Secrets of Mary's Bookshop
Series · 22
books · 2012-2014
Books in series
#1
A New Chapter
2012
2012 Guideposts hardcover, Kristin Eckhardt (Tea is for Treasure). Mary Fisher's dream has come true. She's about to open Mary's Mystery Bookshop in her beloved hometown of Ivy Bay on beautiful Cape Cod. But weeks before the grand opening, her shop is broken into and torn apart. Mary is stunned to discover that the only thing missing was an old, dusty photograph of the storefront. Who would have taken it, and why? With the help of her sister, a childhood friend, and decades of reading mystery novels, Mary searches for answers.- Google Books
#2
Rewriting History
2012
Mary’s Mystery Bookshop is hosting a very special guest: beloved mystery author Addison Hartley. Hartley gives an intimate reading to the fans gathered in the story, but Mary’s eyes are drawn not to the famous author but to a familiar face in the crowd. Could it be Mary’s best friend from childhood, Claire Wilkes? As soon as Mary moves to greet her old friend, the woman disappears. Mary is certain it was Claire, but no one else seems to have recognized her and Mary begins to doubt herself. But when Mary reads Hartley’s new novel, she finds eerie parallels to her own history. And when terrible rumors surface around town about a secret relationship between Claire and Mary’s husband John, Mary is more determined than ever to track down Claire. What brought her to Mary’s store? When did she run away? What was her connection to the best-selling novel? And, more importantly, were the rumors about Claire and Mary’s husband true?
#3
Reading the Clues
2012
Mary’s sister Betty receives notice that she is being sued and that the Emerson Grist Mill, which has been in her late husband Edward’s family for hundreds of year, actually belongs to the Hopkinses, who the Emersons have feuded with for generations. The mill used to be the center of commerce in Ivy Bay, and it has been a point of pride – as well as financial gain – for the Emersons for as long as anyone can remember. Betty is sure that the news can’t be true, but Mary isn’t so certain and sets out to unravel the mill’s forgotten history.
As Mary digs for clues about the mill’s ownership in the town archives, she hears rumors of a murder that started the family feud. Could it possibly be true? Could of Edward’s ancestors have killed one of the Hopkinses over the old grist mill? As Mary learns more, she finds clues – a mysterious ledger, an antique doll, a Revolutionary War uniform and an old family Bible – that seems to indicate answers no one wants to believe. What really happened at the mill all of those year ago? And will Mary’s and Betty’s lives ever be the same when they find out?
#4
The Writing on the Wall
2012
When Mary and her sister Betty visit the Ivy Bay lighthouse with their friend Henry, Mary stumbles upon a crude map drawn on the wall. Henry wonders if it might be connected to his ancestor David, who was accused of stealing a large sum of money and a precious family heirloom. Mary decides to investigate, but solving a crime committed almost a century ago isn’t easy, and a surprising number of people don’t want her to succeed. With so many obstacles blocking her way, can she discover what really happened with Henry’s ancestor? And where are the money and sapphire ring that went missing all those years ago? Even more important, can she find these treasures before anyone else does?
#5
By Word of Mouth
2012
During the first meeting of the Winter Warmth Book Chat, the lights in Mary’s Mystery Bookshop go out. When the power comes back on, Mary realizes a book has been stolen from the front counter of her shop. But not just any book; This was a signed early edition of "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd" by Agatha Christie! Mary intended to sell the rare and valuable copy and donate the money to help a little girl receive a kidney transplant. Now every person at the event is a suspect in the theft, and Mary has to solve one of her most important mysteries yet. Can she find the stolen book in time to help Isabella?
#6
A Book by Its Cover
2012
One night, while Mary is working late at the bookshop, a shadowy figure leaves a box of books at her door. All of the books have beautiful covers clearly done by the same artist, and inside each book is an old letter addressed to a man named Jacob. To Mary's shock, the letters were written by her mother. The letters would simply be a sweet ode to young love, but the last letter hints at regret that could change everything Mary and Betty thought they knew about their mother. Who left Mary these books, and how did they get the letters?
#7
Poetry in Motion
2013
When Mary finds a poem called “Pikes Peak” by Katharine Lee Bates tucked into an old book, she feels a thrill of discovery. Could it be an early handwritten draft of the beloved song “America the Beautiful”? she takes the poem to document expert Lincoln King, but before he can confirm its authenticity, the poem is stolen from his office.
Only a handful of people even knew Mary had found the poem. Who could have taken it? Was it Betty’s friend Eleanor, who is desperate to bring some limelight to Ivy Bay? Maude Writh, who claims the poem belonged to her grandmother and is thus rightly hers? Or is Lincoln’s assistant Evan, who disappeared on the same night as the poem? Determined to recover such an important piece of history, Mary sets out to find the thief!
