The Old Cranberry Ladies Garden Club

Despite the title, The Old Cranberry Ladies Garden Club Series is not about gardening. Although the series begins as a contemporary paranormal cozy that centers on crime almost 200 years in the past. Then the series turns back the clock and offers up a multigenerational historical family saga that transport the reader back to the nineteenth century. To celebrate the most recent book, The Sparrow and The Crow which was released in April, this Partners in Crime Blog Tour includes a Giveaway. Learn about the books, read my reviews and don’t forget to enter the giveaway at the end of the post.

THE GHOST AND THE KEY

With a pitchfork through the man’s groin and another through his chest, it is clear that someone had murdered Chester H. Cranberry. It’s not something that could have happened accidentally. But that was 192 years ago. As Mildred Cranberry, the current family matriarch, puts it, “We have two women, two keys, two pitchforks, and one dead two-timing man.” Who in their right mind would want to dig up that cold case and try to solve it? It’s not like the murderer could be prosecuted in 2024, right? But what if a key piece of evidence can be dug up (literally)? And what if a descendant of Chester’s illegitimate child can get her hands on it? Mildred will need more than the Old Cranberry Ladies Garden Club members to solve this bizarre case. The spiritual support she needs may not be what she expects when the ghost of Elcira Cranberry, the widow murderess herself, arrives to do what? Tell the truth or protect her reputation?

The Ladies Garden Club of Old Cranberry, Connecticut, has a 200-year history that has remained shrouded in secrecy for so long, it has been lost to history, until now. Elcira Cranberry and freedwoman Deborah Townsend knew the men of the town would have no interest in a garden club, so it was the perfect cover for their secret organization. Now, nearly two centuries later, the current members have no idea what those ladies were up to in the early 1800s, right here in Connecticut. But the secret will soon be out.

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Storybook Lady
Review

The Ghost and the Key is a spirited modern day story that combines mystery, history and the paranormal.

The story centers on an 1832 murder which was never solved. and despite the fact that Elcira Cranberry was never charged for her husband’s violent murder, she still became known in town as The Widow Murderess. When Aunt Sylvie digs up the literal key to the mystery 192 years later, it sets off a chain of events which could put the inheritance of the Cranberry estate in jeopardy. As the current owner Mildred and Sylvie try to solve the mystery, the ghost of Elcira seems to be helping them. Bill Cusano’s story is both witty and eerie. The story has a small town feel with colorful characters. But the author breaks the cozy mystery mold. He has created a unique story that weaves the modern day characters unearthing the mystery, with their discovery of the true facts behind the original Old Cranberry Ladies Garden Club which wasn’t always what it purported to be.

Mildred and Elcira lived almost 2 centuries apart. Both women are strong, smart ladies holding on to the estate. His portrait of Elcira who stepped into her husbands shoes to manage the farm, and her friendship with the black nanny who becomes more of a sister brings insight into life for women and blacks in the early 19th century. The ending of this story provided a twist that was totally unexpected. It resolved the modern day tale but left the reader wanting more of Elcira’s story. Fortunately, there are already two more novels in the series so far and readers won’t have to wait.

THE WIDOW MURDERESS

Connecticut, 1833. A year after Chester Cranberry’s unsolved murder, the town that he founded continues to suspect that his wife, Elcira, ended his life. With insufficient evidence to bring her to trial, and little effort to find another suspect, the town gossip labels her “The Widow Murderess.” But Elcira has seven children to feed, ranging in age from three to nine, and her nanny, Deborah, a freed slave, is pregnant with her husband’s illegitimate child.

All eyes are on these two women, expecting them to fail to keep the farm and the family together. When the general store cuts off Elcira’s credit and refuses to sell anything her farm produces, the alliance between Elcira and Deborah grows stronger, and the women set out to do something unthinkable, something that can cause one to be whipped and the other thrown in jail. They opened their home to runaway slaves seeking freedom along a secret route north. Behind the facade of a ladies’ garden club, the women run a clandestine school, teaching the formerly enslaved and runaways to read and write-a dangerous act that could destroy everything she’s built.

When a mysterious murder during a violent storm brings old secrets to light, the truth about Chester’s death threatens to surface. With the town’s suspicions mounting and powerful enemies closing in, Elcira must decide how much she’s willing to risk to protect those she loves and maintain the underground railroad that runs through her land.

A gripping historical novel about courage, family, and the price of freedom in pre-Civil War New England, The Widow Murderess explores how one woman’s determination to survive becomes a beacon of hope for those seeking liberty.

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Storybook Lady
Review

The Widow Murderess is a captivating historical novel that kept me riveted throughout. Author Bill Cusano transports the reader to the small town of Old Cranberry in the 1830s with vivid detail. The story is filled with characters who are so well written, that you care what happens to them and they stay with you long after you put the book down.

