This post contains Amazon affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Today on Salty Inspirations, I’m welcoming author Abigail B. Hartwell, author of The Secret in the Sampler: A Plain Truth Mystery. Abigail is sharing a little about the real-life experiences and surroundings that helped shape the setting and perspective behind her Amish-adjacent mysteries. Pull up a cup of coffee and enjoy getting to know the author behind the story.
From Subdivision Streets to Wooded Backroads
By Abigail B. Hartwell
For most of my adult life, I lived in a suburban environment where the houses sat close enough together that you could tell when a neighbor changed laundry detergent. The streets were paved, the yards were measured, and the sound of lawn equipment moved from house to house on Saturday mornings with the regularity of a church bell.
It was a good place to raise our daughters.
The schools were nearby. Grocery stores stayed open late. There were sidewalks, neighborhood children, sports practices, school concerts, and the familiar rush of family life. My husband was already working as a long-haul truck driver, which meant he was often away while I managed the ordinary household emergencies that never occur when everyone is conveniently home. Broken appliances, forgotten permission slips, sick children, and mysterious noises from the basement generally waited until his truck was several states away.
Our two daughters grew up there. The house was full of their friends, shoes, books, music, and arguments about whose turn it was to empty the dishwasher. At the time, the noise could feel endless. Then they left home, as children are supposed to do, and the quiet arrived with astonishing efficiency.
Empty nesting is often described as a peaceful new chapter. That is true in the same way that an empty room is peaceful. It may also feel strange, unfinished, and much larger than it did before.
My husband and I began to realize that we had chosen our suburban home for the needs of a family that no longer lived there. We no longer needed to be close to school buildings, youth activities, or the places our daughters needed us to drive them. The neighborhood remained pleasant, but it no longer fit the shape of our life.
We started talking about moving.
Those conversations took place in fragments, usually when my husband was home between trips. We did not dream of a grand country estate. Neither of us had the money, temperament, or desire for anything requiring staff. We wanted modesty, privacy, and enough land that the nearest porch light did not shine directly into our bedroom.
Eventually, we found a modest house on five acres in east-central Ohio. Most of the land was wooded. That mattered to me. I did not want five acres of grass demanding to be cut. I wanted trees, shade, birds, and the feeling that the land existed for reasons other than my convenience.
The move placed us near Amish communities, though we are not Amish ourselves. That distinction matters. Living near Amish families does not make a person Amish any more than living near a dairy farm makes one a cow, though tourists sometimes approach both subjects with roughly the same level of understanding.
Our new surroundings required adjustment.
In the suburbs, I measured distance by traffic lights and shopping centers. In the country, I learned to measure it by bends in the road, barns, produce stands, and the place where the pavement narrows without warning. I became accustomed to slowing behind horse-drawn buggies and waiting until the road was genuinely clear before passing. Impatience is dangerous on any road, but it becomes especially foolish when directed at a family traveling at the speed of a horse.
The quiet was different too.
Suburban quiet is usually a temporary pause between occasional sirens, barking dogs, and someone using a leaf blower. Rural quiet contains its own sounds: wind in the trees, insects, distant farm machinery, birds, rain on leaves, and the occasional clip-clop of buggies passing by on the road.
It is not silent. It is simply less interested in announcing itself.
There were practical inconveniences. Stores were farther away. A forgotten ingredient could no longer be replaced in five minutes. Power outages took much longer to resolve. Country roads became treacherous in bad weather, and my husband’s work meant I sometimes handled those problems alone.
Living on wooded acreage also introduced me to the confidence of wildlife. Deer behaved as though we had purchased the property for their use. Raccoons approached garbage with professional determination. Birds struck up conversations before sunrise without checking whether I had agreed to participate.
Still, the move gave us something we had not realized we were missing: room to notice our lives.
My husband returned from long trips to a place that felt removed from the highways he spent his working days traveling. I found more space for writing and reflection. Church activities became an important part of our local rhythm, helping us build relationships without expecting instant familiarity. Rural communities can be welcoming, but belonging is earned through consistency. You show up. You help. You listen longer than you speak.
Our daughters were grown by then, but they remained central to our lives. Over time, three grandchildren added fresh noise, laughter, toys, and crumbs to the quiet house. A rural home feels different when grandchildren visit. The woods become a place to explore. Ordinary animals become events. A walk down the lane takes longer because small children notice everything adults have trained themselves to ignore.
Living near Amish communities also changed the way I thought about stories.
I became more attentive to the tension between the real lives of rural people and the version sold to visitors. Tourists often come looking for simplicity, as though simplicity can be purchased with a jar of jam and a photograph of a buggy. What they frequently miss is the complexity beneath the plain surfaces: family obligations, economic pressures, community expectations, grief, humor, faith, disagreements, and the constant work required to sustain a household or business.
That tension eventually found its way into my writing.
My Amish-adjacent mysteries do not come from pretending to belong to a culture that is not mine. They come from living nearby, observing respectfully, researching carefully, and understanding that quiet communities contain the same range of human motives as any other place.
