I've enjoyed Lea Wait's Mainely Needlepoint cozy series from the beginning. I've painlessly learned a lot about Maine through these books-- from its fascinating history to its landscape and weather to the customs of present-day Mainers. And I am happy to announce, Thread Herrings is the best of the series so far. 

I loved the reminder of how much fun attending auctions can be, and I can imagine many other readers being tempted to attend their first one from Wait's description of Angie's experience at the beginning of the book. But the one thing that takes center stage in Thread Herrings is the mystery. Angie's friend is shot to death on her way to meet Angie at a local restaurant. From strangers asking locals where she lives to death threats by email and other means, it's clear to see that Angie's life is well and truly in danger and Wait skillfully ratchets up the suspense (and the need to read faster to make sure Angie doesn't come to harm).

And guess what? Wait doesn't create this palpable tension by having Angie do something stupid! I can't tell you how refreshing that is. Angie gets a bad case of cabin fever, but when the local and state police tell her to stay put and stay inside, she does it-- and the book is still scary and suspenseful. (There are authors who need to make note of this because I'm not the only reader who can't stand characters who are TSTL-- Too Stupid To Live.)

The reveal at the end of Thread Herrings is a satisfying one, and now I have to settle down and wait for the next installment. It can't come fast enough for me.

Thread Herrings
By:  Lea Wait
Kensington Books
3 Stars

Angie Curtis, the owner of Mainely Needlepoint, was invited to her first auction by her friend, Sarah Byrne, an antique shop owner.  Angie was fascinated by the great variety of items up for auction, and those bidding on the auctions.  She specifically expressed some interest in all of the needlepoints, but it was a badly damaged embroidered coat of arms that truly intrigued her.  She bid on it and won it.  When she got home, she unframed it and found a folded piece of paper with a blue silk ribbon in it.  The paper was a “receipt” for a boy named “Charles” who was left at the Foundling Hospital in England in 1757.  Angie was puzzled by the paper and the coat of arms.  She wanted to find out the story behind them.  Her friend, Clem, who worked at the local new station, suggested she participate in a short piece about the items in order to ask viewers to help her solve the mystery.  That was when her troubles began.  A threat was sent to the news station that warned that Clem and Angie would be killed if they didn’t leave the story alone.  The next day, Clem was found dead. Even with her guilt over Clem’s death, Angie was still determined to solve the mystery.  Will she be able to solve it before she winds up dead as well?

I thought this book had a very riveting plot.  The author does a great job with the rising action of the story.  The intensity of the plot becomes more and more desperate, and the urgency builds and builds.  It was one of those books that is hard to put down because you have to find out what happens next.  A unique detail in this story is that Angie is in hiding for almost all of the climbing action, and she therefore has to rely almost solely on her phone to help her solve the mystery.  We don’t often find cozy mystery sleuths that do almost all of their investigating with a phone.  

There are two main ingredients this book is missing though:  suspects and motives.  We have to wait all the way until the end until we find out who and why.  There is never really a suspect list, and no way for the reader to figure out “whodunit?”  When we are finally given a possible suspect there still isn’t a viable motive.  It isn’t until the suspect actually describes what happens that he also reveals the why, and the why seems a little far fetched.

So even though the ending was a little weak, I would still recommend this book to cozy mystery lovers.

Thanks to Net Galley & Kensington Books for an ARC of this book.  #NetGalley #ThreadHerrings

This is book 7 in “A Mainely Needlepoint Mystery” series and I loved it .
Set in Maine , the story centers around main character Angie , a gutsy female who loves a mystery .
When Angie accompanies her friend Sarah , an antiques shop owner , to a large auction she gets more then she bargained for when she decides to buy a beautiful embroidered coat of arms that is more then a little rough around the edges .
Once she gets it home she finds out it has an intriguing history that she needs her friends help in solving , unfortunately that help comes with deadly consequences.
If you love a story with a fantastic back story , a creepy stalker and plenty of danger lurking around every few pages then this is the book for you. This kept me on my toes , I like how Lea Kept the tension building and how I could not guess who was the “baddie” . I will definitely be reading more from this series .
Another extra goodie in this book was the delightful little snippets of people’s stories of needlework. I think it really added to the story and how special handcrafts can be .

I kindly received this book from Netgalley For review. This book is being published by Kensington Publishing on Oct 30th and will be available where all good books are sold . 
Below please find the links :

Lea Wait:
https://www.leawait.com/
Goodreads
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38354053-thread-herrings

Thread Herrings is a terrific mystery.  I enjoyed the plot, characters and the writing.  Mystery fans should enjoy this book.  Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for my digital arc this is my unbiased review.

