Words Left Unspoken
(2025)(The sixth book in the Verses & Victims Mystery series)
A novel by Hailey Hartley
Chloe Bennett has found her calling writing therapeutic greeting cards for Serenity Springs Counseling Center in the peaceful town of Cedarbrook. When renowned grief therapist Dr. Grace Holloway commissions a special closure card for an anonymous client dealing with profound loss, Chloe crafts her most heartfelt message yet—words meant to bring peace and healing to someone ready to move forward. But three days after delivery, Dr. Holloway is found dead at her desk from what appears to be natural causes, and Chloe's closure card is positioned beside her like a final reading before a peaceful end. Except the scene doesn't add up, the card placement feels wrong, and Chloe's instincts as a writer tell her that something about this death is anything but natural.
Determined to understand what really happened, Chloe teams up with her bookshop-owner neighbor Finn and her intuitive golden retriever Poet to investigate. What begins as questioning subtle details—a coffee mug on the wrong side of the desk, reading glasses positioned incorrectly—quickly reveals that Dr. Holloway wasn't the compassionate healer everyone believed her to be. When Chloe receives a threatening card written in her own signature style, complete with the same phrasing and flourishes she's known for, she realizes someone is watching her closely enough to replicate her work perfectly. That same someone is willing to use Chloe's words against her to keep a devastating secret buried, and they're getting more desperate with each question she asks.
Racing to decode the hidden meanings in her own closure card before the killer decides a nosy greeting card writer has learned too much, Chloe must piece together who had the means, motive, and knowledge to make murder look like a peaceful death. In this compelling final installment of the Verses & Victims Mysteries, greeting card writer Chloe Bennett discovers that the most dangerous messages are the ones that hide deadly secrets behind words of comfort. Perfect for fans of cozy mysteries who love clever amateur detectives, loyal dogs, and small-town intrigue, Words Left Unspoken proves that in the world of therapeutic healing, sometimes the deadliest wounds are the ones left unspoken.
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Determined to understand what really happened, Chloe teams up with her bookshop-owner neighbor Finn and her intuitive golden retriever Poet to investigate. What begins as questioning subtle details—a coffee mug on the wrong side of the desk, reading glasses positioned incorrectly—quickly reveals that Dr. Holloway wasn't the compassionate healer everyone believed her to be. When Chloe receives a threatening card written in her own signature style, complete with the same phrasing and flourishes she's known for, she realizes someone is watching her closely enough to replicate her work perfectly. That same someone is willing to use Chloe's words against her to keep a devastating secret buried, and they're getting more desperate with each question she asks.
Racing to decode the hidden meanings in her own closure card before the killer decides a nosy greeting card writer has learned too much, Chloe must piece together who had the means, motive, and knowledge to make murder look like a peaceful death. In this compelling final installment of the Verses & Victims Mysteries, greeting card writer Chloe Bennett discovers that the most dangerous messages are the ones that hide deadly secrets behind words of comfort. Perfect for fans of cozy mysteries who love clever amateur detectives, loyal dogs, and small-town intrigue, Words Left Unspoken proves that in the world of therapeutic healing, sometimes the deadliest wounds are the ones left unspoken.
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Used availability for Hailey Hartley's Words Left Unspoken