About Model Suspect, the first book in the Backyard Model small-town mystery series:

Penny-pinching fashionista Melanie Tower is done with the drama of New York City and returns to her Wisconsin hometown to open a craft mall—but is the drama done with her? At the start of the holiday season—her jewelers’, bakers’, and crafters’ busiest time—a social media influencer is found dead in Mel’s mall, pinned under a vintage door.

Mel immediately becomes a suspect in the holiday mystery. The victim had been committing a crafty crime: she’d been recruiting Mel’s best artists to open a competing store!

Mel’s cozy life becomes twisted as macramé. To find the killer “poser” and prove her innocence, she must attend a week of holiday parties in her quaint village, a town that resembles Galena, Illinois, or the Cotswolds. Mel embraces her inner Midwesterner while polka-ing at the Cheese Ball, judging entries in the Devil’s vs. Angels Bake-off, and starring in a wacky readers’ theater at Midwinter’s Night at the Library.

Model Suspect is The Devil Wears Prada meets a Wisconsin supper club. It’s a Midwest whodunnit, a holiday cozy, a humorous small-town mystery served with a brandy old-fashioned sweet and a side of cheese curds.

Includes a recipe for holiday shortbread cookies. No foul language, sex, or graphic violence.