Weekly Notebook: One Week Away — and the Clock Is Ticking
One week from today, Ghosts Don't Use Blueprints officially launches — and the $0.99 price disappears with it. Plus five cozy mystery picks to keep your reading stack stocked all week.
🌿 The Maple Grove Update
Spring is fully committed in Maple Grove now—no more teasing. The lilac bushes along Birchwood Lane have gone from bare sticks to something that smells like a promise, and Brewed Awakenings has officially moved the patio chairs outside, which Mildred interpreted as a personal invitation. She showed up with her own cushion and a thermos of something she refused to identify.
Jenna has been distracted this week in ways she can't quite explain. Restless, maybe—the way you get when you know something is coming and you can't decide if you're excited or terrified or some particularly inconvenient combination of both. Lisa says Mercury is in something. Joe says it's just the weather changing. Mildred just keeps watching the treeline like she always does, sipping whatever is in that thermos, not looking worried at all.
My daffodils are a sea of yellow in my front border. Tulips are starting to pop up now, deep red and butter yellow, standing at attention in the front border like they have somewhere important to be. I feel the same way this week. Seven days, fellow sleuths. Seven days.
📜The Weekly Tasting Menu
Three Guest Sleuth picks this week—each one hand-selected because I think you'll love them. Here's the lineup:
🔍 Guest Sleuth Spotlights
🐎 Snowfall at Silver Run—Ellis Thorne When divorced horse-rescue owner Sable Jones's Labrador comes home with a mysterious scarf, a death ruled an accident starts to feel like anything but. A cozy mystery set in an equestrian community—warm, character-driven, and completely hard to put down. Find it on Amazon
🐾 Murder on the Morning Route— Daisy Stone Former corporate burnout Megan traded the city for a seaside town and a dog-walking business—until she finds a body near the lighthouse and her marketing brain starts noticing patterns nobody else does. Cozy, charming, and anchored by the best beagle-corgi sidekick in the genre. Get your free copy
🤠 Confessions of a Wanna-Be Cowgirl—Sylvia Grant A little something different this week — a feel-good small-town romance with dry humor and emotional heart for when you want laughs without a body count. Find it here
🧁 The Main Course
Fellow sleuths — seven days from right now, Ghosts Don't Use Blueprints will be officially in the world.
And seven days from right now, the price goes from $0.99 to $3.99.
I've been watching the pre-order numbers tick up all week, and every single one of them makes me a little teary in a way I'm blaming entirely on spring allergies. This book is different from anything else I've written—it's smaller and quieter in some ways, but louder in all the ways that matter. Teen-aged Jenna doesn't know yet what she's capable of. She's still figuring out who she is, who she can trust, and whether a girl who sees the worst in people can still choose to believe in them anyway.
I think a lot of us have been that girl.
If you've been waiting—this is the week. One dollar and ninety-nine cents for a few more days. After April 18th, the window closes and the price goes up to stay.
Get Ghosts Don't Use Blueprints on Amazon — $0.99 this week only
And if you've already pre-ordered — thank you. Genuinely. You have no idea what it means to have you waiting on the other side of launch day.
✍️ Behind the Scenes
have been stress-cleaning my office under the guise of "preparing for launch week," which mostly means I moved three piles of things from one surface to another. Charlie has decided that the new arrangement of said piles makes an excellent napping platform, and honestly, I can't argue with her logic. Seven days. We've got this.
Until next week, fellow sleuths —
Willow 🌿
Meet Willow
Author, School Board member, and gluten-free baker. I write the Jenna McGregor mysteries from my home in Michigan, fueled by coffee and Peloton PRs.
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Weekly Notebook: Someone’s Been in Jenna’s Kitchen
Something is coming to Maple Grove — and if you know Jenna McGregor, you know it probably involves coffee, chaos, and a mystery nobody asked for. Spring has arrived, and so has everything that comes with it.
🍵 The Maple Grove Update
It started, as most things in Maple Grove do, with someone having a perfectly reasonable idea that immediately became a situation.
Jenna offered to host Easter egg decorating. She said this out loud, to multiple people, without a single contingency plan. Within forty minutes, her kitchen contained: six opinionated women, four competing egg-dyeing methods, one large bowl of rice inexplicably dyed magenta, and a six-year-old in latex gloves who had taken full creative control of twelve eggs and a can of shaving cream.
Lisa had, naturally, predicted the shaving cream. "I had a feeling," she said, from a safe distance near the back door. Mildred arrived, surveyed the scene, and immediately began reorganizing the dye stations in a way that "made tactical sense." Jenna's kitchen looked, by the end of it, like a tie-dyed glitter bomb had made a very committed decision. Joe, who had been summoned by a friend's emergency approximately eight minutes after the decorating began, was unavailable for comment. Jenna strongly suspects he knew.
When the eggs were done — each one a small masterpiece of chaotic color and absolutely zero coordination — they were beautiful. Obviously. The kids went outside. The adults looked at the kitchen. Someone put on a kettle. The coffee handled the rest.
📜The Weekly Tasting Menu
Fellow sleuths, I've been reading, and I have recommendations. Consider this your Easter weekend TBR — these authors are writing exactly our kind of trouble.
