The Maplewood Mysteries: Books 1-5
(2026)(A book in the Maplewood Mystery series)
An omnibus of novels by Julian Brooks
Five complete mysteries. One small town. Every secret it tried to keep.
Owen Harper has lived in Maplewood his whole life. He knows which floorboards creak at the bakery, which neighbors will talk and which ones never do, and exactly how long a story takes to travel from one end of the street to the other. Four years after losing his wife, the routine was the point: ovens on before dawn, the same customers at the same tables, a life small enough to carry.
Then a food critic collapsed at his tasting counter, and the town he had known since childhood started looking at him differently.
What followed taught Owen something he never wanted to know. That a place this quiet keeps its secrets on purpose. That the people who help without being asked are the ones nobody thinks to protect. And that the difference between an accident and a murder is usually just whether anyone bothers to look twice.
This collection contains the complete Maplewood Mysteries:
A Tart Most Deadly
A critic dies in Owen's cafe, and the whole town has an opinion about why.
A Silence Most Deadly
A death everyone accepted five years ago. Owen is the only one who stopped accepting it.
A Secret Most Deadly
A woman is found near the bakery, and the obvious answer arrives too quickly.
A Spark Most Deadly
A fire on the waterfront, two men still inside, and a version of events that will not hold.
A Cost Most Deadly
Some debts are never meant to be repaid. Owen finds out what one of them cost.
Warm, clean, and quietly observed, with a small-town cast you will want to move in with and a slow-burn romance that takes all five books to arrive. No cliffhangers. No loose threads. Every question raised in book one is answered by the end of book five.
Plus 25 bonus recipes from Harper's Hearth
Collected here for the first time, including five gluten-free favorites. Owen's brown butter banana bread, his buttermilk biscuits, the maple pecan bars, and the flourless chocolate torte he saves for people who have earned it.
Start where Maplewood opens its doors.
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Owen Harper has lived in Maplewood his whole life. He knows which floorboards creak at the bakery, which neighbors will talk and which ones never do, and exactly how long a story takes to travel from one end of the street to the other. Four years after losing his wife, the routine was the point: ovens on before dawn, the same customers at the same tables, a life small enough to carry.
Then a food critic collapsed at his tasting counter, and the town he had known since childhood started looking at him differently.
What followed taught Owen something he never wanted to know. That a place this quiet keeps its secrets on purpose. That the people who help without being asked are the ones nobody thinks to protect. And that the difference between an accident and a murder is usually just whether anyone bothers to look twice.
This collection contains the complete Maplewood Mysteries:
A Tart Most Deadly
A critic dies in Owen's cafe, and the whole town has an opinion about why.
A Silence Most Deadly
A death everyone accepted five years ago. Owen is the only one who stopped accepting it.
A Secret Most Deadly
A woman is found near the bakery, and the obvious answer arrives too quickly.
A Spark Most Deadly
A fire on the waterfront, two men still inside, and a version of events that will not hold.
A Cost Most Deadly
Some debts are never meant to be repaid. Owen finds out what one of them cost.
Warm, clean, and quietly observed, with a small-town cast you will want to move in with and a slow-burn romance that takes all five books to arrive. No cliffhangers. No loose threads. Every question raised in book one is answered by the end of book five.
Plus 25 bonus recipes from Harper's Hearth
Collected here for the first time, including five gluten-free favorites. Owen's brown butter banana bread, his buttermilk biscuits, the maple pecan bars, and the flourless chocolate torte he saves for people who have earned it.
Start where Maplewood opens its doors.
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Used availability for Julian Brooks's The Maplewood Mysteries: Books 1-5