#8
Missing Pages
2013
It’s Independence Day, and Ivy Bay is decked out for the holiday. Mary is enjoying the annual Fourth of July parade until the July Queen, a local high school student named Amanda Branson, disappears from her float in the middle of the festivities. The police immediately begin searching for the missing girl, but she seems to have vanished without a trace. Deepening the mystery, Mary thinks she saw Amanda at the docks shortly after the parade. She can’t be sure it was really Amanda, though, so Chief McArthur won’t listen to her.
Every day that passes makes it less likely that Amanda is unharmed, but Mary is determined to bring her home safely. Then her investigation reveals a startling possibility: Does Mary’s granddaughter Daisy hold the key to finding Amanda?
#9
Between the Lines
2013
When Mary bumps into her neighbor one summer evening, she’s glad to see that Cathy has a new man in her life/ the couple is heading to the marina to take a sunset whale-watching cruise, and Mary wishes them well. But the next day Mary sees that Cathy’s newspaper is still lying on the porch and her mail hasn’t been collected. As the days go by, it’s clear that Cathy never came home that night and is now missing!
When Mary starts asking questions, she learns there was no whale-watching cruise. So where did Cathy and her date go? Is she in danger? It will take all of Mary’s sleuthing skills to read between the lines and find her friend before it’s too late.
#11
Disappearing Acts
2013
It’s baseball season in Ivy Bay, and the entire town is cheering for its team, the Blue Jays. Mary has agreed to help organize and maintain an exhibit of baseball memorabilia at the town hall, even loaning her late husband’s prized possession: a ball signed by the 1970 Red Sox. But while straightening the display one day, Mary realizes her husband’s ball has been switched for a fake. Who pulled off such a clever forgery?
Soon other items are discovered to be phony as well, and Mary has quite a mystery on her hands! The playoffs mean Ivy Bay is full of people who love baseball and baseball memorabilia. As Mary investigates, she discovers her husband’s ball is worth far more than she ever imagined and that he had intended to donate it to a children’s charity before he died. Mary wants nothing more than to fulfill his wish, but she has to find the thief—and the baseball—first!
#12
A Classic Case
2013
Mary is delighted about Living History Days, when many of Ivy Bay's businesses put on demonstrations of what life was like in historic Cape Cod. She's especially excited about the reenacted bank robbery at Ivy Bay Bank & Trust. But as Mary and the crowd watch the reenactment, they realize this fake crime is actually real! The masked, gun-wielding robber, played by Steve Althorpe, the bank manager, escapes with the contents of several safe deposit boxes before anyone realizes what's really happening.
The entire town is shocked. Why would Steve do such a thing? The police stage a manhunt without success, and the robbery makes it even more likely that the bank, already rumored to be in trouble, will have to close. But something about the theft doesn't feel right to Mary/ She's not sure Steve is the thief. But if the robber isn't Steve, who is it? And where is Steve?
#13
Cover Story
2013
Mary is trying to enjoy a fancy fund-raiser at the Ivy Bay Glass Museum when Henry is pulled away to search for a boat out in the bay. The boat's distress call relayed its approximate position as well as the presence of a fire onboard before cutting out. The rescuers search the water all night, but by morning they haven't found a trace of the boat or the family trapped on it. The community is so upset, fearing the worst for the missing family, that the news of a laptop stolen from the museum is barely noticed. It's only when Mary's sister, Betty, discovers that her bank account has been emptied, as have the accounts of several other prominent citizens, that Mary starts to wonder if these events are connected.
#14
A Thousand Words
2013
When Mary and Betty inherit their great uncle's house, they find some charming paintings hidden in the attic. The New England scenes are bright, colorful, and full of life. Mary is thrilled to discover the paintings were done by their great aunt Maude, who died young. But a desperate note taped to the back of one of the paintings suggests there is more to Aunt Maude than Mary and Betty knew. What happened to her? How did she really die?
Investigating events from over fifty years ago stretches Mary's sleuthing skills to the limit. Then she discovers the key to Aunt Maude's past is in the paintings she left behind. As Mary puts the pieces together, she learns that a picture is worth a thousand words.
#15
The Lost Noel
2013
Christmas is coming, and Mary is excited that both of her children are bringing their families to Ivy Bay for the holiday. Grace Church is putting on its first ever living Nativity, and the congregation members are all pitching in, including Mary and Betty. But only a week before Christmas, the costumes go missing. Then the sheep escapes from its pen and the flyers around town have all been torn down. Someone is sabotaging the living Nativity! As Mary investigates the strange mishaps, she discovers that the truth is far more complicated than she expected. Can she save the Nativity - and the church's "goodwill toward men" - before Christmas?
