Bound To Stay Bound

Booklist - 05/01/2023 The possibility that oblique clues on an eighteenth-century sampler might lead to buried treasure and save Grady from losing his and his widower father's home spurs him and his contentious, inseparable friends Clemmie and Thad into a hunt. Keeping the quest secret proves not only challenging in tiny Gifton, Georgia, (“Population: Small enough to mind both our business and yours!”) but dangerous, too, as a mysterious someone is also on the hunt—leaving a local antique shop in a shambles and accidental corpses in their wake. That shadowy rival adds suspense, but readers will also be drawn in by watching the three sleuths learn to interpret the sampler’s message bit by bit, which leads them at last to an awesome, bona fide treasure. It's not one, alas, that will solve Grady’s problem, but in service to a properly satisfying ending, the author slips in an unexpected reprieve for him and his father plus, as a bit of historical “gold” for her audience, a closing account of the little-known War of Jenkins’ Ear. - Copyright 2023 Booklist.