Mother of the Bride

It would be a challenge enough for perpetual list-maker Molly West, the director of a meal-delivery program in southern Ohio, to plan an ordinary wedding for her daughter. But this is no ordinary wedding. Molly's daughter wants the ceremony to be a costumed Civil War reenactment - and the date is only two months away. To complicate matters, Sheriff Matins warns Molly that an escaped convict is on his way to their Appalachian county, intent on disrupting more than just the wedding plans. Then a bridesmaid finds a skeleton hidden in the caves beneath her historic home - caves once used by slaves fleeing the Confederacy. Is the skeleton the remains of a forgotten Union soldier, or a more recent victim of an unsolved murder? When the case brings local stories of Civil War-era struggles back to life, Molly and her friends realize that their tight-knit community hides more than one unpleasant secret.

Patricia T. Westfall is the author of Mother of the Bride, Fowl Play and Real Farm.