A soldier's letter arrives too late. A small Southern town is full of secrets. And one observant widow is about to discover that some truths were never meant to come home from war.Cedar Mill, Georgia, 1942. With the men gone to war and everyone doing their part on the home front, widow Hattie Mae Cates keeps busy helping with Red Cross work and keeping an eye on the neighbors she has known most of her life.Then a letter connected to a local serviceman arrives under troubling circumstances—and something about it doesn't sit right with Hattie Mae.What begins as a nagging inconsistency soon leads her through whispered conversations, guarded memories, and secrets carefully hidden behind Cedar Mill's respectable doors. In a town where everyone knows everyone else's business, Hattie Mae discovers there are still plenty of things people will do almost anything to keep buried.Deputy Rafe Calder would prefer that Hattie Mae leave investigating to the law. But Hattie Mae has never been particularly good at ignoring what is right in front of her.As wartime uncertainty tightens its grip on Cedar Mill, Hattie Mae must separate rumor from truth before an old secret causes new tragedy.Warm, atmospheric, and filled with small-town intrigue, The Letter That Came Too Late is the first book in the Cedar Mill Homefront Mysteries—a historical cozy mystery series featuring wartime secrets, Southern community life, and an amateur sleuth with a keen eye for what others overlook.

A soldier's letter arrives too late. A small Southern town is full of secrets. And one observant widow is about to discover that some truths were never meant to come home from war.Cedar Mill, Georgia, 1942. With the men gone to war and everyone doing their part on the home front, widow Hattie Mae Cates keeps busy helping with Red Cross work and keeping an eye on the neighbors she has known most of her life.Then a letter connected to a local serviceman arrives under troubling circumstances—and something about it doesn't sit right with Hattie Mae.What begins as a nagging inconsistency soon leads her through whispered conversations, guarded memories, and secrets carefully hidden behind Cedar Mill's respectable doors. In a town where everyone knows everyone else's business, Hattie Mae discovers there are still plenty of things people will do almost anything to keep buried.Deputy Rafe Calder would prefer that Hattie Mae leave investigating to the law. But Hattie Mae has never been particularly good at ignoring what is right in front of her.As wartime uncertainty tightens its grip on Cedar Mill, Hattie Mae must separate rumor from truth before an old secret causes new tragedy.Warm, atmospheric, and filled with small-town intrigue, The Letter That Came Too Late is the first book in the Cedar Mill Homefront Mysteries—a historical cozy mystery series featuring wartime secrets, Southern community life, and an amateur sleuth with a keen eye for what others overlook.