{I've Been Reading} The Lacemaker's Secret

I've seen lace making demonstrated and  tried my hand at it once and there's absolutely no way that my brain can handle tracking which way to twist which bobbin. I decided years ago to stick with knitted lace, but The Lace Maker's Secret by Kathleen Ernst has me reconsidering.



I've absolutely loved every book that I've read in the Chloe Ellefson mystery series and this one is no exception. While visiting Door County to consult on the restoration of a Belgium-American farmhouse, Chloe pulls over to the side of the road to take pictures of an old bake oven. The author is so good at what she does that I actually jumped when Chloe found a corpse in the oven and I cried more than once as the historical portion of the book unfolded.  The books in this series beg to be read from cover to cover with as few breaks as possible.

The present day portion of the book is set in the early 80s. It's a fun reminder of how life used to be (without hitting the reader over the head with how different things were) and the fact that Chloe can't just hop online to find all of the available information about the people she's researching adds a lot to the mystery.

I swear, the only thing I don't like about this series is that all of the places Chloe visits are too far away for me to visit!

Disclosure -- The publisher provided me with an ARC.