Welcome to Tallula Falls, Oregon, a quiet little place which happens to be home to the Seven-Year-Stitch, an embroidery shop that has been the site of not one, but now two, murders. This town is filled with likable characters, especially our protagonist, Marcy Singer, who owns the Seven-Year-Stitch. She was instrumental in helping solve the first murder (in The Quick and the Thread, the first book in the series, which set up the on-going love triangle between Marcy and her two possible suitors -- one a cop and the other the owner of a custom-beer establishment), but this time, when a little old lady visits the shop and collapse after Marcy gives her a cup of tea, she finds herself the main suspect. With only the cryptic message stitched onto an old sampler as a clue, can she unravel the threads of mystery to find the real culprit?

While the plot hinges on a number of coincidences, they aren't huge stretches, and the realism in the characterization more than makes up for any need to suspend disbelief. You can't help pulling for Marcy's over-the-top Hollywood seamstress mom, and relate to Marcy's inner conflict over being so far from home and at the same time wanting to have a life where she's not in her mother's shadow. The writing is lively, and the pop culture references abundant. They are wittily used, as when Marcy says she doesn't want her store to be known as the, "Little Embroidery Shop of Horrors." The setting works, and this book should appeal not only to embroidery enthusiasts, antique-hunters and dog lovers, but to anyone who likes a smartly written cozy that neatly ties up all the loose ends surrounding the murder but leaves the reader wanting to know more about the amateur detective, her friends, her life and her future.

Book Summary

Marcy is the proud owner of the Seven-Year Stitch, an embroidery specialty shop in the sweet small town of Tallulah Falls, Oregon. Her best friend, Sadie, owns the coffee shop down the street, and her Irish wolfhound, Angus, is practically the shop's mascot.

But trouble strikes when an elderly woman brings an antique piece of embroidery to Marcy...and promptly dies of unnatural causes. Mary is convinced that the antique sampler holds a clue to an even older crime and that somebody may have killed to hide it. Now it's up to Marcy and her pals--two- legged and four-legged--to unravel this mystery.