Secrets of Harmony Grove

Mindy Starns Clark

When she is temporarily suspended from her new job, Sienna Collins is shocked. Supposedly she has been named in a government investigation. She's done nothing wrong or illegal. What investigation could involve her? And how long before she is able to return to work and get her income back? She contacts her best friend, Liz, who is a lawyer. Liz will start looking into it as soon as she can.

Then she gets a phone call from an ex-boyfriend. Troy is at Sienna's bed and breakfast in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He asks her about the trees in the family grove. He seems to have found some old papers of her grandfather's. There is a family legend of hidden diamonds. Troy believes he has found a clue. He mentions that the B & B manager may be involved her problems. Yet Troy sounds confused and is wandering around lost. Sienna is concerned enough that she drives out to Amish country to find and help Troy if she can.

But when she arrives, Troy's body is beside the pool. Her manager of the B & B is lying there unconscious with a gun in his hand. Sienna immediately calls 9-1-1. A detective named Mike is the lead in the investigation. Although Sienna has Heath in Philadelphia who she loves, she feels an attraction for Mike. She hasn't yet told Heath or her parents about the government investigation. Now she also has to tell them about the attack.

Amish country is usually peaceful. But Sienna has walked into something that brings back past memories. She discovers discrepancies in the paperwork for the B & B. What is the manager doing there? How might the clues in her grandfather's grove help solve the mystery? Sienna's life is spinning out of her control once again. How can she find peace and contentment and control once again?

Secrets of Harmony Grove is a satisfying story of a woman who needs to find herself once again. Sienna has a high power advertising job that she loves, a man she loves but can't commit to, a sick mother, memories of a violent attack ten years earlier, a faith that she accepts but doesn't practice, and a quiet side business that suddenly isn't quiet. She had been hands off with the B & B because it had been doing well. Perhaps that was another wrong choice.

Mindy Starns Clark's novel is an interesting mystery that involves organized crime in a quiet farming area. The Amish community is the background and integral to the story, but not the focus. The B & B, Sienna's family's past and her more immediate past all come to a point where they are tied together into Troy's death and danger to more people in Sienna's family.

Clark has woven in Sienna's Christian faith so it is part of Sienna's foundation, but doesn't use it to preach. Instead Sienna questions herself and her choices, showing her strength. The Amish Christian beliefs are also explained for those of us who don't know the tenets of their faith.

Secrets of Harmony Grove keeps the pace going well, with surprises each time Sienna turns around. The odds and ends of clues are tied together at the end in some unexpected and some foreseen conclusions. Even though I had figured out Sienna's future at the end, it still filled me with a sense of happiness and satisfaction. Secrets of Harmony Grove is enjoyable Christian romantic suspense.

Notice:  Non-graphic violence

Publisher provided for review