From the nineteenth century mail-order brides to the dating app you can swipe on your phone today, matchmaking is a centuries’ old business. This is no different for the Amish. Amish matchmakers have been long a part of the Amish culture. In Matchmaking Can Be Murder, you will be introduced to my Amish matchmaker Millie Fisher. Millie is a sixty-seven-year-old Amish widow who has been matchmaking Amish couples her whole adult life. But what makes Millie such a great matchmaker? Let’s find out.
1. Patience. Millie is patient with those forlorn in love and who come to her seeking help. She doesn’t rush them as they tell her their stories. She doesn’t push them to make any split-second decisions.
2. Compassion. Millie was blessed to have found her late husband Kip in her own Amish community when they were both children. However, she knows that is not the case for everyone. For some, finding love is a much more difficult process. She kind and loving to those who have struggled in this department.
3. Humor. A lot of things about love, especially about the awkward process of falling in love, are funny, and Millie recognizes this and reminds others to laugh.
4. Loyalty. Millie cares deeply for her community, and she will give advice based on what she thinks is best for the person seeking her help.
5. Respect. Ultimately, Millie knows that who her clients fall in love with is out of her control. Even if she doesn’t agree with a person’s choice in a partner, Millie steps out of the way and lets the client forge his or her own path.
I hope you will enjoy this new series set in Harvest, Ohio and in the same Amish community as my Amish Candy Shop Mysteries.
Matchmaking can be murder . . .
When widowed Millie Fisher moves back to her childhood home of Harvest, Ohio, she notices one thing right away—the young Amish are bungling their courtships and marrying the wrong people! A quiltmaker by trade, Millie has nevertheless stitched together a few lives in her time, with truly romantic results. Her first mission? Her own niece, widowed gardener Edith Hochstetler, recently engaged to rude, greedy Zeke Miller. Anyone can see he’s not right for such a gentle young woman—except Edith herself.
Pleased when she convinces the bride-to-be to leave her betrothed before the wedding, Millie is later panicked to find Zeke in Edith’s greenhouse—as dead as a tulip in the middle of winter. To keep her niece out of prison—and to protect her own reputation—Millie will have to piece together a patchwork of clues to find a killer, before she becomes the next name on his list . . .
Amanda Flower, a USA Today bestselling and Agatha Award-winning author of over thirty cozy mystery novels, started her writing career in elementary school when she read a story she wrote to her sixth grade class and had the class in stitches with her description of being stuck on the top of a Ferris wheel. She knew at that moment she’d found her calling of making people laugh with her words. In addition to being an author, Amanda is a former librarian with fifteen years’ experience in Northeast Ohio. Matchmaking Can Be Murder is her latest novel and her 30th published book.