Death Among the Stitches is the first in what I hope will be a new series by Betty Hechtman. I really enjoyed this book. It has all the makings of a great new series. There is a fun setting, a good mystery and most importantly lots of great characters with tons of room for development for these characters. In the book Annie Sara, the main character, inherits a yarn shop in Indiana. After having grown up among celebrities in California, the small town setting is a welcome and enjoyable change. While there, she solves a mystery and as expected falls in love with the town and its inhabitants. This book was such an enjoyable read! I can’t wait for the next one to come out. I loved the mystery, the characters and the setting. I highly recommend Death Among the Stitches!

Thank you to NetGalley for allowing me to review this book. All opinions are my own.

The first book in a new Crochet and Crumpets series of cozy mysteries. And book with crochet in the title will earn my attention. Annie Sara has spent her adult life running errands and making other people happy as an assistant to her talent agent father. An inheritance of a yarn shop.....yes, please.....finds her traveling to Indiana with the intention of selling the shop....never....and going back to work. But the pace of life and the enthusiasm of her customers show her what a different kind of life could be. BUt there's an unsolved murder in the shop's history to investigate and many changes she'll have to consider before the resolve leaves readers with the chance of another book in this entertaining series.

Hechtmann's new cozy mystery series is off to an excellent start, with a unique setting, a cast of compelling characters and several mysteries to solve. The ending was a bit abrupt, and hopefully future volumes in the series will have less to do with the character's father and his issues, which bogged down the plot a bit.

Moving to a new town is tough. it’s even tougher when you’re predecessor was murdered. And that’s exactly or any heart. It’s finding out when she moves to Franklin. It’s not just that it’s a small town, where everyone knows each other, but that the previous owner of her shop was murdered and no one really knows what happened or wants to talk about it. But Annie is determined to find justice for Eleanor. Well, she stitch up one murderer or will the murderer drop two proprietors of the shop?

A great start to a new cozy series by the superb Betty Hechtman. I cannot wait for the next entry.

I think Annie’s character might take some time to grow on me, but I was surprised I ended up liking Gray’s character quite a bit, especially since she was so entitled at the beginning. I enjoyed the group of knitter and crocheters who were happy to have a place to meet and talk again since Annie was trying to fix up the store she inherited. The whodunit was a complete surprise and all I can say is Jack the shop cat was great at being a guard/attack kitty when Annie needed him!

I voluntarily read and reviewed an ARC of this book provided by Severn House via NetGalley, and my opinions are my own.

I enjoyed Death Among the Stitches, the first of a new series A Crochet and Crumpet Mystery series. Annie Sara Hart traveled to a small town in Indiana to check out property her uncle left her. Leaving obligations behind in LA, her plan is to get it on the market to sell but it turns out to be a yarn shop needing some sprucing up to make it more appealing. She is a helper for her father in LA as he works with celebrities and she needs to get back home as soon as possible. Things change when the daughter of a client goes to help her. Annie Sara makes friends quickly with the yarn group who met in the shop and they offer to help her get things in order but thee is a mystery about the death of the former owner that needs to be resolved for Annie Sara. This is a fun and different sort of cozy mystery that I enjoyed and look forward to more in the future.
I received a copy in exchange for an honest review. These are my thoughts.

Billed as a "Crumpets and Crochet" mystery, I picked it up as I like crumpets and I like crochet. Death Among the Stitches is a feel-good mystery, combined with a fish-out-of-water tale. Annie Sara Hart from LA, used to life surrounded by celebrities, flies out to a small Indiana town where she's been left an old yarn shop by an Uncle she didn't know. Used to assisting her Talent Agent father with catering to the every whim of his clients, Annie Sara is now fending for herself and enjoying the independence.

Back in LA, she had been charged with looking after Gray Hanover, daughter of two celebrities, who is expected to live up to her mother's expectations and follow her into the industry. How will a spoiled nepo-baby survive out in the Mid-West?

The store's previous owner died in seemingly mysterious circumstances, and Annie Sara is curious as to what happened. The townsfolk are keen to see the incident pinned on outsiders, not wanting to look any closer to home, where many residents have their own motives for wanting to see the yarn shop owner dead.

