What Was Kept: A Brambleford Cozy Mystery

The hidden compartment in Violet Pennington's bookshop has already given up one secret. She never imagined it had been hiding another. Inside lies a note dated October 1840, written in a careful copperplate hand by Carmel Valliard, a witness to a death that was ruled an accident, but never should have been. According to the forgotten account, a man didn't drown in Brambleford's millpond. He was murdered. Before Violet can learn why the note was hidden, someone is killed to keep its contents buried. As Violet and Detective Morrison begin unraveling a mystery nearly two centuries old, they discover that some of Brambleford's oldest families have spent generations protecting the same dangerous secret. Every answer hidden in the past brings another threat in the present, and someone will do anything to ensure Carmel Valliard's testimony is never believed. Because in Brambleford, the truth has been waiting a very long time to be found.