#16
Work in Progress
2013
While cleaning out a desk at the Grace Church furniture drive, Mary discovers a false bottom in one of the drawers. Hidden inside is a manila envelope with a manuscript. Hoping to be able to return the manuscript to its rightful owner, she takes it home and reads through it, looking for a clue to its origin. Instead, she discovers that the manuscript is the first part of a memoir that confesses to burning down the Ivy Bay clock tower fifty years ago.
Mary knows someone was convicted for starting the fire. Did the wrong person go to prison? The clock tower has become a key point in the mayoral race with the candidates engaging in a heated debate centered around the destroyed landmark. But why is it suddenly such a hot issue? The manuscript holds the key to what happened all those years ago—and someone doesn’t want Mary to figure it out.
#18
Lost for Words
2014
One day Mary notices a young woman sitting in her bookshop. As the afternoon passes, the woman remains, pretending to read a book and clearly waiting for someone who never arrives. When Mary approaches her, she tearfully confesses that she doesn't remember anything before that day. The only clue she has to her identity is a note she found in her pocket when she woke up on the beach, which says, "Katie, arrive at Mary's bookshop at 1:12." Mary takes Katie under her wing, and together they scour Ivy Bay for clues to discover who Katie really is. But after learning about a recent mugging in town as well as a man who seems to be following Katie, Mary thinks the more important question might be what - or who - caused Katie to lose her memory in the first place?
#19
Cooking the Books
2013
When Mary's friend Henry calls her one spring afternoon, she assumes he's calling to invite her out for ice cream. Instead, he needs her sleuthing help. As a member of Grace Church's financial team, Henry was going over the church's accounting records and getting everything in order when he realized that fifty thousand dollars had gone missing!
Mary and Henry investigate who could have taken the money, even though neither one of them can believe someone from Grace Church would do such a thing. But who else except staff or a few parishioners had access to the funds? Mary clings to the hope that there is an explanation, but Henry only gets more upset the more they learn. Can they find the missing money while still showing grace toward whoever might be responsible?
#20
Snowbound
2014
The luxurious Chadwick Inn is hosting a special weekend for guests, in which actors play out a historical murder-mystery for them to solve. Mary figures it's a perfect opportunity to sell some books to mystery fans and sets up a table in the lobby. However, when a blizzard blows in and dumps snow and ice over Ivy Bay - and knocks out the power - Mary finds herself trapped at the inn with everyone else. Then one of the guests goes missing!
As the fictional mystery becomes real and more strange occurrences happen, Mary has to navigate the tangled relationships of the guests and actors to solve a seemingly impossible mystery. Where could the missing woman have gone? And which of these snowbound suspects is behind her disappearance?
#21
Digging Up Clues
2014
When old gold coins wash up on shore, shipwreck fever hits Ivy Bay. Soon the beach is crawling with locals and tourists alike, all looking for the legendary lost treasure of the Lady Beth, which sank off the coast of Cape Cod almost two hundred years ago. Mary and Betty get in on the fun - and to Mary's shock, she actually finds something: a dive pouch that belonged to Eleanor Blakely's late husband, Richard, who discovered the shipwreck thirty years ago. The pouch contains an antique diamond necklace salvaged from the wreck.
Excitement turns ugly when the necklace is stolen from the historical society. The townspeople turn on Eleanor, accusing her of the theft and claiming that her late husband kept the treasure for himself. As Mary tries to find the thief and restore Eleanor's reputation, she has to research the history of the Lady Beth, its wreckage and discovery, and all the people connected to it. Who wants this treasure badly enough to steal it, and to what lengths will they go in order to find it?
#22
Shady Characters
2014
When Mary receives a call from her friend Henry, inviting her over to see his new classic car, she immediately accepts. Henry is thrilled with his 1955 Buick Century, which he bought at the local auto show, and can’t wait to show it to her. Their dinner is interrupted, however, by some strange noises in the garage. Henry goes to investigate, and Mary hears a struggle. When she reaches the garage a few seconds later, she find the door of the Century open, a shadowy figure running off into the night, and Henry unconscious on the ground. As her friend lies in a coma, Mary sets out to discover who broke into his car and why. When she notices a strange man following her and lurking outside the hospital room, Mary wonders just how much trouble Henry is in.
#23
Hidden Meaning
2014
“At the funeral of Margaret Flannery, Mary encounters a woman who claims Margaret stole her daughter’s identity. At first Margaret’s daughter, Marnie, dismisses the accusation. But when she finds a box of documents in her mother’s cottage that suggests Margaret did, indeed, change her name when she was younger, Marnie asks for Mary’s help to find out the truth. If the real Margaret Flannery died as a girl decades ago, then who was Marnie’s mother?
