Murder by Pins and Needles by Ardelle Holden ... chronicles two decades of the life and death of love, loyalty and betrayal. It all started when Grace, Samantha's mother-in-law, found a beautiful Attic Windows quilt in a thrift store, and gave it to Sam and Ben for Christmas. Sam was absolutely thrilled Christmas morning until she saw the horror on Ben's face. It hadn't occurred to her that the menacing 'murder of crows' that had congregated in this Attic Windows quilt pattern would trigger Ben's PTSD. His reaction gave Sam pause to examine the quilt more closely, and what she discovered gave her chills. So many references to stalking, death and a blue hat? The label read: Remember me, Nicky. Love, Mom. L. Bennett, 2015. Who was this woman, L. Bennett, so tormented by suspicion she hid clues to her own murder in a quilt for her son, Nicky? Or was it a daughter? Was she murdered or is she alive, steeped in paranoia? And would Ben allow her to find out?

As Zoey prepares for a sewing contest, she realizes her friendships are also in need of tailoring. In the second book in the Sew Zoey series, things are going great for Zoey on the fashion front: She meets a real designer who tells her she should enter a big sewing contest, and she finds out that her idol, Daphne Shaw, is a fan of her blog! But off the runway, Zoey’s having friend trouble times two. First her best friend Kate gets her braces off—and starts getting a lot of attention from boys, including Zoey’s crush, Lorenzo. Is she still the same sweet Kate on the inside? Then Zoey’s newest friend, Libby, thinks Zoey is friends with her only because her aunt is one of the contest judges. Zoey thought fashion emergencies were tough…but compared to friendship emergencies, they’re a cinch. How can she prove that she’s friends with Libby for the right reasons and fix her relationship with Kate? In a way that is totally Zoey!

Winner of the Grace Paley Prize in Short Fiction In Pins and Needles, Karen Brown explores the dynamics of love and longing between mother and child, husband and wife, close friends, and virtual strangers, often peeling back the facade of a seemingly stable suburban life to reveal the secrets and transgressions that even good people can be guilty of. In “She Fell to Her Knees,” Nell inherits the neglected house in which her mother died years before, and begins an affair with the neighbor. The narrator of “Apparitions,” who has recently returned the blind grandson she was raising to the care of his mother, invites a confused young man into her home. In “The Ropewalk,” a bartender haunted by her abandonment of her own child aids a customer in a struggle for custody of her daughters. A pregnant teenager in “Unction” comes to accept the reality of her situation while working a summer job in a bookbinding shop. Annie, the young mother with a tragic past in “Pins and Needles,” leaves her infant daughter to go on an errand in a snowstorm, and picks up a boy she doesn't know. Evocative, sexy, and haunting, these are stories that readers won't soon forget.