I’m excited to be rebooting a blog series that combines my two favorite hobbies: quilting and reading! That’s right, we’re making a return to Fiber Art Fiction Fridays! Each Friday I’ll post a review of a fiction book that has fiber arts of some kind at the heart of it! I’ll have books from lots of different types of fiber art including, quilting, sewing, dressmaking, knitting, and embroidery!
Check out the master list of Fiber Art Fiction books to find your next fun read! I’ll be adding book reviews next to each book as I go through where I’ll share my two cents on that particular work. Have a suggestion for a fiber arts fiction book to add to the list? Send your suggestion to laura@prairiesewnstudios.com!
Synopsis (Story Details Below, But No Major Spoilers)
I first discovered Sewing Suspicion: A Quilting Cozy Mystery when the author, Kathryn Mykel posted in a Facebook group for quilt pattern designers that we’re both part of. As an avid reader, I’m always on the lookout for a new book to add to my “to be read” pile, and any book that involves quilting or another fiber art grabs my attention! I’ve also really grown to enjoy the “cozy” genre, but have mostly read cooking and food related series, so I was excited to see how a quilting cozy mystery compared.
The story opens with Alex Bailey, a high-powered New York City attorney who is in the middle of leaving her work as a lawyer and returning to the family home to care for her adoptive grandmother. Alex has had some misgivings about the true nature of her law firm, and her relief is palpable when she walks out of her office for the last time.
Once Alex arrives home, she learns that not all is as it should be on the quaint Spruce Street and with her adoptive grandmother, Nona. Nona’s behavior is erratic, and she’s quickly running out of people in both her family and small town to be mad at! Despite her behavior, I fell in love with Nona right away due to her pure and total love for one of my favorite sewing techniques, English paper-piecing! All of Nona’s quilts are English paper-pieced, and she is rarely seen without two hexagons and a needle in her hands!
I was devastated (right along with Alex!) when a member of the family dropped dead right in the middle of a quilt guild meeting! The more Alex digs into the death, the more she thinks it wasn’t an accident. She digs through trash cans, calls for help from an old private investigator pal, and carefully follows the thread of the crime to find the truth.
My Review
One thing I loved about this book is that it was clearly written by a quilter! The quilting details are spot on in every aspect, from Alex’s inability to stop stroking the beautiful batiks in the local quilt store to Nona’s use of cereal boxes for cardboard templates! I could easily imagine Nona’s house, and more importantly, her fabric stash!
My one complaint about this book is that I wish it had been longer! When the killer revealed themself, I couldn’t believe that the book was coming to an end! I would have enjoyed a longer read with a little more time for Alex to truly demonstrate her detective skills to discover who had committed this heinous act.
Final Thoughts
While I absolutely do wish the book had been a little longer, I know that I can enjoy more of Kathryn Mykel’s storytelling with the next book in the series! In fact, there are three more books in the series already published, with two more scheduled in August 2023 and February 2024. This was a fun, fast read that did a great job melding the art and craft of quilting with a cozy mystery.
Want to grab a copy of Sewing Suspicious: A Quilting Cozy Mystery for yourself? Find it on Amazon here in either paperback or as a Kindle book!
Disclosure: Some of the links above are affiliate links. This means that, at zero cost to you, I will earn an affiliate commission if you click through the link and finalize a purchase.
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