BENEATH THE MAGNOLIA Book 3

Some secrets stay buried until the ground is ready.When the county fells the dying two-hundred-year-old magnolia at the heart of Sugar Creek, they uncover something no one expected beneath its roots: human bones, seventy-five years in the ground. The dead man is Elias Vance— the land agent who cheated half the valley out of their homes, then vanished one spring in 1950. No one ever reported him missing. No one ever asked why.Baker Magnolia Byrne has a strawberry festival cake to build and a new marriage to the county sheriff to settle into— but she's never been able to leave a buried truth alone. And this one runs straight through her own family's history, into a dead man's hidden box of secrets, and toward a truth one Sugar Creek family has guarded in silence for three generations.With her fearless little Yorkie Biscuit at her side and her husband's steady hand to balance her instincts, Magnolia must uncover who killed the man beneath the magnolia— and why a whole town agreed, for seventy-five years, never to ask.A heartwarming cozy mystery of small-town secrets, slow-burn romance, and the tender work of digging up the truth— with the three-tier strawberry cake recipe (and two more) in the back.Perfect for fans of clean, wholesome culinary cozies with a dog, a close