Meg Corey's first year as an apple farmer has wrapped up, and she's just waiting for her business manager Bree to finish calculating the numbers so they can find out how the year went. As this is going on, the area gets a snow storm that knocks out power, just as Meg's furnace decides to stop working. Bree seeks refuge in nearby Amherst with her boyfriend. Since she's snowed in, Seth (who may or may not be her boyfriend) has graciously agreed to keep her company until the power comes back.

During the day, Meg and Seth decide to clean out some rooms -- the moving around will keep them warm, and it's something Meg hasn't had time to do since she moved in, having been occupied with the apple business. In one closet, she finds a silk sampler that was embroidered in the early nineteenth century. It appears to be a mourning sampler - it lists a mother, father, and their four children and their birth and death dates. What strikes Meg most is that all four children died before they reached four years of age, and the parents died soon after their last child died (and within just a few days of each other).

Once power is restored and the streets begin to clear, Meg begins researching the sampler. Who is this family? Why did everyone die so young? She doesn't recognize any of the names as people who owned the house previously, so how did this sampler end up in the house, especially without being discovered?

But while all of this going on, Meg slowly becomes aware that she has a bigger issue on her on hands. She gets locked into the barn overnight, she's the victim of a hit and run while she's shopping, a dead animal is left on her porch, and a string of other (mostly) harmless incidents occur within just a few days. Is someone targeting her specifically? If so, why?

This was a fun read. Were the two mysteries (the sampler's background and Meg's incidents) related? It was a kick to try to figure out whether these two things were tied to each other and how, or if they just happened to be chugging along at the same time. Meg and Seth are both great characters, and it was nice to see them coming to terms with their relationship. I was less enthralled with Bree and her relationship with Meg, though. While I find Meg to be generally likeable, the one flaw she seems to bring into all of her relationships (even minor ones) is that she's a bit weak -- she struggles to stand up for herself, even when it's in her best interest.

However, this did not detract from my overall enjoyment of the book, though, and I will be keeping my eye out for other books in this series.

Book Summary

Now that Meg Corey's apples have been harvested and sold, she's enjoying some free time. But when the small but annoying mishaps plaguing her start turning sinister, Meg begins to worry that her first harvest may be her last.