This week for Fiber Arts Fiction Friday we’re returning to Kathryn Mykel’s protagonist, Alex Bailey, with Stitching Concerns. This is the fifth book in her quilting cozy mystery series.
Synopsis (Story Details Below, But No Major Spoilers)
Alex Bailey wants nothing more than to head off to the secret island she inherited from her adoptive grandmother, Nona, and relax with her private investigator boyfriend, Hawk. Still on Spruce Street, she starts to read Nona’s secret journal, and is disappointed to find more questions than answers. But before she can leave Spruce Street and meet up with Hawk, she’s called back to New York City for an interview about one of her quilts that’s part of an innovative exhibit at an art gallery.
Despite an encounter with a muddy puddle on the streets of New York, the interview at the gallery goes well. She gets to meet another artist she admires (Christa Watson), and is feeling good when she heads to the airport to catch the plan to the island. When she arrives at the airport, she’s stopped before she can even enter the terminal and whisked away by two alarming strangers. They keep repeating that they’re there to save Alex, but she can’t help but remain somewhat scared.
One of her errant kidnappers reveals that she is a member of Nona’s secret “Society of Six” that everyone had believed to be dead. From here, the plot continues to twist and turn with a second kidnapping within the kidnapping! Another person from the past reappears before Alex eventually makes it to the island of Madras where she is reunited with Hawk
My Review
While this fiber arts fiction novel had a little less quilting than the previous four, I really enjoyed Alex’s trip to the art gallery! I loved that the quilts were shown in a New York City art gallery and not just another quilting museum, emphasizing the true artistic nature of many quilts. The inclusion of Christa Watson, one of my favorite real-life quilters, in a cameo role at the museum was an extra special surprise!
This cozy quilting mystery was definitely a continuation of the previous books and really needs to be read as part of the whole series to be understood. Even though I knew the plot line well, I still found myself flipping back a few pages every once and a while just to make sure I was keeping up with the plot twists!
Final Thoughts
It was great to have a few more of the mysteries solved, and to start to see how the clues from all five books in the series so far will come together for resolution in book six, Mending Mischief. I’ve pre-ordered this final book and can’t wait to read it when it’s released in February 2024!
Ready to dive into Stitching Concerns? Grab your copy on Amazon here.
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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