This week’s Fiber Art Fiction Friday post is kicking off a new series: the Embroidery Mystery series by author Amanda Lee. The first book in this series is The Quick and the Thread. Let’s dive in!
Synopsis (Story Details Below, But No Major Spoilers)
Marcy Singer has left the vibrant city of San Francisco, California, for the small coastal town of Tallulah Falls, Oregon. Having recently ended her engagement, Marcy is looking forward to a fresh start. First up: opening an embroidery story just a few doors down from her best friend Sadie’s coffee shop.
Marcy, and her very large dog Angus, have just finished setting up the shop, The Seven Year Stitch, and are prepared to open their doors for their first customers. The people of Tallulah Falls seem eager to welcome the new business and many are equally as excited to have a new outlet for their embroidery and cross-stitching. Marcy’s class signups are filling up fast and embroidery thread is flying off the shelves.
Marcy holds an open house to celebrate the opening of the store, with almost the whole town in attendance. As the attendees come and go she’s approached by the previous tenant of the store, who’s acting as if he’s drunk. Marcy brushes it off and continues to interact with her guests until everyone has gone home.
The next morning, Marcy returns to the store where she finds the previous tenant from the night before dead in her storeroom! She calls the police, and local detective Ted Nash comes to investigate the crime scene. The victim has scratched a partial message into the floor using one of Marcy’s tapestry needles, but no one understands what it means.
Detective Nash and Marcy both suspect foul play, but are a little short on leads. Marcy’s sleuthing, along with Detective Nash’s police work, eventually solves the crime, but not without danger to Marcy along the way.
My Review
This was a fun cozy mystery, with just the right amount of needlework references thrown in! Each of the characters is fun and quirky in their own way and seems to be exactly the type of people you’d meet in a small town. You can tell that the other business owners of downtown Tallulah Falls will continue to be a mainstay in the remaining books of this series.
Although I’m primarily a quilter, I have done some embroidery and so I understood all of the references in the book. I loved reading the description of Marcy’s shop (complete with a Marilyn Monroe mannequin!), and can picture Angus the wolf hound perfectly as well.
Final Thoughts
I’m excited to be starting a new crafting fiction series, and really enjoyed this first book! I’m looking forward to reading the next novels in this series and seeing what kind of trouble Marcy runs into next!
Ready to start reading? Grab your copy of The Quick and the Thread 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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