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Till The Cows Come Home
Stella Crown series #1

by Judy Clemens



      Stella Crown loves her dairy farm, her Harley Davidson and the life she lives. She has a whole "family" of devoted friends and a longtime farmhand called Howie, but this only sounds idyllic until you look below the surface. Like all the other local farmers, Stella is practically bankrupt and is continually pestered by real-estate developers who want to buy her land for building on. When a virus breaks out and a child dies, it looks bad enough, but then things start happening at the farm that look like sabotage. Somebody is out to get Stella, and won’t stop until they commit murder.

Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm this ain’t. Instead this is an award-winning first novel that shows starkly the problems besetting modern farmers in a world that wants more for less. Stella’s Job-like sufferings do not make for an uplifting book, but this is certainly a compelling read that starts off slowly and gathers momentum, sending the reader dashing about after red herrings. It seems to promise something rather cozy, but is actually anything but. It initially shows the reader all the trappings of this type of novel - loving friends, pretty setting, burgeoning romance - and then peels off the top layer to show what is underneath. I cannot imagine where a second novel is going to take Stella, but I intend to find out. All rather neatly done.

The Book

Poisoned Pen Press UK
July 2007 (New British edition / 2004 US release)
Paperback
01590581873
Crime - Contemporary [Pennsylvania]
More at Amazon.com US|| UK
Excerpt
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The Reviewer

Rachel A Hyde
Reviewed 2007
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