Cutwork: A Needlecraft Mystery [Large Print] [Hardcover]

This is one book that expands into other aspects of the art world. It is very interesting. It is hard for the reader to peg down the culprit. I also like Betty Devonshire, the shop owner. Nobody can help but like her and Godwin as well. As the reader gets to read the books by Ms. Ferris, you get to know her characters so well that they become part of your lives. Her characters are also very unique people, you will be very enraptured with them. Also, you will anxiously wait for the next book to come out.

For those who have not yet read anything by Monica Ferris, you will enjoy reading this so much that you will want to begin from the beginning and read everything by her. For those who have read her other books, this will be just as entertaining if not better.

There's no "literary" writing here, but the characters do develop, and Ferris, too, is getting better at her craft of writing. The mystery unfolded more or less evenly alternating with the subplot of what's happening in Betsy's shop. (...) clerk Godwin may be steretypical but he's drawn with affection; look for Goddy to grow up a bit here -- without losing any of his boyish charm. Those who remember know-it-all champion needleworker Irene from her troublemaking days in the early books will be gratified to see that she has mellowed with a success of her own.
Betsy herself is a lot more real than her detective work; she can be selfish as well as self-mocking. reluctant to get involved yet brave enough to confront a killer. She's single but not desperate enough to leave her shop, Crewel World, for a lover who has retired to faraway Florida. Betsy can be nosy, but she has an ethical core. She's a useful, vital, often-admired middle-aged woman who's the center of attention in this series, and that's a rarity in popular fiction.
To me, the mysteries in these books (and I've read them all) are not much more than an excuse for a series -- would that there were a category in bookstores for books with continuing characters outside the genre. Reading Ferris's books is almost as relaxing as needlework itself.