Amanda Flower

When Flower was working as a librarian in Mount Vernon, Ohio, the Amish communities of Holmes County were about twenty minutes down the road. She visited often enough that the place got into her writing and never came out. She has published over forty novels at this point, under her own name and as Isabella Alan, which is a pace that makes most full-time authors look lazy.

Her first novel Maid of Murder got an Agatha nomination. The series that made her name is Amish Candy Shop Mystery. A chocolatier called Bailey King leaves New York and moves to rural Ohio to help run her grandmother’s candy shop. The shop is called Swissmen Sweets. It is in Amish country. Dead bodies keep turning up nearby and Bailey cannot stop poking around in the investigations.

“It’s a little scary to write, because you’re essentially writing about someone’s religion. I was really nervous about misrepresenting, but I also want to be honest.”

The books are USA Today bestsellers. The setting is specific enough that you learn things about Amish customs and candy-making you did not know before picking up the book, and the mysteries are proper puzzles with real clues. There is a romance that builds across the series too, which fans seem to enjoy arguing about online.

Quick facts

• Debut: Maid of Murder (Agatha Award nominee)
• Amish Candy Shop Mystery is a USA Today bestseller
• Over 40 novels published
• Also writes as Isabella Alan
• Former librarian in rural Ohio

She writes the kind of mystery you read in a weekend and then immediately lend to a friend. Light, warm, and surprisingly hard to put down once you are a few chapters in.