Product Description

Sarah Quilliam, manager of the Hemlock Falls Inn, and her chef sister, Meg, turn detective when a reenactment of the seventeenth-century witch trials turns all too real when a mock execution leads to a very dead victim.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #70352 in Books
• Published on: 1994-09-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 240 pages

Customer Reviews

A good start for this series
Claudia Bishop creates a likeable character in Sarah Quilliam, called Quill, who is the proprietor of the Inn at Hemlock Falls. Her widowed sister Meg happens to be a whiz in the kitchen and the two team up to run the Inn and solve murders on the side. The focus of this book is a festival where the history of the area is re-enacted in a play which describes the witch trials which occurred in the 17th. century. The members of the Chamber of Commerce run the play and they are suspects in the murders which occur, along with the colorful characters who inhabit the Inn during the History Days festival. Quill's boyfriend is the sheriff and he tries to disuade her from being too nosey about the murders, but to no avail. She prides herself on her investigative talents, but she is not the first person in the Inn to deduce the identity of the killer. This is a well-written and enjoyable book.

Introducing the Quilliam Sisters.
This book is fun. Looks like the begining of a series that features two sleuthing sisters who run Hemlock Falls Inn. Sarah owns the Inn and her sister, Meg is the chef. We are brought into the towns annual festival, whose highlight is a reenactment of 17th century witch trials, which ends in a mock excution of a witch by stones; which becomes all to real. The victim, a guest from the Inn. The murderer...anyone in town.... The sisters rely on their skill for catching culprits.

Not Much of a Taste
I have been going through mystery novels like water this summer. I had never heard of Claudia Bishop before, but was excited to get started on her Hemlock Falls series. I have to admit that I became less excited as I had to dredge my way through the first half of the book.

The main character in the book, Sarah "Quill" Quilliam, did not seem like a strong character. Her sidekick (her sister, Meg) was much more interesting. I have just finished reading Nancy Pickard and Diane Mott Davidson. You could see what made their main characters click. There were evident reasons why they were the way they were. I found that I couldn't find those reasons with Quill. I longed to understand what made her click. It seemed that Bishop spent more time explaining the sister Meg and other minor characters.

I do have to say that after I realized I wasn't going to understand Quill, and that I would just have to trust that different experiences shaped her- experiences that were to remain a mystery- I was able to get into the book a little more. The second half went much faster, but I was disappointed in the abrupt ending.

I will read the next book in the series, because I am interested to learn more about Quill. I suppose if I come away from that one as disappointed as I did from this one, I will start over with a new author and a new series.