Thread Herrings is the seventh installment in the Mainely Needlepoint series featuring Angie Curtis and set in the small town of Heavenly Harbor, ME.  Things are quiet in February so Angie agrees to accompany best friend and antique shop owner, Sarah Byrne to an estate auction in neighboring Augusta.

Fascinated by a variety of needlework both Sarah and Angie bid on a few items with Angie taking home a faded, half finished Coat of Arms.  Upon getting the piece home Angie disassembles the frame and discovers a folded paper receipt and accompanying billet for a boy named Charles who had been left at the London Foundling Hospital in 1757.  Realizing that there isn't much she can do to repair the needlework, Angie decides to learn more about the baby boy and his parentage.

A subsequent trip to the Maine Historical Society proves uninformative, so Angie stops in to visit her high school classmate and Portland TV reporter, Clem Walker.  Upon hearing the story Clem convinces Angie to do a short segment on the local news in hopes that someone might recognize the story of the Coat of Arms.  That evening, immediately after the news airs, both Clem and Angie begin receiving death threats - someone is determined to stop them from discovering who Charles was.

Within a few days, Clem has been murdered, someone has blown up Angie's car, and strange people are lurking in Haven Harbor trying to find Angie.  On the advice of Pete Lambert, Haven Harbor's Police Chief and State Police Officer Ethan Trask, Angie agrees to move in temporarily with boyfriend Patrick West behind the locked gates of the West compound.

Determined to try and solve the mystery but unable to leave the house, Angie relies on a couple of the Mainely Needlepoint workers for background and genealogical discovery.  The author has done quite a bit of research regarding needlepoint and embroidery and historical snippets once again start each chapter, the workings of Foundling Hospitals are explained in detail, and a brief description of auction protocol is included.

I am not a fan of Patrick, and sorry to say but I still did not warm up to his character after this latest installment.  I was also disappointed that there was not much interaction with the Mainely Needlepoint workers, and only brief conversations between Angie and her grandmother.  All in all fast paced story line and well developed plot that will leave series readers happy and looking for the next installment.

I received an advanced copy of Thread Herrings from NetGalley via Kensington Publishing.  While not required to write a review I am more than happy to offer my honest opinion.

Who would expect a piece of needlework from 1750s London on auction in Maine would lead to murder in .....Maine?  Wow.  This installment of an interesting cozy series has Angie and her friends rightly fearing for their lives even as they try to determine the identity of baby Charles and why he is so important all these years later.  The mystery is well done and Wait has fleshed it out by opening each chapter with an appropriate quote or piece of needlework.  The characters are well done, the menace surprisingly realistic, and all in all it's a good read.  Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. Don't worry if you haven't read the earlier books- you'll be fine with this as a standalone.  Oh, and there's a recipe.

This book is part of the “Mainely Needlepoint” series, which follows Angie and her friends and family who work as part of her needlepoint business in Haven Harbour. Many of the other needlepointers have other full-time jobs, like Sarah, who has her own antique store. Angie accompanies Sarah to her first auction, where she buys a tattered coat-of-arms, which was seen as worthless by many of the other attendees. However, after taking the embroidery out of the frame, she discovers a claim for a child from a foundling hospital. Angie teams up with her reporter friend, Clem, in order to ask the public for any information on the child or coat-of-arms. But, after Angie receives threats against her life, and Clem is found murdered in her car, Angie knows she needs to unmask the killer before she becomes his next victim!

I was really looking forward to reading this book. I am a big fan of the Mainely Needlepoint series and have enjoyed other books by Lea Wait. I loved the auction aspect of this book — it was so interesting to learn about the process behind preparing for an auction, researching the items, and then participating in the event. I also love the mystery surrounding the claim ticket — what an interesting mystery! And who doesn’t love hidden treasure, even if it’s a document rather than gold? It was great to learn more about the history of foundling hospitals (though I was already familiar with the concept) and I thought it set a really interesting historical mystery/story. 

I think the only downside to the book is that the killer wasn’t very challenging to pick out. There really ended up being one suspect and then that was it. But, uncovering the why was more interesting. 

I enjoyed this book and thought the mystery was so interesting. I didn’t think this book really did much to progress any relationships between characters, but I did enjoy how Lea Wait used the historical case of foundling hospitals in this book.

When Angie Curtis attends an auction with her best friend Sarah Byrne, she doesn't expect to find anything in particular.  But on an impulse she purchases an old needlework embroidery of a coat and arms.  Even though Sarah tells her it isn't worth much, Angie decides she likes it and takes it home.  When she removes the frame she finds what turns out to be a piece of ribbon that identifies a child from a foundling hospital.  When she investigates further she discovers that it originated in England.

