Welcoming back Edith Maxwell/Maddie Day and Scone Cold Dead

 HALLIE EPHRON: Once again it's our pleasure to host Edith Maxwell/Maddie Day and celebrate the release of Scone Cold Dead, her thirteenth Country Store Mystery.  

Welcome back, Edith! What a great cover! Seems like only yesterday...

EDITH MAXWELL: Thank you, Hallie. I’ve made appearances here at Jungle Reds from the start. Hallie also hosted me back in 2015 for the release of book #1, Flipped for Murder. In “How the Heck Did we get to Indiana?”, I explained how I arrived at the perfect setting for my first series written as Maddie Day.

I was honored to have Hank endorse the book, and I helped launch it at that year’s Magna Cum Murder conference in Indianapolis, birthplace of many a Maxwell including my father. 

For those readers who haven’t been with me for the whole journey, I thought I might recap the series for you.

• Flipped for Murder #1 October 2015
• Grilled for Murder #2 May 2016
• When the Grits Hit the Fan #3 March 2017
• Biscuits and Slashed Browns #4 January 2018
• Death Over Easy #5 July 2018
• Strangled Eggs and Ham #6 July 2019
• Christmas Cocoa Murder #6.5 Sept 2019
• Nacho Average Murder #7 July 2020
• Candy Slain Murder #8 Oct 2020
• No Grater Crime #9 Sept 2021
• Batter Off Dead #10 March 2022
• Christmas Scarf Murder #10.5 September 2022
• Four Leaf Cleaver #11 January 2023
• Deep Fried Death #12 December 2023
• Scone Cold Dead #13 April 2025

In the first book, Robbie Jordan has finished fixing up the rundown country store she bought in Brown County Indiana, and she’s opening the doors to Pans ’N Pancakes, her breakfast-and-lunch restaurant in the store, for the first time. A couple of days later a murder victim is found with one of Robbie’s cheesy biscuits stuffed in her mouth, and Robbie’s future is suddenly in peril.

Leapfrog to Book #3, When the Grits Hit the Fan, takes place during a snowy winter while Robbie is working on renovations upstairs to make a few bed and breakfast rooms. A man found dead in an ice fishing hole is Robbie’s next case, and later in the book Robbie and her new boyfriend Abe are attacked during an ice storm in a remote cottage in the woods.

For that release, which coincided with the release of one of my Quaker Midwife Mysteries, Julia and Hank did a fun interview with Edith and Maddie, and for my launch party, Maddie and I interviewed each other.

Four Leaf Cleaver features a St. Patrick’s Day competition in Robbie’s store – and murder. When I crowd-sourced a title and Grace Koshida suggested Four Leaf Cleaver, I knew I had a winner. I promptly wrote a cleaver into the story.

Jenn hosted me for the release of Biscuits and Slashed Browns.

Debs hosted me for a joint celebration when No Grater Crime released, along with Alyssa Maxwell and her new book – even though we’re not related! Robbie has the first death from poisoned food in her restaurant and gets to work fast to find out who is trying to sabotage her business. The book ends happily with her marriage to Abe O’Neill.

In Batter Off Dead, the murder of a senior citizen eerily echoes one in the past, and both are linked to police Lieutenant Buck Bird, now a good friend of Robbie’s. Julia was sweet enough to host me but horrified to hear that I write into the headlights without benefit of a plot!

Fast forward: And now #13, Scone Cold Dead. A man’s body is found dead on Aunt Adele’s sheep farm, and it turns out to be someone she knew long ago. But was he murdered? Another mysterious stranger shows up in town. The bank manager has a history with the corpse, as well.

Robbie spies a face looking out from the second floor of an abandoned brick farmhouse. Adele becomes oddly tight-lipped about everything, even when the police want her to talk. In this book, Robbie is weeks away from giving birth. She tries not to put herself and her baby in danger – but she has to clear Adele’s name and get to the bottom of the mystery.

I’m grateful to have shared so many releases here. Thirteen books in ten years is a good long run for a series, and Robbie and Abe now have a newborn. I’ve made the decision to let her go on out top. Yes, I’m ending the Country Store Mysteries. You’re hearing it here first.

My deep apologies to ardent fans of the series (sorry, Jay!), but I’m at the stage of my life when I don’t want to work quite as hard. My publisher wanted to continue the Country Store Mysteries, which made the decision even more difficult.

Still, I have shifting personal priorities (one of whom is named Ida Rose), and they’re important to me. Also, nobody wants a series to go stale for readers or author. I wanted to end it while I still loved creating the stories.

I’ll still be writing the Cozy Capers Book Group series and the Cece Barton Mysteries, plus short stories and possibly a new project or two, and I hope you’ll check out my other series if you haven’t already.

Thank you to all my followers who fell in love with Robbie and the South Lick gang. I often receive messages or comments asking for the next book and saying they miss their favorite characters. I know I’ll miss Adele and Samuel, Buck and Corrine, Danna and Turner, Abe and Sean and Freddie, not to mention Birdy, Maceo, and Cocoa – and Robbie. Who knows, maybe a few of them will pop up in a short story somewhere.

Readers: Do you have a favorite book or character in the Country Store series? Or tell us about a series whose ending made you sad.

BOOK GIVEAWAY! Edith is giving away a signed copy of SCONE COLD DEAD to two luck commenters.

In Scone Cold Dead, country store and café owner Robbie Jordan is just weeks away from giving birth, and it seems Robbie and her husband, dad-to-be Abe, aren’t the only ones grappling with anxiety. A stranger is causing a stir in town and Robbie’s Aunt Adele appears unusually preoccupied at the baby shower. But when someone finds a body in the ram field on Adele’s sheep farm, it’s Robbie’s turn to be worried. Especially after Chief Buck Bird uncovers a troubling link between Adele and the possible murder victim. Robbie has no choice but to knit the clues together and solve this mystery before anything else gets flocked up . . .