🔍 This Week's Guest Sleuth Spotlights
🐣 Death at the Easter Egg Scramble — Bessie Barr This one showed up at exactly the right time in my life (see: above, re: glitter). Bessie Barr is one of my personal favorites, and this Easter-set mystery has all the cozy chaos you'd expect from the season, plus a mystery sharp enough to keep you up past the candy coma. If you haven't found Bessie yet, fix that immediately. 👉 Grab it here →
🏇 Fencing and Foul Play — Nina Hunt The title alone had me. Nina Hunt delivers the kind of mystery where the setting does half the storytelling — and Fencing and Foul Play uses every inch of it. Bring snacks. 👉 Grab it here →
🌙 Murder She Whispered — DT Rose Atmospheric, clever, and the kind of book that makes you suspicious of your own neighbors in the best possible way. DT Rose has a gift for quiet dread dressed up in cozy clothes. 👉 Grab it here →
⭐ A Five Star Murder — LB Dayton High-end setting. High-stakes mystery. LB Dayton earns every star in the title. This one's for when you want your cozy mystery to feel just a little bit glamorous. 👉 Grab it here →
🐰 Murder on the Bunny Slope — Gemma Harper Ski lodge + Easter + someone very inconveniently dead = exactly my kind of vacation read. Gemma Harper's series keeps getting better, and this one is a great entry point if you haven't started yet. 👉 Grab it here →
🧁 The Main Course
Ghosts Don't Use Blueprints — Launching in 15 Days
Before Jenna McGregor had a coffee shop, a Jeep, and a habit of finding trouble in Maple Grove — she was seventeen, sitting in a high school bleacher that definitely shouldn't have been doing what it was doing.
Ghosts Don't Use Blueprints is the story I've been wanting to tell since the series began. It's the origin. The first mystery. The moment where a younger Jenna, a ragtag group of Maple Grove High classmates, and a very suspicious set of circumstances conspire to create the sleuth you've come to know across four books.
Writing it was genuinely one of my favorite things I've done in this series. Getting to go back to before — before the coffee shop, before the gang fully formed, before Jenna quite knew what she was capable of — felt like finding something I didn't know I'd been missing. I hope you feel the same way reading it.
It launches April 18th, and it's currently $0.99 in pre-order. That price doesn't stick around.
👉 Pre-order Ghosts Don't Use Blueprints now →
✍️ Behind the Scenes
With Ghosts Don't Use Blueprints launching in fifteen days, I've developed a coping strategy: stress-baking lavender scones and calling it recipe testing, which is both accurate and a convenient excuse. Charlie — my rather large, extremely opinionated cat — has taken it upon herself to sample anything left unattended on the cooling rack. I'm choosing to interpret this as a rave review.
If you'd like to try the recipe for yourself, it's straight from Jenna's kitchen — click the recipe drop-down in the header for this one and a growing collection of gluten-free favorites. No shaving cream required.
Until next week, fellow sleuths —
Willow 🌿
Meet Willow
Author, School Board member, and gluten-free baker. I write the Jenna McGregor mysteries from my home in Michigan, fueled by coffee and Peloton PRs.
Want to stay in the know? Get the Weekly Notebook
Weekly Notebook: Why Spring Always Brings Me Back to Maple Grove
Spring pulls me back to Maple Grove every time. This week: five cozy mystery picks, a peek behind the scenes of the April 18 launch, and why origin stories fascinate me.
🌿 The Maple Grove Update
Spring has arrived in Maple Grove — and if I know Jenna McGregor, she's already opened every window at Brewed Awakenings, declared it "coffee weather, not patio weather," and argued with Mildred about what that actually means. Meanwhile, Lisa has almost certainly consulted her charts about what the equinox portends. (Spoiler: it portends snacks and mild chaos, same as always.)
On my end, I've been doing that very spring thing where I look at everything I've been building and ask: where did all of this begin? Which, not coincidentally, is exactly what Ghosts Don't Use Blueprints is about. April 18th is coming fast — if you haven't grabbed your pre-order yet, now's a great time.
📜The Weekly Tasting Menu
Five Guest Sleuth picks this week — each one hand-selected because I think you'll love them. Here's the lineup:
🔍 Guest Sleuth Spotlights
🎂 Revenge Takes the Cake — Molly Blake When a beloved local bakery becomes the scene of something far more sinister than a soggy bottom, it's going to take more than a good recipe to sort this one out. Charming, funny, and exactly what a cozy should be. Grab it here.
🗳️ Murder on the Campaign Trail — Angie Frost Politics, small-town drama, and a body nobody saw coming. Angie Frost delivers sharp wit and sharper plotting in this one. Get your copy
❄️ Murder at the Winter Magic Parade The holiday lights are up, the crowds are out — and someone isn't making it home. A cozy with real atmosphere and a mystery that keeps you guessing. Find it on Amazon
🥧 Pies, Lies, and a Deadly Slice — Oscar Tate This one has everything: a pie contest, a suspect list longer than a dessert menu, and enough small-town gossip to keep you warm on a cold night. Grab it here
🛣️ Icy Roads & Cold Justice — Ivy Featherstone A winter drive turns into something much more complicated in this atmospheric mystery. Great for readers who like their settings as vivid as their suspects. Find it here
🧁 The Main Course
If you're caught up on the Jenna McGregor series and waiting impatiently for April 18th — first of all, same — here's a reminder that Parade of Peril (Book 4) is still waiting for you if you haven't read it yet. Small-town parades are never as simple as they look. Especially in Maple Grove.
✍️ Behind the Scenes
This week I've been thinking a lot about origin stories — what it means to go back before the beginning and find the moment that set everything in motion. It's the heart of what Ghosts Don't Use Blueprints is about, and it's been one of the most meaningful things I've written. I can't wait for you to read it.
See you next week,
Willow 🌿
Meet Willow
Author, School Board member, and gluten-free baker. I write the Jenna McGregor mysteries from my home in Michigan, fueled by coffee and Peloton PRs.
Want to stay in the know? Get the Weekly Notebook