A scoop of ice cream, a dash of danger, and a murder that chills to the bone.
When a new ice cream shop, Churnt Up, opens in the idyllic beach town of St. Marin’s, bookstore owner Harvey Beckett is ready to welcome the owner with open arms and a hearty appetite. But the grand opening turns deadly when a body is discovered in the shop’s freezer, sending a chill through the Memorial Day weekend festivities.
The shop’s owner, Poppy, is clearly terrified, and not just because of the corpse in her store. She’s hiding from a dangerous past that has followed her to the Eastern Shore. As Harvey and her fiercely loyal friends rally to protect the newcomer, they uncover a sinister plot far more tangled than a single murder.
With her police-deputy husband, Jared, leading the official investigation, Harvey relies on her wit and community ties to chase down the truth. But when the threats escalate from menacing glares to terrifying break-ins, she realizes the danger is closer than anyone imagined. In a town where everyone knows your name, a deadly secret is churning just beneath the surface.
Chapter and Churned is the twelfth book in the St. Marin’s Cozy Mystery series, perfect for fans of small-town sleuths, quirky characters, and ice-cold twists.
About the Author :
ACF Bookens loves a good mystery, a quaint bookshop, and a good cup of coffee. She lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, where she takes joy in the mountain views and the quiet back roads. She lives with her son and three rescue cats who are, of course, nocturnal. Aslan, the cat in her books, is based on her departed first cat by that name, who spent an inordinate amount of time digging up her houseplants.
In her books, Bookens addresses issues of justice and writes with intention to disrupt the white supremacy that says that "whiteness" is normal by making purposeful note of every character's ethnicity. She is weary of books that assume everyone is white unless the author says otherwise because being white is not the default of reality. Her hope is that readers enjoy escaping into her stories and are challenged, just a little, to make themselves better people and the world a better place from the reading.
