Quiet Fractures Beyond Briar Hollow
(2026)(The sixth book in the Quiet Discretion Mysteries series)
A Story by Petra Shaw
In Briar Hollow, silence isn’t just a habit—it’s a survival protocol.
Clara Whitlock runs Second Chances Antiques, a shop full of beautiful old things…and the kind of objects that don’t stay quiet when they’ve been touched by something wrong. With her sharp-tongued cat Nimbus keeping watch (and commentary), Clara has learned one hard rule: in this town, you don’t ask questions too loudly.
Then a reporter calls from Greystone Falls—and she uses the word objects like she’s been trained.
Elin Ward has a letter she was never meant to see. It names Clara as a ‘destabilizing node’ and warns the system not to let her story spread. Worse? The man in charge of keeping Briar Hollow ‘stable’ has been removed. And the people who replaced him don’t wear badges.
They call themselves Custodians. They don’t solve problems. They contain them—by rewriting reputations, medicalizing witnesses, and sealing the truth before it can infect the public.
But the Custodians are fracturing.
Two factions. Two agendas. One crumbling ledger.
And when Elin makes the story public, Briar Hollow becomes the spark point for something the Custodians fear more than chaos:
A careful truth—told in daylight—by people who refuse to be managed anymore.
If you love small-town secrets, a clever amateur sleuth, an eerie ‘object-of-the-book’ mystery, and a snarky feline sidekick, you’re about to get pulled in deep.
Read Book 6 now—because once the quiet breaks, it doesn’t go back together.
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Clara Whitlock runs Second Chances Antiques, a shop full of beautiful old things…and the kind of objects that don’t stay quiet when they’ve been touched by something wrong. With her sharp-tongued cat Nimbus keeping watch (and commentary), Clara has learned one hard rule: in this town, you don’t ask questions too loudly.
Then a reporter calls from Greystone Falls—and she uses the word objects like she’s been trained.
Elin Ward has a letter she was never meant to see. It names Clara as a ‘destabilizing node’ and warns the system not to let her story spread. Worse? The man in charge of keeping Briar Hollow ‘stable’ has been removed. And the people who replaced him don’t wear badges.
They call themselves Custodians. They don’t solve problems. They contain them—by rewriting reputations, medicalizing witnesses, and sealing the truth before it can infect the public.
But the Custodians are fracturing.
Two factions. Two agendas. One crumbling ledger.
And when Elin makes the story public, Briar Hollow becomes the spark point for something the Custodians fear more than chaos:
A careful truth—told in daylight—by people who refuse to be managed anymore.
If you love small-town secrets, a clever amateur sleuth, an eerie ‘object-of-the-book’ mystery, and a snarky feline sidekick, you’re about to get pulled in deep.
Read Book 6 now—because once the quiet breaks, it doesn’t go back together.
Genre: Cozy Mystery