With the aid of photographs found in Margaret’s Bible, Mary tries to track down her true identity. The search takes Mary from the well-moneyed neighborhood of Nantucket to a women’s shelter in Boston and requires all of her sleuthing skills to put the pieces together.”
#24
Mixed Motives
2014
When Mary's sister is late to come home one night, she doesn't think too much of it. Betty has a full social calendar and is probably enjoying a friends company. But then Eleanor Blakely, Betty's sister-in-law, calls to tell Mary that she has just received a distressing phone call: Betty has been kidnapped, and the kidnapper wants Eleanor to pay a hefty ransom.
While the police work with Eleanor to communicate with the kidnapper and get the ransom together, Mary just can't sit and wait for her sister to be rescued. Armed with a few scant clues, she does everything she can to find Betty. As the hours slip past and the kidnapper's demands increase, Mary investigates the most important mystery of her life. She knows her sister is counting on her, but can she uncover the truth in time?
Authors
Elizabeth Adams
Author · 2 books
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Cara C. Putman
Author · 26 books
Cara C. Putman lives in Indiana with her husband and four children. She is a clinical assistant professor in law and ethics at Purdue University's School of Business. She has loved reading and writing from a young age and now realizes it was all training for writing books. She loves bringing history and legal romantic suspense to life. An honors graduate of the University of Nebraska, George Mason University School of Law, and Krannert School of Management, Cara left small town Nebraska and headed to Washington, D.C., to launch her career in public policy. Cara is an author chasing hard after God as she lives a crazy life. She invites you to join her on that journey. She's currently writing her 41st book with more on the way. Please check out her website to learn more about her books and read first chapters.
Elizabeth Mattox
Author · 1 books
Elizabeth Mattox was born and raised in New York but spent every summer of her childhood on Cape Cod, just like Mary herself. She is a mom to two adorable seven-year-olds who keep her on her toes at all times. And when she has time, she is also an avid reader, who, like Mary, loves nothing more than getting lost in a good mystery.
Susan Page Davis
Author · 82 books
FROM AUTHOR'S WEBSITE: I'm a native of central Maine, and grew up on a small farm with a wonderful mom and dad, three sisters and a brother. Most of my books take place in small towns, many of them in Maine. My husband, Jim, and I moved to his birth state, Oregon, for a while after we were married, but decided to move back to Maine and be near my family. It allowed our six children to grow up feeling close to their cousins and grandparents, and some of Jim's family have even moved to Maine! Our children are all home-schooled. When Jim retired from his vocation as an editor at a daily newspaper, we moved from Maine to Kentucky. I've always loved reading, history, and horses. These things come together in several of my historical books. Another longtime hobby of mine is genealogy, which has led me down many fascinating paths. I'm proud to be a DAR member! Some of Jim's and my quirkier ancestors have inspired fictional characters. For many years I worked for the Central Maine Morning Sentinel as a freelancer. This experience was a great help in developing fictional characters and writing realistic scenes. I also published nonfiction articles in several magazines and had several short stories appear in Woman's World, Grit, and Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine.
Camy Tang
Author · 22 books
Camy writes Christian romantic suspense, contemporary romance, and cozy mystery as Camy Tang and Regency romance under her pen name, Camille Elliot. She grew up in Hawaii but now lives in northern California with her engineer husband and rambunctious dog. She graduated from Stanford University in psychology with a focus on biology, but for nine years she worked as a biologist researcher. Then God guided her path in a completely different direction and now she’s writing full time, using her original psychology degree as she creates the characters in her novels. In her free time, she’s a staff worker for her church youth group and leads one of her church’s Sunday worship teams. She also loves to knit, spin wool into yarn, and is training to (very slowly) run a marathon.
Diane Noble
Author · 20 books
Diane Noble is the award-winning novelist of more published books than she can count: historical fiction, contemporary mysteries and suspense, and romance (written under the pen name Amanda MacLean). Diane writes from a heart of deep faith that's woven into her stories and nonfiction writings. She often posts on Facebook and Twitter about her journey with Parkinson's Disease and the unexpected gift of learning to live moment by moment with humor, grace, and optimism. With more than a quarter million books in print, Diane continues to spin tales that touch readers' hearts. Book one of her new three-book mystery series, The Professor and Mrs. Littlefield, will be in bookstores September 1, 2014. It's title? THE CURIOUS CASE OF THE MISSING FIGUREHEAD. Diane is a professed Third Order Franciscan in the Anglican (Episcopal) Church, following the footsteps of Jesus with simpicity, love, and joy as lived out by St. Francis of Assisi. Mother to two beautiful daughters and Gramsy to two cutest-ever granddaughters, Diane lives in Southern California with her wonderful husband and two spoiled cats. Oh yes, and Diane loves