The main characters in the novel are Elcira Cranberry and Deborah Townsend. Readers meet them briefly in a prologue of the first novel, The Old Cranberry Ladies Garden Club: The Ghost and The Key before that novel then moves to present day and Elcira is the ghost mentioned in the title. I loved that contemporary paranormal cozy mystery, but really wanted to learn more about those two women. Fortunately, the author continued the series by going back to the past and readers are treated to engrossing historical fiction that centers on two strong women.

The first book takes place almost 200 years after the murder of Chester Cranberry. Although the novel has a satisfactory resolution, the mystery is not solved. The bare facts revealed are mere brushstrokes, not spoilers, and this novel fills in the details. Readers returning to Cranberry will enjoy the unfolding of the story and new readers can easily read this book as a standalone. Without proof, there were no arrests, but Elcira was assumed to be guilty and is known in town as the Widow Murderess. Cusano weaves a masterful tale with Elcira and Deborah as the two women become family and struggle to raise the children together, fight the opinions of the townsfolks, make the farm self sufficient, and keep their secrets. The biggest secret is that the farm is a stop on the underground railroad and that they are teaching runaways and freed men to read.

The book, which has a multitude of characters is written in short chapters with alternating points of view. This allows the reader to get to know several of the characters. We care about Elcira and Deborah. But we also see events through some of the children’s eyes as well.

Author Bill Cusano has created a world that the reader will not want to put down. I tore through this page turner and as soon as I read the last page, I happily turned to the sequel, The Sparrow and The Crow. The story has a few murders, but the mysteries are a secondary story. The heart of the novel is two brave women, and the way they manage during a troubling time in history.

THE WIDOW MURDERESS

The last time the crows circled the old farmhouse, her husband Chester was found dead and the town named her a murderess. Thirty years later, the truth she buried with him is stirring again, the country is splitting in two, and the family she fought so hard to hold together is being pulled apart by a war that hasn’t yet been declared.

Her grandson Auggie wants to fight for the Union. His mother, born to a Virginia plantation family, will do anything to drag him south instead. Millie — the rector’s daughter with golden hair and a satchel full of letters — waits at home for a boy who may never come back. And in the chapel behind the lilacs, Elcira and the women of her garden club continue the work no one is supposed to know about: sheltering freedom seekers as slave catchers tighten their grip on the Connecticut coast.

Then a telegram arrives. And another. And the war everyone said would never come has come for the Cranberry’s all at once.

Perfect for readers of Kristin Hannah, Marie Benedict, Paulette Jiles, and Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain — a story about what families inherit, what they hide, and what they’re willing to risk when the country they believed in begins to come apart.

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Storybook Lady
Review

The Sparrow and The Crow is a moving historical novel that continues the multigenerational saga of Elcira Cranberry and her family. It picks up almost thirty years after the previous book,  Cusano’s writing is filled with descriptive detail and transports the reader to 1861 on the eve of the Civil War. Bill Cusano’s characters come to life. Through alternating chapters written from different points of view, the reader gets to know them and care what happens. It was interesting to see the children, now grown, and some with teenage children of their own. There are noble family members and those filled with greed and selfishness. Cusano’s novels have so many characters that he provides a cast of characters as a forward. But they are so well written, that the characters are easy to remember, love or hate, and the list is rarely needed. The story took me from tears to page turning action. It weaves together family relationships, heartbreak and treachery, grief and coming of age, the politics of the coming war and the resolution to the murder mysteries from the earlier novels.

I recommend this book to any one who loves historical fiction, stories about strong women or family sagas and murder mysteries. I received digital copies of the books in this series for review, so I was fortunate enough to binge read them. My only complaint in this series is that now I have to wait for the next book

About Bill Cusano

Bill Cusano is an author, a retired deacon in the Episcopal Church and a believer that it is the process rather than the outcomes that matter most in our lives. Retired from the corporate world and an eight-year stint running a non-profit feeding program, Bill attacks every project as a ministry, giving it his full commitment. Needing to readjust to life after losing the love of his life to leukemia in April of 2024, Bill returned to writing full-time, resulting in The Old Cranberry Ladies Garden Club series, the motivation and inspiration for which came from his wife’s voracious appetite for reading historical fiction. While this is Bill’s debut novel, he has always been a writer, publishing short stories and poems early on, and then beginning a daily spiritual blog in 2008. You can follow Bill’s Reflections From The Garden Bench along with other writings on his Substack account.

Catch Up With Bill Cusano:

BillCusano.com
Bill’s Substack
Amazon Author Profile
Goodreads – @billcusano
Instagram – @billcusano
X – @CusanoBill
Facebook – @bill.cusano

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Giveaway

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