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.
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.
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