I’m Rosalie Hart and this is the start of a day I have been looking forward to for months. In just a few hours I will be opening the doors to my brand new restaurant, The Day Lily Café. Serving breakfast and lunch, our menu offers farm-to-table organic fare, mostly provided by my farm, Barclay Meadow, located in the small Eastern Shore town of Cardigan, Maryland.

The easiest way to reach the Eastern Shore of Maryland is to traverse the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, one of the top ten scariest bridges in the United States. My daughter, Annie, now in her second year in college, and I would concur. At 4.3 miles long, it takes a deep breath and a leap of faith to cross. But when you arrive on the Shore, you find yourself easing off the pedal and taking in the slower pace, the beauty of the endless shoreline, and, once you’ve spent a little time here, the unique quirkiness of this part of the world. You could even lull yourself into believing this is a place where bad things don’t happen and all is safe in the world.

I landed on the Eastern Shore two years ago when I learned my husband of twenty years was in the market for a newer model. In a hasty move, I retreated to the large farm and very old house bequeathed to me by my dear Aunt Charlotte. It was a rough transition, but I at last found my way when I started making seven grain bread on Charlotte’s ancient and well-loved kneading board. Cooking for others sustains me. And so, like dough rising in a warm corner of a kitchen, my heart revived and I accepted my ‘new’ home.

When I arrived at the café this morning, my two wait staff and short order cook were at the ready. My heart swelled as I gazed around the room. The walls were painted a warm ocher, the color of the evening sun on a Tuscan villa. The tables were topped with crisp white cloths, the day’s specials on the chalkboard, written in a playful font by my ethereal yet kind-hearted waitress, Crystal Sterling.

We stacked our hands and did a pump-up cheer. “We got this!”

It was almost 7:00, just a few minutes before we would flip the closed sign to open. Everything was in place and the aroma of a freshly-ground Columbian roast saturated the air. Glenn, my best friend and head waiter, who had recently retired from an executive position at IBM, approached as I filled small baskets with warm brown sugar cinnamon muffins.

“Are you really offering free muffins?” His brows dipped as he peered at me over his wire-rimmed glasses.

“Of course.” I smiled. “It’s our grand opening.”

“Well, budget be damned, they smell divine. May I?”

I placed a muffin on a square cocktail napkin. “It’s a new recipe. Inspired by my mom’s cinnamon sugar toast, a Saturday morning favorite growing up.”

Glenn took a small bite. “Oh my.” He studied the muffin as his glasses slipped down his nose. “It’s going to be quite perilous to my waistline working here.”

I looked up to see a face in the window. Doris Bird peered in, hands cupped around her eyes.

In her sixties and the owner of Birdie’s, a penny candy shop around the corner, Doris had helped me out more than once last year after I discovered the body of a coed in my marsh grasses. With a need to make sense of my own upturned life, I found I was driven to find the truth about what happened to her. With some help from my friends, front and foremost, Glenn, I learned that finding answers to difficult questions was something I was actually quite good at.

“Glenn, I believe we have our first customer.”

He dusted the crumbs from his hands as he headed for the door.

Glenn offered Doris a menu, but she charged right past him and sat at the bar, gripping the handles of her purse so hard her knuckles whitened.

“Doris?”

“You got to help me, Miss Rosalie.” Perspiration dotted her hairline, her gray curls tight around her head. “My baby sister Laurie has just been accused of killing her husband.”

Death at the Day Lily Café, A Rosalie Hart Mystery #1
Genre: Cozy
Re-Release: April 2022

Rosalie Hart has finally opened the café of her dreams. Decked out with ochre-tinted walls and stuffed with delicious organic fare, the Day Lily Café is everything Rosalie could have hoped for. But not five minutes into the grand opening, Doris Bird, a dear and trusted friend, cashes in on a favor–to help clear her little sister Lori of a first degree murder charge.

With the help of her best friend and head waiter Glenn, Rosalie is on the case. But it’s not going to be easy. Unlikable and provocative, murder victim Carl James Fiddler seems to have insulted nearly everyone in town, and the suspect list grows daily. And when Rosalie’s daughter Annie gets caught in the crossfire, the search for the killer be-comes personal.

About the author
Wendy Sand Eckel is the author of the award-winning Rosalie Hart Mystery Series. Eckel, who studied criminology and earned a Master’s Degree in Social Work, enjoys life on the charming and enigmatic Eastern Shore of Maryland.

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