This is the first of Casey's Southern Sewing Circle mysteries, a great cozy series featuring librarian Victoria "Tori" Sinclair. Northerner Tori's arrival in Sweet Briar, South Carolina from Chicago is met with some resistance by the established locals. She has been hired to replace longtime librarian Dixie Dunn, whom she assumed had retired but who had, in fact, been ousted from her position in favor of a newer, more modern approach to library services. Tori is invited to attend the local sewing circle and discovers there both warm welcomes and cold shoulders, plus an annoying insistence by one member on using her full first name. When things start being mysteriously "misplaced" in the library Tori finds herself unprepared for both a visit from a local 3rd grade class (with a dreamy teacher!) and an important library board meeting. Tori and the widowed teacher, Milo, find themselves attracted to each other. When Tori finds the body of a local girl whose crush on Milo is common knowledge in Sweet Briar, she is immediately the prime suspect in an imagined love triangle. As she works to clear her name Tori uncovers some not-so-sweet goings on in the town.
Despite the fact that Elizabeth Lynn Casey (real name: Laura Bradford) is neither a Southerner nor a sewer, she creates a wonderful cast of characters in her Southern Sewing Circle ladies. Practical, motherly Mary Louise, resentful Dixie, Leona, and the rest all promise to become great friends in future installments of the series and I look forward to reading them all!
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