The Bell That Lied: Seven Bells, a Talking Raven, and Murder Buried in Alderbell’s Past

Seven historic bells. One murdered historian. And a raven who can hear when a lie rings wrong.Mara Venn came to Alderbell Island for a fresh start and an eighteen-month contract restoring the town's seven civic bells. She expected corrosion, missing records, and local politics.She did not expect to find historian Gideon Shaw dead in the ruins of the old foundry.The sheriff has a real investigation to run. Mara has something stranger: Rook, a century-old raven whose unsettling gift reacts when certain lies are spoken around an unresolved death. The problem is that Rook never explains which words are false-and nothing he hears can stand up in court.To uncover what happened, Mara must rely on the things she trusts: metal, wear patterns, photographs, access records, old rope, and the evidence people assumed no one would notice.But Gideon had been questioning the history of Alderbell's most celebrated bell, and someone has spent years making sure that history stays polished, profitable, and wrong.As Founders Weekend closes around a town built on memory, Mara discovers that restoring the truth may be far more dangerous than restoring bronze.The Bell That Lied is the first Alderbell Island Mystery-an atmospheric paranormal cozy mystery for readers who enjoy intelligent fair-play puzzles, talking animal companions, Pacific Northwest settings, dry humor, and clean slow-burn romance.