Synopsis

Ellie Alexander meets Sheila Connolly, but make it crisp and cunning in this culinary cozy mystery.

——————

The fall harvest season has arrived at Goldenleaf Apple Farm. This year, the orchards are keeping a secret…

When apple farmer Vernon Reed is found dead, suspicion falls swiftly and heavily on Isaac ‘Izzy’ Lennox: the exuberant young theater enthusiast whose fingerprints are on the murder weapon. The town wants answers. The evidence seems clear.

Laura Evans doesn’t believe it for a second.

Refusing to let her friend’s reputation be destroyed, she digs into Vernon’s secretive final months alongside her observant landlady Evelyn Chan and sharp-witted colleague Jasmine Williams. What they uncover is messier than a simple motive: a man with secrets, a business with fractures, and a community that had no reason to doubt.

Goldenleaf’s orchards are still heavy with the season’s harvest. But someone is watching Laura’s every move.

In a town where everyone knows everyone, the deadliest secrets hide behind the most trusted faces.

Can Laura expose the truth before the killer buries it for good?

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Excerpt

Newly arrived café manager Laura Evans has left her high-pressure Boston restaurant career for the quiet of Silver Springs, Vermont. Six weeks in, she’s heading to Goldenleaf Apple Farm for a staff team-building morning…

If happiness had a scent, it’d be apple trees during harvest. Exiting her car at Goldenleaf Apple Farm, goosebumps prickled Laura Evans’ fair skin as her boots crunched on the leaf-strewn gravel. The countless tree canopies overhead cast dappled shadows across the orchard.

Jasmine Williams, her friend and co-worker, got out of the passenger seat. No one else had arrived yet. The other vehicles must’ve belonged to the staff. The only familiar one was a burnt-orange pickup truck, at least four decades older than all the others.

Weathered wooden buildings sprawled across the farm, and at the center stood the cider house, its cupola crowned with smoke curling from the chimney. The visitors center and the office—a converted farmhouse with green shutters and a wrap-around porch—sat close by.

Near the storage shed, a tall man with cropped hair stood beside a shorter one. Though their voices didn’t carry, the tall man’s rigidity was unmistakable as he crowded the other’s space. He jabbed a finger toward the main building while the short man shook his head and reached for the other’s arm. The taller man jerked away. They both stalked toward the office buildings, disappearing around a corner. Perhaps just a disagreement about harvest schedules? No, that body language spoke of something far more personal and urgent. The furtive way they’d acted…whatever it was, it didn’t sit right. Not at all.

As a distant engine roar grew louder, Jasmine tucked a red-tipped box braid beneath her patterned bandana, her sharp cheekbones prominent under her dark-brown skin. “It sounds like someone’s just around the corner.”

An SUV pulled into the parking lot, stenciled with the Silver Springs General Store logo, and a woman got out—Maggie Brook, one of Laura’s bosses. She had dark-brown, gray-streaked hair in a pixie cut beneath a wide-brimmed sun hat. Her freckly cream-colored skin contrasted with her black sweater and maxi skirt.

From the passenger side emerged a taller, younger woman with olive skin and auburn hair threaded with silver, tossed over her shoulder in a braid. Her ever-present tool belt was slung around her hips. It was Kathleen ‘Kathy’ Quinn, Maggie’s wife and business partner.

“Good morning, you two!” Maggie adjusted her hat’s brim and scanned the parking lot. “We’re the first ones here. Of course we are.”

Laura waved. “I’ve been looking forward to this!”

Jasmine made a muffled noise of agreement as she sipped coffee from her travel mug.

“Morning,” Kathy said, hands stuffed into her cargo pants pockets, hair ruffling in the breeze.

Laura couldn’t stop a grin from spreading across her face. “Isn’t it beautiful here? I still find it hard to believe I’m in a role where we get to enjoy team-building exercises.”

The words came out brighter than intended. Saying them aloud made the old comparison surface before she could stop it. In her previous life, such activities, if they happened at all, meant lectures about ‘dedication’ disguised as professional development. After fifteen years at a prestigious restaurant job in Boston, she’d worked ten-hour shifts, six days a week, only to be passed over for her promised promotion. Silver Springs had been a welcome change of pace. Everyone understood—except her mother. It’d been six weeks since she’d traded Boston’s concrete for Vermont’s green hills, and still, her mother’s most recent phone call made her disappointment clear. Laura had tried to explain, for the hundredth time, about burnout, needing a change, and the opportunity to be part of a community.

But to Bridget Evans, her eldest daughter slipped backward, while her sons moved forward. Danny thrived as the program director at one of New York’s most renowned cultural institutions, and Connor built a flourishing tech career and picture-perfect family in California.

Her mother’s words still stung: “I just don’t understand why you’re wasting all your professional experience, Laura. Danny may be divorced, but at least he’s building something meaningful with his career. And Connor’s providing for his family. What are you doing up there in that little town?”

The memory twisted Laura’s gut, and for a heartbeat, the orchard blurred, her smile fading. What was she doing indeed?

About the Author

Jodie Morgan’s books welcome readers into the charming world of the Silver Springs Mysteries set in Vermont, filled with intriguing puzzles, memorable characters, and the satisfying solutions cozy mystery readers love.

When she’s not plotting her next book, you’ll find her reading, savoring a coffee, or working on her latest knitting or crochet project. She loves to travel as this sparks ideas for her stories. Her most satisfying creative moments come from quiet evenings at home with her supportive family.

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