She decides to do a little more digging but the historical society is unable to help; running into her friend Clem Walker - a reporter for a television station - yields at least some sort of answer.  Clem puts her on the air to talk about her find but the response they receive isn't one they're waiting for.  Death threats ensue, and while Angie is shaken, she thinks at first it must be a crank.  But when she's supposed to meet Clem for lunch and the woman doesn't show up, it's not long after that she's found dead in her car, with an embroidery needle in her neck, leaving the threat to Angie's life taken seriously.

But when another tragedy strikes it's apparent to everyone that Angie's life is in danger, so she's convinced to hide out until the killer is found, having no contact with her friends or family unless by phone.  But it's not long before she starts to feel caged; and since she has nothing but time on her hands, she slowly starts to put the pieces together of who wants her dead.  But the why eludes her, and unless she can convince a killer to confess, someone just could get away with murder...

I can't tell you how thoroughly I enjoyed this book.  We get to see how Angie reacts when she's not only faced with a life-or-death situation, trying to figure out why someone would kill for a badly kept piece of embroidery.  She's used to being independent and for the first time must actually do what the police say and keep out of sight, even if it is in a beautiful place with Patrick.

Most of the "action" actually takes place through telephone calls which makes it a little unique in the fact that the protagonist didn't go out and stumble across clues.  They were given through conversations (and a little bit of Internet research), which I thought was quite interesting.

When Angie finally puts everything together she has a difficult time convincing people to believe her, but I think that only made the book more plausible and it showed that the author is able to convey a story without putting the main character through a bunch of false steps before figuring out the truth.

I liked the fact that for those of us who have never been to an auction (nor probably will ever have a true desire to do so) the steps leading to the auction itself were explained, as I didn't realize that there was an 'order' that must be done (although I did know that one can't just go in, sit down and raise a paddle to bid).

When the ending comes and we ourselves learn the truth, it is a tale as old as time, but a sad one nonetheless, and shows us to what extent some will go to in order get what they want.  As the seventh book in the series, it is just as good as the previous ones, and Ms. Wait is indeed able to craft a story that keeps you reading throughout, wanting to know where the tale will lead.  I look forward to the next in the series.  Recommended.

Angie Curtis’s friend and antique dealer, Sarah Byrne, has invited her along to her first antique auction.  There are several very nice antique needlepoints at the auction but a heavily damaged coat of arms catches Angie’s eye.  She’s the only bidder on the piece and when she removes the frame from it she discovers a document that will lead to murder and put her life in danger.

I have enjoyed every sojourn into Haven Harbor, ME.  Wait’s cozy mystery series gives you a community you wish you were a citizen.  However, she’s not above bumping off one of those you have become familiar.  Even though it is considered a cozy, the events can be very dangerous.  She’s not afraid to put her protagonist into harms way. I’m always sad when one comes to an end.  The end to this installment seemed rushed to me.  I believe it’s because I read the book in one sitting.  I still enjoyed it and want another next week.    #ThreadHerrings   #MainelyNeedlepoint  #NetGalley

Thread Herrings is the seventh installment in Lea Wait’s Mainely Needlepoint Mystery series and is an engaging, well-plotted mystery with well-developed characters.  The writing style flows smoothly at a steady pace, and the book is an easy read.  The author is very talented in descriptive writing, and much of the time I was reading, I felt like I was there, watching the activities taking place.  There are enough suspects, twists, and turns, to make it difficult to figure out who the killer is.  The story quickly drew me in, and the reveal and ending were surprising.  Ms. Wait has provided sufficient character background that allows this book to be read as a standalone.

Angie Curtis, who manages Mainely Needlepoint in Haven Harbor, Maine, attends her first auction with her friend, Sarah Byrne, who owns From Here and There.  Angie isn’t sure why, but she’s drawn to a badly damaged piece of needlework and feels compelled to bid on it. When she takes the embroidered coat of arms home, she removes it from its frame and discovers a receipt dated October 1757 for a child named Charles who was left at a foundling hospital, and a beautifully embroidered ribbon.  Angie learns the foundling hospital was located in London, the ribbon was a called billet, and that anyone relinquishing a child would receive half the billet and would need it to reclaim the child.  Clem Walker, Angie’s friend and TV reporter with the local station, interviews her and asks for anyone with information about the needlepoint to contact the station. Within minutes of the airing, the station receives a death threat for Clem, Angie, and anyone who tries to find information about the embroidery or receipt and Angie receives a threatening message through her website.  Angie and Clem arrange to meet for lunch the next day to discuss the fact that both received threats.  When Clem doesn’t show up for lunch, Angie goes to Sarah’s shop but before she even enters the shop, receives a call from Haven Harbor PD’s Sergeant Pete Lambert, who tells her Clem was found dead in her car and instructing her to stay put with Sarah.  Pete and Ethan Trask, her high school crush and a Maine state trooper in the homicide department, insist she doesn’t return to her home.  She agrees to spend the night with Sarah, arranges to stay with her boyfriend, Patrick West, for the next few days.  The next day, Gram’s new husband, Reverend Tom, is injured when her car explodes.  Even though she’s forced into hiding, Angie is determined to learn the history behind the coat of arms and help Pete and Ethan solve the crimes.

