The First Sprig (A Sprig Mystery: The Prequel)
Before Pea Ridge. Before the murders. Before she knew what she was.
Maple Crowder is having the worst week of her life. She's just been let go from her landscape design job, the city she moved to has finally chewed her up, and a voice from back home keeps tugging at her—her grandmother Junie, calling her back to the Ozarks for reasons she won't explain over the phone.
Then a woman in Maple's building dies. The official story is a bad heart and worse luck. But Maple has always been able to feel what's wrong with a thing—the silent hum of a dead rosemary, the wrongness in a courtyard garden no one else will look at too closely. And what she feels is that someone helped this death along.
As Maple traces the truth through a too-helpful home aide, a grieving family, and a secret hidden in the soil, she begins to understand that her strange gift isn't a curse to hide. It's a calling. And it's about to lead her home—to a town, a grandmother, and a legacy that have been waiting for her all along.
A standalone prequel to The Sprig Mysteries, The First Sprig is the perfect place to meet Maple Crowder before the series begins. Cozy, atmospheric, and laced with old green magic—pour the tea and mind the rosemary.
Start here, then dig into the first full-length mystery, Nipped in the Sprig—and discover what's really growing in Pea Ridge.