Margaret O’Brien, the head maid in Mr. Edward Dickinson’s household, made it very clear to me on my first day as housemaid in the home, I was to do all the work she didn’t like. This included the dusting, the washing, and the polishing of silver. She expected me to be the first one up every morning. And since my very first morning there, I rose at four every day, so that I could move silently through the house and get the fires going both in the kitchen for cooking and in the parlor to warm that space if the night was cold. I was also to make sure that everything was pristine. Mrs. Dickinson was an exacting mistress and wanted everything to be perfect at all times. It did not matter if the Dickinsons were hosting a dinner party or the only person stopping by that day was the milkman, it always had to be perfect.

One person in the family who did not subscribe to this type of perfection was the eldest daughter, Emily Dickinson. I learned early on when I started working and living with the family, that Emily was up late most nights bent over the tiny desk in her bedroom writing. Every morning when she went down to breakfast, it was my job to pick up the scraps and pieces of what she wrote the night before. Tiny pieces of paper were all over the room as she discarded thoughts and ideas that didn’t fit perfectly in her poem. One could step on broken pencil tips and spilt ink on the floor if she wasn’t careful. Occasionally, I would find a beautiful phrase that she discarded, and I would tuck it in my apron pocket to keep. “Hope was a thing with feathers” sits in my pocket now.

In the morning when Miss Dickinson’s room was cared for, I returned to the kitchen where I would help Margaret make breakfast for the family of five. After which, it was a full day of cleaning the house from top to bottom. Neither Mrs. Dickinson nor Margaret abided by single speck of dust in the house. In a house so large, it was a constant battle to keep the dust bunnies at bay.

It was like that every day until my brother Henry Noble was killed at the Amherst stables. His death changed everything in my life including my relationship with the Dickinson family, most notable with Miss Emily Dickinson who wanted to find out how Henry died. I don’t know if she did this because she cared about me or because she merely wanted to play detective, but whatever her reasons may have been, I was grateful. Investigating my baby brother’s last days was not a journey I was prepared to take alone.

Because I Could Not Stop for Death, An Emily Dickinson Mystery #1
Genre: Historical
Release: September 2022
Purchase Link

Emily Dickinson and her housemaid, Willa Noble, realize there is nothing poetic about murder in this first book in an all-new series from USA Today bestselling and Agatha Award–winning author Amanda Flower.

January 1855 Willa Noble knew it was bad luck when it was pouring rain on the day of her ever-important job interview at the Dickinson home in Amherst, Massachusetts. When she arrived late, disheveled with her skirts sodden and filthy, she’d lost all hope of being hired for the position. As the housekeeper politely told her they’d be in touch, Willa started toward the door of the stately home only to be called back by the soft but strong voice of Emily Dickinson. What begins as tenuous employment turns to friendship as the reclusive poet takes Willa under her wing.

Tragedy soon strikes and Willa’s beloved brother, Henry, is killed in a tragic accident at the town stables. With no other family and nowhere else to turn, Willa tells Emily about her brother’s death and why she believes it was no accident. Willa is convinced it was murder. Henry had been very secretive of late, only hinting to Willa that he’d found a way to earn money to take care of them both. Viewing it first as a puzzle to piece together, Emily offers to help, only to realize that she and Willa are caught in a deadly game of cat and mouse that reveals corruption in Amherst that is generations deep. Some very high-powered people will stop at nothing to keep their profitable secrets even if that means forever silencing Willa and her new mistress. . .

About the author
Amanda Flower is a USA Today bestselling and Agatha Award-winning author of over thirty-five mystery novels. Her novels have received starred reviews from Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, and Romantic Times, and she had been featured in USA Today, First for Women, and Woman’s World. She currently writes for Penguin-Random House (Berkley), Kensington, and Sourcebooks. In addition to being a writer, she was a librarian for fifteen years. Today, Flower and her husband own a farm and recording studio, and they live in Northeast Ohio with their four adorable cats.

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