I received an Advance Reader Copy of this book from NetGalley and voluntarily reviewed it.

This was a great story.  The research Lea Wait must have done was excellent.  I was inspired to check out my own ancestors after I finished reading.

This is an enjoyable read. In this outing, Angie, is having to do her sleuthing by telephone for the most part so it was a creative spin. The characters are well developed and I enjoyed Haven Harbor, Maine setting. I like the development of the character's lives from book to book. I missed some of the regulars since she Angie didn't go visit them.

I received an eARC from the publisher via NetGalley for an honest review. - Truly a good series

Thread Herrings is a fun cozy mystery for fall nights when you want just a little read before bed.  The story is a little slow at the beginning but becomes interesting as it moves along.  Great for needleworkers who would enjoy learning about auctions and the value and history of needlepoint.

I seriously couldn't put this book down. The story was captivating!
Family, friends, food, history, murder, romance, kittens! This book had it all.
I love the way the characters interacted with each other. Their depth was so well presented they felt like real people and became fast friends.
The story never lagged and the ending was a surprise.
An excellent read. Don't pass up this book.

Wow,love this new twist on the series. Who wouldn't love to find a piece of history and solve the mystery? Nice tie in with family relationships. and of course the needlepoint. Well written characters and a good mystery, not sure I'd prefer a different ending or not yet.

Lea Wait spins a great yarn and Thread Herrings is an intriguing mystery.

Angie Curtis, owner of Mainely Needlepoint, accompanies friend and antique shop owner Sarah Byrne to an estate auction in Augusta.  The adventure begins when Angie purchases a needlepoint of a coat of arms that is in bad shape but intrigues Angie. 

Angie discovers a receipt for a foundling from 1757 and sets out to try and track down the family.  She runs into Clem, a TV reporter with the local station who interviews her and asks for anyone with information about the needlepoint to contact the station.  Within hours the station receives death threats for both Clem and Angie.

Angie and Clem arrange to meet for lunch the next day to discuss the fact that both have received more threats overnight.  When Clem doesn’t show up for lunch, Angie goes to visit Sarah to determine how to find out more about the coat of arms and the paper.  While at Sarah’s the police call and inform her that Clem has been found murdered.  The police insist she find a safe place to stay until they can track down whoever is behind the death threats.  The next day, Rev. Tom, her Gram’s new husband is injured when he goes to retrieve Angie’s car and it explodes and burns up.

Obviously, this is a suspense filled story that keeps pages turning until the very end.
The characters and relationships are well-developed and realistic.  Ms. Wait has a way with words, fabricating a community that feels comfortable and welcoming.    
As always, sitting with a Mainely Needlepoint Mystery is a relaxing joy.

Angie, the owner of Mainely Needlepoint, attends her first auction with her friend and buys a poorly preserved embroidered coat of arms which intrigues her. The real surprise is behind the embroidery; a beautifully crafted bookmark and information about a baby who was given to a foundling home in London. Angie is intrigued by the story and is searching for more information. Her friend, Clem, a news reporter puts the story on air, asking the public for information. Instead, Clem and Angie receive anonymous threats. Of course, Angie doesn’t drop the search, despite the very real danger. The story leads back to the early days of Maine, but who cares enough to kill for it? This series continues to be enjoyable with a well-crafted mystery and sympathetic characters.

This was probably my favorite book in the series so far.  The story had a lot of unusual elements for this series and kept steaming along.  The only problem was the limited pool of suspects and a bit hard to believe motive.

I received my copy from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.

I think this series keeps getting better, & this is the best of them. I found all the history to be interesting. I did think the conclusion to the story was too easy. There was no evidence or proof leading to the culprit just a guess. It felt kind of lazy. But it's a very enjoyable read up to that point. #ThreadHerrings #NetGalley

I was disappointed in the last book in this series and I was pleasantly surprised with how exciting and perilous this book was. It was a definite change of pace from the normal Mainely Needlepoint mysteries.

The conclusion, however, was a terrible letdown. The motivation, the ‘story’ behind the mystery were so flimsy. It was an incredibly disappointing end to what had been such a promising book.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. I was not paid for this review.