The Secret in the Sampler: A Plain Truth Mystery by Abigail B. Hartwell
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About The Secret in the Sampler
The Secret in the Sampler: A Plain Truth Mystery
Amish Adjacent Cozy Mystery with Slow-Burn Romance
1st in Series
Setting - Ohio
Publisher : Plain Truth Press
Publication date : May 31, 2026
Print length : 358 pages
Digital ASIN : B0GX372D82
Paperback Coming Soon!
What would you do if the family heirloom hidden in your aunt’s estate could expose a stolen inheritance—and make you the next person someone needs silenced?
Two years after losing her husband, Nora Bell returns to the quiet Ohio Amish-country town of Briar Creek to settle her late aunt’s estate. She expects dusty type drawers, unpaid bills, and enough sympathy casseroles to survive a minor siege. Reopening The Bell & Quill, Aunt Lenora’s old letterpress and stationery shop, is supposed to be a temporary project—not the beginning of an entirely new life. Then Nora discovers an antique hand-stitched sampler concealed inside a cedar trunk. Its mismatched initials, reversed border, and nearly invisible name suggest that the sampler is more than a family keepsake. It may be the only surviving record of a child erased from Briar Creek’s history—and an inheritance quietly stolen decades ago. Before Nora can uncover what her aunt knew, a local estate appraiser is found dead. He had been asking questions about the sampler, searching for a missing auction ledger, and meeting privately with someone determined to keep an old land transfer from being examined too closely. Now Nora is following a trail of altered records, old letters, disputed property, and carefully guarded family secrets. Her unexpected ally is Eli Yoder, a reserved Amish widower and auction clerk who knows Briar Creek’s family histories almost as well as he knows when people are refusing to tell the truth. Eli’s dry humor and steady presence make him useful. The grief he recognizes in Nora makes him dangerous in an entirely different way. As suspicion spreads through the Amish farms, antique shops, auction houses, and polished tourist businesses surrounding Briar Creek, Nora realizes the sampler does not simply reveal what happened in the past. It threatens someone’s money, reputation, and future and the person who killed to keep its secret hidden may already know Nora has begun to unravel the pattern. Readers will discover:
- A clever, emotionally grounded amateur sleuth whose knowledge of printing, paper, handwriting, and design helps her notice what others overlook.
- An atmospheric Amish-country setting filled with rural roads, estate auctions, quilt work, family businesses, and small-town secrets.
- A layered, low-gore cozy mystery involving an antique sampler, a hidden heir, altered records, and a disputed inheritance.
- A clean, chaste slow-burn romance between two widowed people rebuilding their lives through trust rather than instant attraction.
- Warm community characters and lightly witty dialogue without turning the mystery into slapstick.
- A satisfying standalone investigation that opens the door to more secrets from The Bell & Quill.
The Secret in the Sampler is the first novel in The Plain Truth Mysteries, a gentle Amish-adjacent cozy mystery series about old objects, hidden histories, rural grudges, and the truths people leave behind on paper and cloth. Perfect for fans of Amanda Flower’s Assaulted Caramel, Laura Bradford’s Hearse and Buggy, and Vannetta Chapman’s Falling to Pieces.
About Abigail B. Hartwell
Short - Abigail B. Hartwell, aka Abby, writes warm Amish-country-adjacent cozy mysteries rooted in rural Ohio, where handmade clues, old family secrets, quiet faith, and plainspoken women bring buried truths into the light.
Long - Abigail B. Hartwell writes gentle Amish-adjacent cozy mysteries rooted in the small towns and wooded backroads of east-central Ohio. Though she is not Amish, she lives near Amish communities and draws inspiration from the region’s quiet rhythms, close-knit families, old stories, and rural traditions. She shares a modest home on five wooded acres with her long-haul truck driver husband. They have two grown daughters and three grandchildren. When she is not writing, Abigail enjoys church activities, family time, and the peaceful beauty of the Ohio countryside.
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