Moving away from the suburbs did not transform me into a different person. I still appreciate paved roads and a grocery store with reasonable hours. I did not reject modern life. I simply chose a setting that better suited the life my husband and I had entered after our daughters left home.
The suburbs gave us a place to raise our family.
The wooded backroads gave us a place to enjoy and understand what remained once the girls were gone.
The Secret in the Sampler: A Plain Truth Mystery by Abigail B. HartwellAbout The Secret in the Sampler
The Secret in the Sampler: A Plain Truth Mystery
Amish Adjacent Cozy Mystery with Slow-Burn Romance
1st in Series
Setting – Ohio
Publisher : Plain Truth Press
Publication date : May 31, 2026
Print length : 358 pages
Digital ASIN : B0GX372D82
Paperback Coming Soon!
What would you do if the family heirloom hidden in your aunt’s estate could expose a stolen inheritance—and make you the next person someone needs silenced? Two years after losing her husband, Nora Bell returns to the quiet Ohio Amish-country town of Briar Creek to settle her late aunt’s estate. She expects dusty type drawers, unpaid bills, and enough sympathy casseroles to survive a minor siege. Reopening The Bell & Quill, Aunt Lenora’s old letterpress and stationery shop, is supposed to be a temporary project—not the beginning of an entirely new life. Then Nora discovers an antique hand-stitched sampler concealed inside a cedar trunk. Its mismatched initials, reversed border, and nearly invisible name suggest that the sampler is more than a family keepsake. It may be the only surviving record of a child erased from Briar Creek’s history—and an inheritance quietly stolen decades ago. Before Nora can uncover what her aunt knew, a local estate appraiser is found dead. He had been asking questions about the sampler, searching for a missing auction ledger, and meeting privately with someone determined to keep an old land transfer from being examined too closely. Now Nora is following a trail of altered records, old letters, disputed property, and carefully guarded family secrets. Her unexpected ally is Eli Yoder, a reserved Amish widower and auction clerk who knows Briar Creek’s family histories almost as well as he knows when people are refusing to tell the truth. Eli’s dry humor and steady presence make him useful. The grief he recognizes in Nora makes him dangerous in an entirely different way. As suspicion spreads through the Amish farms, antique shops, auction houses, and polished tourist businesses surrounding Briar Creek, Nora realizes the sampler does not simply reveal what happened in the past. It threatens someone’s money, reputation, and future. And the person who killed to keep its secret hidden may already know Nora has begun to unravel the pattern. Readers will discover:The Secret in the Sampler is the first novel in The Plain Truth Mysteries, a gentle Amish-adjacent cozy mystery series about old objects, hidden histories, rural grudges, and the truths people leave behind on paper and cloth. Perfect for fans of Amanda Flower’s Assaulted Caramel, Laura Bradford’s Hearse and Buggy, and Vannetta Chapman’s Falling to Pieces.
- A clever, emotionally grounded amateur sleuthwhose knowledge of printing, paper, handwriting, and design helps her notice what others overlook.
- An atmospheric Amish-country settingfilled with rural roads, estate auctions, quilt work, family businesses, and small-town secrets.
- A layered, low-gore cozy mystery involving an antique sampler, a hidden heir, altered records, and a disputed inheritance.
- A clean, chaste slow-burn romance between two widowed people rebuilding their lives through trust rather than instant attraction.
- Warm community characters and lightly witty dialogue without turning the mystery into slapstick.
- A satisfying standalone investigation that opens the door to more secrets from The Bell & Quill.
About Abigail B. Hartwell
Short – Abigail B. Hartwell, aka Abby, writes warm Amish-country-adjacent cozy mysteries rooted in rural Ohio, where handmade clues, old family secrets, quiet faith, and plainspoken women bring buried truths into the light.
Long – Abigail B. Hartwell writes gentle Amish-adjacent cozy mysteries rooted in the small towns and wooded backroads of east-central Ohio. Though she is not Amish, she lives near Amish communities and draws inspiration from the region’s quiet rhythms, close-knit families, old stories, and rural traditions. She shares a modest home on five wooded acres with her long-haul truck driver husband. They have two grown daughters and three grandchildren. When she is not writing, Abigail enjoys church activities, family time, and the peaceful beauty of the Ohio countryside.
Author Links
Purchase Links
Tour Participants
August 18 – Books, Ramblings, and Tea – SPOTLIGHT
August 18 – The Avid Reader – REVIEW
August 19 – Jody’s Bookish Haven – SPOTLIGHT
August 19 – Reading, Writing & Stitch-Metic – AUTHOR GUEST POST
August 20 – Boys’ Mom Reads! – SPOTLIGHT
August 20 – FUONLYKNEW – SPOTLIGHT
August 21 – Christy’s Cozy Corners – REVIEW, CHARACTER GUEST POST
August 21 – Escape With Dollycas Into A Good Book – SPOTLIGHT
August 22 – Ruff Drafts – SPOTLIGHT
August 22 – Sarah Can’t Stop Reading Books – REVIEW
August 23 – Sarcastically Yours, Jen – SPOTLIGHT
August 23 – Sapphyria’s Book Reviews – SPOTLIGHT
August 24 – StoreyBook Reviews – CHARACTER GUEST POST
August 25 – Cozy Up With Kathy – REVIEW, AUTHOR INTERVIEW
August 26 – Ascroft, eh? – CHARACTER INTERVIEW
August 27 – Salty Inspirations – AUTHOR GUEST POST
August 28 – Sarandipity’s – CHARACTER INTERVIEW
August 28 – Book HookUp – REVIEW
August 29 – Romance Novel Giveaways – SPOTLIGHT
Excerpt from The Secret in the Sampler
by Abigail B. Hartwell
Vernon turned back to her. “I understand there was a cedar trunk among the items.”
