When Kenneth Fry brings a rare book to Nora for an appraisal, she is certain it belonged to his mother despite the her having left the books to someone else. Though the police seem ready to label the death a suicide, Nora believes otherwise because Amanda would not have treated her books as badly as some books in the house were left. When the four women start out to deliver their gift packages, they start at the house of a particularly negative woman, but Nora finds the woman, Amanda Fry, floating dead in a filthy pond at her house. Calling herself Abilene Tyler, the young woman shows an incredible knowledge of books and gets hired by Nora part- time. Then an overly thin young woman wearing a dress that she swims in and a hospital wrist band shows up at Nora Pennington's store, Miracle Books, needing help. 'A love letter to reading, with sharp characterizations and a smart central mystery.In The Whispered Word by Ellery Adams, the four women who form the Secret, Book, and Scone Society have decided to try to raise morale in Miracle Springs, NC by dropping off secret gifts at the homes of those who seem most troubled in the aftermath of the crash of the local bank.

'A love letter to reading, with sharp characterizations and a smart central mystery.'- Entertainment Weekly After a second death hits town, Nora and her intrepid friends must help the new, greenhorn sheriff discern fact from fiction-and stop a killer intent on bringing another victim's story to a close. And when a customer is found dead in an assumed suicide, Nora uncovers a connection that points to Abilene as either a suspect-or another target. She calls herself Abilene but won't reveal much else. Such is the case with the reed-thin girl hiding in the fiction section of Nora's store, wearing a hospital ID and a patchwork of faded bruises. But she and the other members of the Secret, Book, and Scone Society know that sometimes practical help is needed too.

The proprietor of Miracle Books in Miracle Springs, North Carolina, Nora Pennington believes that a well-chosen novel can bring healing and hope. In this cozy mystery by a New York Times–bestselling author, a gifted bookstore owner can find the right book for any patron, but can she find a killer?

The whispered word by ellery adams