I enjoyed the story, but felt the mystery took a backseat to the city girls transplanting to small town America, and more could have been made of it but it was fun seeing Annie Sara and Gray adjust to their new surroundings.

Death Among the Stitches is published on 7 January.

Thanks to Severn Books and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book

Annie Sara inherits a small property from her uncle in Franklin, Indiana, near the Indiana Dunes National Park. She intends to inspect it before selling and discovers that despite its stark contrast to her L.A. lifestyle, she truly enjoys the quaint town and its surroundings. As she prepares the Classy Yarn for sale, she learns of a murder that occurred in the building but is assured that it was a random event and the unknown murderer is no longer in the vicinity. She decides to make some improvements to fetch a better price before returning home. It will be difficult, as she has made new friends and enjoys the area, but she remains focused on leaving. However, there are some twists and turns that may alter her plans.

This is a heartwarming cozy mystery and a great beginning to the new Crochet and Crumpets mystery series. The characters are interesting and the setting sounds travel worthy. I am looking forward to the next book in the series.

Death Among the Stitches is book #1 in the Crochet & Crumpets Mystery series by Betty Hechtman.

This is an entertaining start to a new series. As a crocheter, I was drawn to this book. I found Annie to be a likable character as are the other characters in the book. The inheritance of a yarn shop was a major change for Annie. I thought the mystery was interesting and kept me guessing until the end. I loved the the ending. I look forward to more books in this series.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) copy of this book and I am voluntarily leaving an honest review.

Brand new series by a beloved author. Annie Hart seems to always be helping her father who is a talent agent to stars. Annie branches out when she inherits a yarn shop in Franklin, Indiana. A small town loaded with secrets especially those that surround the death of the shop's previous owner. A great start! Looking forward to the next! Thanks #Netgalley and #SevernHouse for the eARC in exchange for a honest review. All opinions are mine.

A really enticing premise, but it just didn't deliver. The two main characters were so frustratingly immature, and although this is being marketed as a cosy murder mystery, there is nothing that could be classed as an investigation. Just a nosy young woman asking new acquaintances for gossip (which she often doesn't get!), so when the murderer is eventually revealed, there has been zero build-up.

What I did enjoy was the setting; the old schoolhouse and even the town of Franklin were vividly described. It seemed like the kind of place I'd enjoy visiting.

Annie is tired of being her father’s dogsbody, so when she inherits a small-town yarn shop, she’s thrilled to finally have something that belongs to her and her alone. When she arrives in town to check out the shop and is greeting by the police, she has second thoughts. She learns that the shop’s previous owner was murdered and that it may be affecting business, she and some of her new friends set out to find out what really happened… and who is responsible.

I wasn’t sure about Annie at first, but she grew on me as the book progressed and as she adapted to small-town life. I like the characters who will probably be recurring as the series continues, and would love to visit Annie’s new yarn shop. Even though I no longer do any yarn crafting, I still enjoy seeing walls of different colors and types of yarn :)

The mystery was well-done, although there were times when it felt like the mystery took a back seat to everything else going on in the book. As more information was accumulated, pieces started to fall into place, but I didn’t figure out who the culprit was until just before it was revealed in the book.

I look forward to reading the next book in the series to spend more time with the yarn lovers in Franklin, Indiana.

4.5 stars

Annie Hart lives in Hollywood, working as an assistant to the sheltered and rather anxious daughter of her father's top A-list celebrity client. Then she finds out she has just inherited a yarn shop from her recently deceased uncle. In Franklin, Indiana. So Annie packs up, ostensibly just for a few days, in order to check things out and get everything settled before selling the place on. Despite being stopped by police upon her initial arrival in town, she soon becomes enamoured with the local charm, due in no small part to the immediate friendliness of the townsfolk/ fibre arts community. Maybe she doesn't have to hurry back to her life in California after all...? And after learning of the previous shop owner, Eleanor's untimely demise, Annie is spurred on to uncover what exactly happened to her and whether or not the case should truly have been closed.

This was a super enjoyable, cozy mystery read! Since I'm an avid knitter; I'm always drawn to books that deal primarily with fibre arts (think: knitting, crochet, etc.) and tangentially of murder. The coziest of murder mysteries tend to be set in places like plushy yarn stores or quaint bookshops so I suppose the dichotomy makes a macabre kind of sense. Anyhoo...

