refusing to tell the truth.

Eli’s dry humor and steady presence make him useful. The grief he recognizes in Nora makes him dangerous in an entirely different way.

As suspicion spreads through the Amish farms, antique shops, auction houses, and polished tourist businesses surrounding Briar Creek, Nora realizes the sampler does not simply reveal what happened in the past. It threatens someone’s money, reputation, and future.

About the Author

Abigail B. Hartwell writes gentle Amish-adjacent cozy mysteries rooted in the small towns and wooded backroads of east-central Ohio. Though she is not Amish, she lives near Amish communities and draws inspiration from the region’s quiet rhythms, close-knit families, old stories, and rural traditions. She shares a modest home on five wooded acres with her long-haul truck driver husband. They have two grown daughters and three grandchildren. When she is not writing, Abigail enjoys church activities, family time, and the peaceful beauty of the Ohio countryside.

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Tour Participants

August 18 – Books, Ramblings, and Tea – SPOTLIGHT

August 18 – The Avid Reader – REVIEW

August 19 – Jody’s Bookish Haven – SPOTLIGHT

August 19 – Reading, Writing & Stitch-Metic – AUTHOR GUEST POST

August 20 – Boys’ Mom Reads! – SPOTLIGHT

August 20 – FUONLYKNEW – SPOTLIGHT

August 21 – Christy’s Cozy Corners – REVIEW, CHARACTER GUEST POST

August 21 – Escape With Dollycas Into A Good Book – SPOTLIGHT

August 22 – Ruff Drafts – SPOTLIGHT