Welcome to my stop on the Great Escapes Virtual Book Tour for Sconed to Death (A Crochet and Crumpets Mystery) by Betty Hechtman. Stop by each blog on the tour for interviews, guest posts, spotlights, reviews and more!
Sconed to Death (A Crochet and Crumpets Mystery) by Betty Hechtman
Cozy Mystery
2nd in Series
Setting – Indiana
Publisher : Severn House
Publication date : June 2, 2026
Print length : 224 pages
Hardcover
A brand-new series from the queen of culinary cozies. Full to the brim with crochet, crumpets, and crime!
The perfect ingredients for murder . . .
Annie Hart has transformed the yarn shop she inherited into a thriving business and tea shop. Now she needs to sell it so she can move back to LA. She just has to ensure that young Toby Swanson is kept on as the supplier of their famous scones.
Annie decides to secretly enter Toby in a new reality TV cooking show. But his application video takes a deadly twist when Annie and her business partner, Gray, discover a body on the beach while filming. Even worse, it looks like the young woman had been enjoying Toby’s cherry scones and the shop’s rose tea before her death.
With the help of her misfit group of local yarn artists, can Annie find a killer and save her reputation?
Readers who love super cozy culinary mysteries will eat up this new charming cozy mystery series.
Author Guest Post: Why Indiana?
You might wonder why I placed the Crochet and Crumpet Mysteries in rural Indiana. I think I was always looking for a way to write about the particular area since it is dear to me. The fictious small town of Franklin is about fifty miles from Chicago and adjacent to the Indiana Dunes National Park and Lake Michigan. It’s loosely based on a town called Chesterton where I spent a lot of time when I was a kid and I still have a happy feeling when I go out there now.
We had a small cottage out in the country. It was very basic with no indoor plumbing, telephone, television or even a radio. But I loved spending time there. It was a nice change from our hot Chicago third floor apartment in the summer. Hard to believe, but we didn’t even have a fan.
I would take long walks on a sandy road with butterflies as company. I passed an open meadow with purple flowers that smelled like peanut butter. There was a small bridge over an irrigation ditch that had a fairy sized water fall. It was there that I got the idea for the first story I wrote when I was eleven. It was also when I knew I wanted to be a writer. Writing about the area now makes all the good memory come back to life.
The vintage red school house in the book is based on a real place that is located miles from town in a rural area. It was at one time a school house, but has been a lovely shop for a very long time. They don’t sell yarn or have a tea room and I reimagined the interior completely. I had a good time figuring how to take a desolate old school room and turn it into an inviting place to serve tea. The drab walls became a cheerful peach color with white trim around the tall windows. The room is furnished with wood tables covered with floral print cloths. A massive marble topped sideboard has a row of dome topped pedestal plates showing off the scones and other sweets.
I kept the kitchen simple with basic appliances though I had Annie Sara splurge on an antique Hoosier cabinet. It has a fold out workspace and storage area and fits in nicely with the vintage style of the building,
I wanted the yarn room to be a comfortable place where people would want to hang out around the oval shaped wooden table to try out some yarn or work on a project. The cubbies filled with yarn offered splashes of texture and colors, and I envisioned displays of knitted and crochet pieces for sale. When the tea room proves to be a big success, I had Annie Sara add a peacock blue settee and a low table to the yarn shop area for extra seating.
There is another converted school room. It’s called the escape room due to the kinds of books it offers. While the tea room has peach-colored walls with white trim, the escape room has dark blue wall paper with tiny pink flowers and moss green carpeting. Bookcases with mysteries, romance books and some self-help books line two of the walls. There are some comfortable chairs and a display table with some gift items and potpourri from locally grown flowers.
It is all so real to me that when I go to the actual school house shop, I am surprised that it doesn’t look like my imagined interior.
On a real note, there is an actual small cemetery across the street from the School House Shop. I can imagine how mysterious it must look when some fog blows in off the lake. It’s a reminder that as cozy as the school house and the town is, there are a surprising number of murders.
About Betty Hechtman
Despite completing a Fine Arts degree, all Betty Hechtman ever wanted to be was a writer. She wrote a weekly column in her college newspaper and later wrote magazine and newspaper pieces, along with short stories and a prize-winning screenplay. She has published over thirty books across four cozy mystery series, all of which have yarn craft. She lives with her family in Southern California
Author Links
Website: https://www.Bettyhechtman.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bettyhechtmanauthor
Blog: https://www.killerhobbies.blogspot.com
Purchase Links Amazon Barnes and Noble
Sconed to Death TOUR PARTICIPANTS
June 1 – Jody’s Bookish Haven – SPOTLIGHT
June 1 – Sarah Can’t Stop Reading Books – REVIEW
June 2 – Christy’s Cozy Corners – AUTHOR GUEST POST
June 2 – Salty Inspirations – CHARACTER GUEST POST
June 2 – Sarcastically Yours, Jen – SPOTLIGHT
June 3 – Twirling Book Princess – SPOTLIGHT
June 3 – Escape With Dollycas Into A Good Book – REVIEW
June 4 – Socrates Book Reviews – SPOTLIGHT
June 4 – Ascroft, eh? – AUTHOR INTERVIEW
June 5 – Books, Ramblings and Tea – SPOTLIGHT
June 5 – Reading, Writing & Stitch-Metic – AUTHOR GUEST POST
June 6 – Boys’ Mom Reads! – SPOTLIGHT
June 6 – Reading Is My SuperPower – AUTHOR GUEST POST
June 7 – Cozy Up With Kathy – REVIEW
June 7 – Sarandipity’s – CHARACTER INTERVIEW
June 8 – The Mystery of Writing – CHARACTER GUEST POST
June 8 – Sapphyria’s Book Reviews – SPOTLIGHT
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