There's a lot of really wonderful character development in the story, and the plotline is excellent setup for a first-in-series (at least that's what I'm assuming this book is; there'd better be more of these coming out in the future!) The setting of Franklin, Indiana with its delightfully eclectic community of yarn artists is worthy of more stories for sure.

Thanks to NetGalley, author Betty Hechtman, and Severn House for giving me access to a digital ARC of this book to read and review. All opinions are my own and are provided here voluntarily.

I can see a lot of potential in this new mystery series, but it took time for this first book to get going. Annie Hart is a very young protagonist who works in a Los Angeles boutique as assistant to a movie star's daughter. When she inherits a building from her uncle, she's excited to have something of her own and immediately flies across the country to see it, not realizing that the old schoolhouse was actually a yarn shop. (It's an amazing coincidence that the building her uncle bought to convert to a restaurant just happens to be full of supplies for Annie's favorite hobby.) The local knitters are delighted that the shop has a new owner, but Annie plans to sell the building and its contents and head back to California as soon as she can. It's a fun read if you don't worry about things like whether Annie owns the business or just the building, or how the bugs that destroyed half othe yarn in the shop left the rest in good enough condition to sell. The mystery behind the death of the original shop owner is great and I really enjoyed trying to piece together the clues, but a lot of the plot is focused on Annie's determination to sell the shop -- which doesn't leave a whole lot of suspense if this is the first book in the series.

Death Among the Stitches is the first book in the Crochet and Crumpets Mystery series, a new cozy mystery book series from Betty Hechtman, author of the Crochet Mystery series and the Yarn Retreat Mystery series.

The crocheting sleuth is Annie Sara Hart. Annie is the daughter of a talent agent and the new owner of an inherited yarn shop in small-town Indiana. Annie travels to Indiana to see the shop and stumbles straight into a mystery.

Annie has a celebrity offspring sidekick (Gray) who comes to Indiana and has some life-changing experiences. Annie is also assisted by the yarn shop's mysterious resident cat (Jack) and a few other locals who are knitting and/or crocheting enthusiasts.

I liked the characters in this story, the crocheting hook, and the setting. The writing was good, and the cover is super cute.

I am interested in continuing on with this series to see where it goes. I especially liked Gray and will enjoy watching her character develop.

Thanks to Net Galley and Severn House for the ARC.

This was a very enjoyable read and I sped through it, wanting success for the characters. The book could very easily have lasted longer to draw out the happy conclusion but I was so happy that the author stopped when they did. A rewarding ending and a rewarding read. Thanks to Netgalley.

Death Among the Stitches by Betty Hechtman is a delightful cozy mystery that I absolutely loved! Annie Hart is trying to revamp the yarn shop that she inherited in order to sell it, all this while juggling the demands of her father, a talent agent for big stars. The flawed but relatable characters make this story so enjoyable, and the twists and turns are full of surprises you never see coming. The setting and the friendships Annie develops with the locals add charm and warmth, while the mystery keeps you hooked. (I received an advance reader copy and all opinions are my own.) A perfect read for cozy mystery fans!

Death among the stitches didn’t live up to it’s promised mystery storyline for me, but was written well aside from that

I have read many books by this author. Normally I love the books. This one just gave me odd vibes. For a mystery book, there was almost no mystery other than the occasional mention of the death of Eleanor. There is no investigation happening. The story revolves mostly around Annie and her inheiritance of a yarn store.The relationship between her and her friend Gray is strange. They both are adults and yet they allow themselves to manipulated by their parents. Neither character was appealing enough to care about.

Annie Hart works for her father Bryan . Bryan is an agent to the stars and Annie is basically a dogsbody doing whatever her tasks her father needs her todo . Whether it be looking after one of the signed stars children or any other mundane task Bryan can conjure up .
Annie inherits a yarn shop in Franklin , Indiana .
When she visits the shop all doesn’t go to plan and some of the locals don’t seem as friendly as they could be .
Annie learns that a previous owner Eleanor was murdered, which understandably lives her feeling unsettled , but will it leave Annie in danger ?
This is an easy to read feel good cosy mystery .
A decent start to a new series .
Thanks to NetGalley and Severn House.