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Wednesday, June 19, 2019

LAMBERTVILLE, NJ--QUAINT SHOPS, AN OLD CANAL, AND A COZY MURDER MYSTERY

Delaware and Raritan Canal, Lambertville, NJ
Author Lois Winston often travels to Lambertville, NJ to meet a cousin from Pennsylvania for lunch because it’s halfway between their two homes. Those of you who are frequent visitors to the blog will probably remember the Lambertville yarn-bombing photo I posted recently. Of course, given who Lois is and how she delights in tormenting me, it was only a matter of time before the bucolic town showed up in one of her books.

Lambertville, is a quaint town on the Delaware River with a rich Revolutionary history. It’s also along the path of the Delaware and Raritan Canal, a forty-four mile canal that spanned the narrowest section of the state from Bordentown to New Brunswick. The canal was critical to the flow of cargo during the nineteen-century industrial and commercial development of the region.
Archival photo of when the canal was still in operation
The canal is now a park, but it’s also where, thanks to Lois, a body with a connection to my family and me is discovered at the end of Decoupage Can Be Deadly, drawing me into yet another murder investigation in A Stitch To Die For. The woman just won’t give me a break!

Shops along Lambertville's main street
Murder aside, Lambertville is a lovely town with quaint shops and restaurants, and as I mentioned above, a rich connection to the Revolutionary War. According to a plaque on the grounds of the 1st Presbyterian Church of Lambertville:

“On Christmas night, December 25th, 1776 at about 11:00pm, 7 miles south of this site General George Washington and the Continental Army crossed into New Jersey and proceeded to change the tide of the War with the 1st Battle of Trenton. Here in Coryell’s Ferry, another crossing took place that night with Captain William Washington and Subaltern James Monroe (Fifth President) who led a rearguard attachment of mounted soldiers and cannon to protect the main Army’s rear flank.”

The plaque goes on to mention the founding of the church 40 years later in1816 and was built on donated land by the Coryell and Lambert families near the Coryell’s Ferry Ancient Burial Grounds. On his return to the United States, the Marquis de Lafayette worshiped in the church on July 9, 1825 while visiting the Coryell family.

If you’re ever passing through New Jersey, plan to spend an afternoon in Lambertville. I guarantee you’ll enjoy yourself, and chances are, you won’t stumble upon any dead bodies.

Decoupage Can Be Deadly
An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, Book 4

Anastasia and her fellow American Woman editors are steaming mad when minutes before the opening of a consumer show, they discover half their booth usurped by Bling!, their publisher’s newest magazine. CEO Alfred Gruenwald is sporting new arm candy—rapper-turned-entrepreneur and Bling! executive editor, the first-name-only Philomena. During the consumer show, Gruenwald’s wife serves Philomena with an alienation of affection lawsuit, but Philomena doesn’t live long enough to make an appearance in court. She’s found dead days later, stuffed in the shipping case that held Anastasia’s decoupage crafts. When Gruenwald makes cash-strapped Anastasia an offer she can’t refuse, she wonders, does he really want to find Philomena’s killer or is he harboring a hidden agenda?

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A Stitch To Die For
An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, Book 5

Ever since her husband died and left her in debt equal to the gross national product of Uzbekistan, magazine crafts editor and reluctant amateur sleuth Anastasia Pollack has stumbled across one dead body after another—but always in work-related settings. When a killer targets the elderly nasty neighbor who lives across the street from her, murder strikes too close to home. Couple that with a series of unsettling events days before Halloween, and Anastasia begins to wonder if someone is sending her a deadly message.

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