The Clocktower That Skipped
(2026)(The fourth book in the Mosswood Apothecary Mystery series)
A novel by Cordelia Clark
An orchard that has not bloomed in fifty years is blooming now.
All at once. Out of season. From every tree at the same hour on the same morning. And by noon, a man is dead in the western valley — a stranger no one in Mosswood can quite place, who came asking questions about trees older than the town itself.
Petra Hawthorne has walked the orchard valley in every season for two years and never seen a blossom on the old rows. When she asks who planted them, no one in town can quite say. The records don't go back that far. The stories don't either.
Sheriff Mercer is calling it an accident. The county is calling it closed. But the apothecary bell keeps ringing at unusual hours, Crispin has gone unusually quiet, and there is a name carved into a stone at the base of the oldest tree — a name Mosswood has forgotten it was ever supposed to remember.
The Fracture happened once, more than a century ago. Someone in the orchard valley is trying to make it happen again.
And Crispin, who has been at the apothecary longer than any Keeper Petra has known, is the only one who remembers what the orchard is for.
The Orchard Bloom is the fifth book in the Mosswood Apothecary Mysteries — a cozy paranormal mystery series set in a small Ozark town where a black cat with green eyes runs the front counter, the shop sign has been missing two letters for as long as anyone can remember, and the woman who keeps the apothecary keeps a great deal more besides.
Perfect for readers of Alice Hoffman, Sarah Addison Allen, and cozy paranormal mysteries where the tea is warm, the cat is smarter than everyone, and the mystery beneath the mystery goes back further than the town itself.
Genre: Cozy Mystery
All at once. Out of season. From every tree at the same hour on the same morning. And by noon, a man is dead in the western valley — a stranger no one in Mosswood can quite place, who came asking questions about trees older than the town itself.
Petra Hawthorne has walked the orchard valley in every season for two years and never seen a blossom on the old rows. When she asks who planted them, no one in town can quite say. The records don't go back that far. The stories don't either.
Sheriff Mercer is calling it an accident. The county is calling it closed. But the apothecary bell keeps ringing at unusual hours, Crispin has gone unusually quiet, and there is a name carved into a stone at the base of the oldest tree — a name Mosswood has forgotten it was ever supposed to remember.
The Fracture happened once, more than a century ago. Someone in the orchard valley is trying to make it happen again.
And Crispin, who has been at the apothecary longer than any Keeper Petra has known, is the only one who remembers what the orchard is for.
The Orchard Bloom is the fifth book in the Mosswood Apothecary Mysteries — a cozy paranormal mystery series set in a small Ozark town where a black cat with green eyes runs the front counter, the shop sign has been missing two letters for as long as anyone can remember, and the woman who keeps the apothecary keeps a great deal more besides.
Perfect for readers of Alice Hoffman, Sarah Addison Allen, and cozy paranormal mysteries where the tea is warm, the cat is smarter than everyone, and the mystery beneath the mystery goes back further than the town itself.
Genre: Cozy Mystery