Farm to Trouble

by Amanda Flower

Overview

First in a new cozy mystery series from USA Today bestselling author Amanda Flower!

Coming home to a run-down farm, gossipy neighbors, and a shady investor is a lot to handle… but a murderer on the loose is the final straw!

Shiloh Bellamy cashed in her big city job and 401K to return home to Michigan to save the family farm, but turning Bellamy Farms into a sustainable, organic operation—complete with a farm-to-table café—is no small feat. Especially when her new investor is found dead among the flowers just hours after the contract is signed. Everyone knows her father had a grudge against the investor, and word travels fast in a small town...

Now, Shiloh must clear her family's name and track down the real killer before her organic farm dreams wilt before her very eyes. But with her father trying to stop any progress on his land, her cousin belittling her every effort, the farmhouse falling down around her, and the whole town believing her family at fault, Shiloh's small town troubles are growing much faster than her crops. She'll have to trust her own investigation or risk all her dreams drying up before they begin.

In the farmer's market for a new cozy mystery? Farm to Trouble is:

• Perfect for readers of Kate Carlisle, Sheila Connolly, and Eva Gates
• For fans of small-town fiction and amateur sleuths

From a USA Today bestselling author comes Farm to Trouble, a fresh new cozy mystery! When Shiloh Bellamy gives up her corporate life to revamp her family farm back home in Michigan, she gets more than she bargained for. With one person dead and the whole town against her, this amateur sleuth will have to crack the case—and get the farm up and running—before her goose is cooked!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781492699910
Publisher:	Sourcebooks
Publication date:	02/23/2021
Series:	Farm to Table Mysteries , #1
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	116,871
Product dimensions:	4.70(w) x 6.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Amanda Flower is a USA Today bestselling American writer of mystery novels under her real name and the pen name Isabella Alan. She writes for adults and children. She won the Agatha Award for Children's/Young Adult book in 2015 and was nominated for an Agatha Award in 2010, 2013, and 2014.

Madeleine Lambert is an Earphones Award winning narrator who graduated with honors from Duke University with majors in theater studies and English and who received her MFA in acting from Brown University/Trinity Rep. In addition to her voiceover work, she has performed on stage in Steel Magnolias, A Christmas Carol, Anne Boleyn, and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

Editorial Reviews

02/01/2021

Shiloh Bellamy, the heroine of this sprightly series launch from Flower (the Magic Garden mysteries), returns to her hometown of Cherry Glen, Mich., after 15 years spent building her career as a TV producer in Hollywood. Her goal is to get her family’s failing farm up and running again. To that end, she has signed a contract with entrepreneur Jefferson Crocker, who has agreed to invest heavily in her plan to convert the farm to organic growing methods. When her father, Sully, hears of her deal, he flies into a rage. It seems that Sully, like many Cherry Gleners, views Crocker as a heartless money grubber, intent on owning the town and filling the surrounding farmland with wind turbines. Shiloh, realizing she’s made a mistake, goes to the farmers’ market intent on convincing Crocker to let her out of their contract, only to find him dead. For the local police, she becomes the prime suspect. With a full complement of insecurities, along with a nice sense of humor, Shiloh is a winning lead. Flower ticks all the requisite boxes: a good man, a bad man, a mean woman, a small town, and family conflict. Cozy fans will be enchanted. Agent: Nicole Resciniti, Seymour Agency. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

"A finely tuned whodunit." — Kirkus Reviews

"A finely tuned whodunit that was well-written." — Dru’s Book Musings

"I might just have to move to Michigan. FARM TO TROUBLE will have that effect on you, so the next best thing will be to watch for the second in this series." — Fresh Fiction

From the Publisher

2020-12-15
Flower turns from Amish matchmaker Millie Fisher, last seen in Courting Can Be Killer (2020), to budding organic farmer Shiloh Bellamy in this exciting series debut.

Following the death of her fiancé in an accident, Shiloh fled her family farm in Michigan for a successful career in California. Now she’s sold everything to return home and help her father rescue the farm he’s long neglected. Because it’s taken almost all her money to pay off the farm's debts, she’s taken an investment from Jefferson Crocker to help her turn the farm organic. When she and her pug, Huckleberry, arrive home, her father flies into a rage over her interference. Things get even worse once she finds Crocker shot to death at the farmers market and she and her father becomes immediate suspects, even though Crocker was the town’s most hated citizen due to his scheme to buy up a lot of property, including the courthouse, for a wind farm he had planned. On the plus side, sparks fly between Shiloh and Quinn Killian even though he still blames her for the death of her fiance, who was his best friend. The daughter he’s raising alone takes a shine to Shiloh and Huckleberry. Shiloh’s cousin Stacey, who inherited half the original farm, is eager to develop the local theater and take advantage of the town’s new life as a tourist mecca. With some help from her high school buddies, Shiloh desperately investigates other suspects only to discover a morass of lies and deceit that make her next on the killer’s list.

Intriguing characters and local color help compensate for an obvious culprit.

Kirkus Reviews