I’m sipping coffee, basking in the quiet before my girls wake up. I got up before my five-thirty alarm, walked the dog, and ate protein for breakfast. I’m invincible.
“Mooom!” The scream of my fifteen-year-old daughter Anabel is guttural. Zipper, our goldendoodle, scream-barks in response and takes off running up the stairs.
“You’re the one who forgot! It’s not my fault!” Maelynn, my younger daughter, slams a door. Her bedroom door? Bathroom? Her voice is filled with rage. “Mom!”
I stand up and pour myself a second cup of coffee.
After forty full minutes of arguments, complaints that I didn’t buy the right brand of English muffins, and using a hairdryer to dry the armpits of Anabel’s Gender and Sexuality Alliance Club T-shirt that she forgot to put in the dryer last night (which she tried to blame her sister for, thus setting off the feud), I’m sweaty and exhausted, but the girls have been deposited in front of their schools, left to do their job, which is public-provided education, so that I can do my job.
I’m a homemaker. I have the business cards to prove it. I insisted on making “homemaker” a paid role in the settlement of my divorce from the girls’ dad. I wanted a homemaking salary rather than alimony, because I wanted some kind of recognition of the depth and breadth of skill I’ve honed over fifteen years of managing a household. “Homemaker” is a job that requires nuanced communication, multitasking, foresight, planning, physical labor, emotional labor, and taking years away from being in the formal workforce, where other people get money and benefits in exchange for those kinds of skills.
Today, I pick up prescription cat food, field three emergency texts from Anabel, rearrange my calendar to fit in the new date and time for Maelynn’s IEP meeting that’s already been rescheduled twice, drop off library books, eat lunch with my ex-mother-in-law, order groceries, and take the dog out quick before it’s time to grab Anabel from school. She and I are waiting in the school yard for Maelynn to be released when I notice something.
One of the women in my former social group has an expensive new handbag. But she’s been using a phone with a cracked screen for weeks. Does an ordinary mom in Green Bay, Wisconsin, spend almost a thousand dollars on a new purse and not fix their phone screen?
Anabel calls me “nosy,” but moms need to notice everything to make sure nothing bad happens to our kids. Plus, I grew up in a cohousing community in rural Oregon—basically a commune—and had it drilled into me that we have to notice everything about our neighbors, too, so we can all take care of each other.
But this time, when I apply my homemaking skills to discover the story of the expensive handbag, I end up deep in the investigation of a mother’s disappearance. Not only that, but I make the acquaintance of an FBI agent who’s the first interesting man I’ve met since my divorce, I mess things up with my best friend, I drive my ex to question my sanity, and I dig in up to my elbows in the secrets of an MLM on the verge of falling apart.
The stakes are higher than losing a group of friends who probably didn’t like me much in the first place. They’re downright dangerous. But with another woman’s life on the line—a mother’s life—I can’t stop until I know everything. Even if it changes mine.
Homemaker – A Prairie Nightingale Mystery, Book 1
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Release: June 2025
Format: Print, Digital, Audio
Amazon | Barnes and Noble
When a former friend and devoted mother vanishes, a confident homemaker turned amateur sleuth follows an unexpected trail of scandals and secrets to find her.
Prairie Nightingale is both the midlife mother of two teenage girls and a canny entrepreneur who has turned homemaking into a salaried profession. She’s also fascinated with the gritty details of other people’s lives. So when seemingly perfect Lisa Radcliffe, a member of her former mom-friends circle, suddenly disappears, it’s in Prairie’s nature to find out why.
Given her innate talent for vital pattern recognition, Prairie is out to catch a few clues by taking a long, hard look at everyone in Lisa’s life—and uncovering their secrets. Including Lisa’s. Prairie’s dogged curiosity is especially irritating to FBI agent Foster Rosemare, the first interesting man Prairie has met since her divorce. His square jaw and sharp suits don’t hurt.
But even as the investigation begins to wreak havoc on Prairie’s carefully tended homelife, she’s resolved to use her multivalent homemaking skills to solve the mystery of a missing mom—and along the way discover the thrill of her new sleuthing ambitions.
About the author
Ruthie Knox and Annie Mare write critically acclaimed, bestselling mystery and romance, usually (but not always) together. They are the authors of the Prairie Nightingale mysteries and the TV Detectives mystery series. Ruthie and Annie are married and live with two teenagers, two dogs, multiple fish, two glorious cats, four hermit crabs, and a bazillion plants in a very old house with a garden.