The Lover's Knot-Clare O’Donahue

The Lover's Knot
Clare O’Donahue
Plume, Sep 2008, $13.00
ISBN: 9780452289796

Twenty something Manhattan based publisher Nell Fitzgerald is stunned when her fiancé Ryan informs her he is not ready to marry. Upset, she decides to leave town to visit her grandma Eleanor Cassidy in Archer's Rest to help her elderly relative recover from a nasty fall and somewhat based on the lovely wedding quilt her grandmother and Friday Night Quilt Club made for her.

Eleanor, who owns Someday Quilts, hires local handyman Marc Reed to expand her store. He outrageously flirts with the newcomer and Nell enjoys his attention. Ryan arrives and ends up brawling with Marc over Nell. Soon after their fight, someone scissors Marc to death at Someday Quilts. Local police chief widower Jesse Dewalt investigates knowing many of the townsfolk hared the womanizing Marc and is aware of the brawl with Ryan, who wants Nell back. Instead she tries to prove his innocence one stitch at a time.

This is an engaging Hudson River Valley amateur sleuth that will remind cozy fans of authors like Maggie Sefton. Although Nell has no experience and no cause to investigate placing herself in danger, she makes for a fine detective. Lighthearted fun as the relationship triangle (to include Jesse not Marc) supersedes the mystery.

Harriet Klausner