A new cozy read: "Death Among the Stitches" by Betty Hechtman

So if an uncle died and left you an old schoolhouse and cottage in another state, would you keep it or would you sell it? That's the question facing Annie Sara Hart, a young woman who lives in a studio apartment in LA that is owned by her father, an agent with some superstar movie clients. Never having owned property herself, Annie Sara wants to at least see what she's inherited before she sells it—and thus she finds herself headed to small-town Franklin, Indiana.

There, she discovers she's just become the owner of an old schoolhouse that was home to the town's only yarn shop, a gathering spot beloved by the locals, who are disappointed to hear that she intends to sell it. She learns that the woman who owned the yarn shop died inside the place, but the townsfolk seem to have conspired to keep her from figuring out why. After discovering an old cottage behind the schoolhouse, Annie Sara decides to stay in town for a while and tidy everything up before she sells.

There's one small problem, however. Annie Sara works in a boutique owned by the shiftless LA-princess daughter of two movie stars, and their loyal agent happens to be Annie Sara's father. The daughter, Gray Hanover, can't seem to function in life without Annie Sara as her sidekick, so Gray ends up going to Indiana and becoming a partner in the yarn shop and perhaps opening a new business its former owner had considered—a quaint tearoom in part of the old schoolhouse. The idea certainly has its charms, but why won't the local knitters and crocheters spill the tea on what happened to the previous owner?

Death Among the Stitches was a pleasure to read, and it had touches of all that I love in a good cozy—flaky town characters, an overzealous cop, and other female entrepreneurs. I was particularly pleased that at the local bakery, the owner gets help with the baking from her son, who has Down syndrome. This book was a fun debut to a new series, and I look forward to seeing more of these characters in the future.