“There is a cedar trunk listed.”
“May I see it?”
“It’s on the platform.”
“I mean the contents.”
“The contents are under review.”
“By you?”
“Yes. That is what inheritance generally means.”
He smiled again, but this time it did not warm. “Of course. Your aunt had shown me certain pieces before she passed. I would hate for something valuable to be overlooked.”
Nora’s hand tightened around the coffee cup. “Which pieces?”
“A few linens. Some printed ephemera. A trunk lot.” His gaze flicked down toward her satchel. “Possibly a small stitched piece.”
Maeve’s eyes moved to Nora’s satchel, then away quickly.
Nora hoped Vernon did not catch it.
Naturally, he did.
“Do you have it with you?” he asked.
“Have what?”
“A sampler.”
The word made the damp air feel suddenly colder.
Nora kept her expression mild. She had learned from Aunt Lenora that the best way to annoy an intrusive person was not to look annoyed. It forced them to wonder whether they had failed.
“I don’t believe I mentioned a sampler,” she said.
“No, but Lenora did.”
“Did she?”
“Briefly.”
“When?”
“A few weeks ago.”
Maeve looked at him. “That is curious. Lenora did not mention it to me.”
“I cannot account for whom Lenora chose to trust.”
The sentence should have been harmless. It was not.
Nora set her coffee on the table. “What exactly did my aunt ask you?”
“Whether I had seen similar work. Whether certain motifs carried family significance. Whether there might be market interest if it proved connected to a known maker.”
“You remember all that from a brief mention?”
“I have an excellent memory for valuable things.”
“How comforting.”
His eyes gleamed. “May I see it?”
“No.”
Maeve’s eyebrows lifted. Vernon’s smile faltered by the width of a thread.
“No?” he repeated.
“No, thank you.”
“That is not quite the usual response to a professional appraisal.”
“I’m not having it appraised.”
“Then you may not know what you have.”
“I’ve found ignorance can be corrected more easily than regret.”
From behind Vernon, Eli approached, his hat in one hand, his expression unreadable. “Vernon.”
“Eli.” Vernon sounded amused. “I see Mrs. Bell has acquired counsel.”
“I was already standing nearby.”
“A convenient habit of yours.”
Nora looked from one man to the other. “Does everyone in this town speak in quilting patterns?”
Maeve answered at once. “Only when lying would be too obvious.”
Eli’s eyes flicked toward Nora, and for the first time that morning, she saw amusement break through his reserve. It was brief. It was also unfortunately attractive, in the way competence sometimes became when a person was tired and undercaffeinated.
Vernon noticed that too.
He noticed far too much.
“I am only offering assistance,” Vernon said. “A sampler can be difficult to place. Especially one with an old Keim border.”
Nora went still.
Eli did too.
Vernon’s smile remained, but it changed. He knew. He knew he had said too much.
Nora’s voice came out calm. “What did you say?”
“Keim border. A common regional term.”
“Common enough that you recognized it without seeing the sampler?”
He spread his hands. “Lenora described it.”
“No,” Nora said. “She didn’t.”
It was a guess. A bold one. An invitation for him to correct her.
He did not.
Eli’s gaze lowered for a moment, then returned to Vernon. “You have seen it.”
Vernon’s face tightened. “I have seen many samplers.”
“That one,” Eli said.
The quiet words did more than an accusation would have. Vernon’s gloved fingers flexed once.
Maeve stepped in lightly, which for Maeve meant with the tactical grace of a woman moving a knife behind a cake plate. “Mr. Pike, I believe Gideon is calling for you near the office. Something about a reserve price.”
Vernon looked at her. “Is he?”
“He will be once I tell him to.”
For a moment, no one spoke.
Then Vernon laughed.
“You are formidable, Maeve.”
“Intermittently.”
He turned back to Nora. “Mrs. Bell, do be careful. Sentimental objects have a way of making people irrational.”
“I thought valuable things did that.”
His smile faded completely.
Then it returned, thinner and brighter. “Sometimes both.”
Have you signed up to be a Tour Host? Click Here to Find Details and Sign Up Today! Want to Book a Tour? Click Here
If The Secret in the Sampler: A Plain Truth Mystery sounds like a cozy mystery you’d enjoy, consider adding it to your TBR list. And while you’re here, take a look around Salty Inspirations for more cozy mysteries, author guests, bookish fun, and plenty of other inspirations.
As always, thanks for stopping by for some Salty Inspirations! —Michelle❤️
