Read Online Scrappy Summer by Mollie Cox Bryan - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Mollie Cox Bryan
Ads: Link
Lizzie, who was
staying with Beatrice and Jon.
“Grammy!” Lizzie ran up to her and wrapped her arms around Bea’s legs.
“Is that Lizzie?” Vera’s voice softened. “Please put her on.”
“Okay, but you be careful. You hear me?”
“I’m always careful, Mama.”
“Yeah right,” Bea said. That’s why I’ve had to bail you out of jail, take you to see a shrink, and pull you
out of the river as you dumped your wedding photos in it, standing in your bare feet
in the cold Cumberland Creek River. You’re so careful.
As if she didn’t have enough on her mind, now she was worried about Vera and the others
being out in the middle of God knows where with a killer. Beatrice bit her lip. She
had a bad feeling about this.
But at the same time she had to admit a certain satisfaction. She’d told all of them
not to go. You heard nothing but bad things about cruises these days. Accidents. Disappearances.
Rapes. Now a murder. She was certain it was not the first time a murder was committed
on a cruise. But her only daughter was on this one.
“The people on this cruise are some of the finest scrapbookers and designers in the
business, Mother. It’s not like it’s just any cruise,” Vera had said.
Not just any cruise, indeed.
Photo by Christy Majors
Mollie Cox Bryan , author of the Cumberland Creek mystery series, is also the regional best-selling
author of Mrs. Rowe’s Little Book of Southern Pies and Mrs. Rowe’s Restaurant Cookbook: A Lifetime of Recipes from the Shenandoah Valley . An award-winning journalist and poet, she currently blogs, cooks, and scrapbooks
in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia with her husband and two daughters. Her first
Cumberland Creek mystery Scrapbook of Secrets was nominated for an Agatha Award for best first novel. Please visit her at molliecoxbryan.com.
Having traded in her career as a successful investigative journalist for the life
of a stay-at-home mom in picturesque Cumberland Creek, Virginia, Annie can’t help
but feel that something’s missing. But she finds solace in a local “crop circle” of
scrapbookers united by chore-shy husbands, demanding children, and occasional fantasies
of their former single lives. And when the quiet idyll of their small town is shattered
by a young mother’s suicide, they band together to find out what went wrong . . .
Annie resurrects her reporting skills and discovers that Maggie Rae was a closet scrapbooker
who left behind more than a few secrets—and perhaps a few enemies. As they sift through
Maggie Rae’s mysteriously discarded scrapbooks, Annie and her “crop” sisters begin
to suspect that her suicide may have been murder. It seems that something sinister
is lurking beneath the town’s beguilingly calm façade—like a killer with unfinished
business . . .
The ladies of the Cumberland Scrapbook Crop are welcoming an eccentric newbie into
their fold. A self-proclaimed witch, Cookie Crandall can whip up a sumptuous vegan
meal and rhapsodize about runes and moon phases with equal aplomb. She becomes fast
friends with her fellow scrapbookers, including freelance reporter Annie, with whom
she shares shallow roots in a community of established family trees. So when Cookie
becomes the prime suspect in a series of bizarre murders, the croppers get scrappy
and set out to clear her name . . .
Annie starts digging and discovers that the victims each had strange runic patterns
carved on their bodies—a piece of evidence that points the police in Cookie’s direction.
Even her friends begin to doubt her innocence when they find an ornate, spiritual
scrapbook that an alleged beginner like Cookie could never have crafted. As Annie
and the croppers search for answers, they’ll uncover a shockingly wicked side of their
once quiet town—and a killer on the prowl for another victim . . .
Spring is in the air, but the ladies of the Cumberland Creek Scrapbook
staying with Beatrice and Jon.
“Grammy!” Lizzie ran up to her and wrapped her arms around Bea’s legs.
“Is that Lizzie?” Vera’s voice softened. “Please put her on.”
“Okay, but you be careful. You hear me?”
“I’m always careful, Mama.”
“Yeah right,” Bea said. That’s why I’ve had to bail you out of jail, take you to see a shrink, and pull you
out of the river as you dumped your wedding photos in it, standing in your bare feet
in the cold Cumberland Creek River. You’re so careful.
As if she didn’t have enough on her mind, now she was worried about Vera and the others
being out in the middle of God knows where with a killer. Beatrice bit her lip. She
had a bad feeling about this.
But at the same time she had to admit a certain satisfaction. She’d told all of them
not to go. You heard nothing but bad things about cruises these days. Accidents. Disappearances.
Rapes. Now a murder. She was certain it was not the first time a murder was committed
on a cruise. But her only daughter was on this one.
“The people on this cruise are some of the finest scrapbookers and designers in the
business, Mother. It’s not like it’s just any cruise,” Vera had said.
Not just any cruise, indeed.
Photo by Christy Majors
Mollie Cox Bryan , author of the Cumberland Creek mystery series, is also the regional best-selling
author of Mrs. Rowe’s Little Book of Southern Pies and Mrs. Rowe’s Restaurant Cookbook: A Lifetime of Recipes from the Shenandoah Valley . An award-winning journalist and poet, she currently blogs, cooks, and scrapbooks
in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia with her husband and two daughters. Her first
Cumberland Creek mystery Scrapbook of Secrets was nominated for an Agatha Award for best first novel. Please visit her at molliecoxbryan.com.
Having traded in her career as a successful investigative journalist for the life
of a stay-at-home mom in picturesque Cumberland Creek, Virginia, Annie can’t help
but feel that something’s missing. But she finds solace in a local “crop circle” of
scrapbookers united by chore-shy husbands, demanding children, and occasional fantasies
of their former single lives. And when the quiet idyll of their small town is shattered
by a young mother’s suicide, they band together to find out what went wrong . . .
Annie resurrects her reporting skills and discovers that Maggie Rae was a closet scrapbooker
who left behind more than a few secrets—and perhaps a few enemies. As they sift through
Maggie Rae’s mysteriously discarded scrapbooks, Annie and her “crop” sisters begin
to suspect that her suicide may have been murder. It seems that something sinister
is lurking beneath the town’s beguilingly calm façade—like a killer with unfinished
business . . .
The ladies of the Cumberland Scrapbook Crop are welcoming an eccentric newbie into
their fold. A self-proclaimed witch, Cookie Crandall can whip up a sumptuous vegan
meal and rhapsodize about runes and moon phases with equal aplomb. She becomes fast
friends with her fellow scrapbookers, including freelance reporter Annie, with whom
she shares shallow roots in a community of established family trees. So when Cookie
becomes the prime suspect in a series of bizarre murders, the croppers get scrappy
and set out to clear her name . . .
Annie starts digging and discovers that the victims each had strange runic patterns
carved on their bodies—a piece of evidence that points the police in Cookie’s direction.
Even her friends begin to doubt her innocence when they find an ornate, spiritual
scrapbook that an alleged beginner like Cookie could never have crafted. As Annie
and the croppers search for answers, they’ll uncover a shockingly wicked side of their
once quiet town—and a killer on the prowl for another victim . . .
Spring is in the air, but the ladies of the Cumberland Creek Scrapbook
Similar Books
