Molly MacRae Books In Order

Publication Order of Haunted Yarn Shop Mystery Books

Publication Order of Highland Bookshop Mystery Books

Publication Order of Margaret & Bitsy Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Collections

Publication Order of Anthologies

Molly Macrae is an American cozy mystery authors who has made a name for herself with the “Highland Bookshop Mysteries” and “The Haunted Yarn Shop Mystery”. The Haunted Yarn Shop Mystery series are about a textile preservation expert from a little town in Tennessee named Blue Plum, who has to deal with a depressed ghost. The Highland Bookshop Mystery series features four women who start new lives in the small town of Inversgail on the Scotland West Coast, where they buy a bookshop. The focus on small town living is inspired by Molly Macrae’s life, that for the most part was spent the Blue Ridge Mountains of Tennessee. Living in Jonesborough, she worked as a curator of a history museum, and ran the now defunct independent bookstore the “Book Place”. For more than twenty years before she became an established author, Macrae had her short stories featured on Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. She currently lives in a small ancient house in Champaign, Illinois, in a small neighborhood within walking distance of a park, restaurants, and work. When she is not writing or editing her novels, she loves to go to the public library where she connects with children. She also loves to read, do crossword puzzles, try out new recipes, and find reasons for not doing any weeding or dusting.

Molly Macrae has been writing for over thirty-five years though she came into the public limelight when she started writing novels. She has always loved writing short stories since they did not require as much time to write, given that she had small children. Unlike many other writers, Macrae did not find it difficult to publish her work and sold her very first work in 1989 to Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. At that time, the budding author was resident in the woods bordering Jonesborough near the Cherokee National Forest. Despite getting accepted by the magazine at first try, she was just as excited as any novice writer when she got the letter. Her first novel came out in 2007 and was entitled “Wilder Rumors”. The lead in the novel is a new curator at a history museum in the fictional small town of Nolichucky, Tennessee. Lewis Wilder finds himself the lead suspect in the increasing number of opportunistic burglaries in his town. Some aspects of the novel are inspired by the author’s experiences working as a history museum curator in Jonesborough though she asserts that she has never been the chief suspect in any crime that she knows of. While she was working for the history museum, she once edited a historical title named “Humor, Rumor, and Romance in Old Jonesborough”. However, she has always loved suspense and mysteries, having been influenced by the likes of Agatha Christie, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and P.G. Wodehouse.

The lead character in Molly Macrae’s Highland Shop Mystery series is Janet Marsh, a newly divorced and retired librarian. Marsh is an avid planner, and loves exploring and researching possibilities, though she also believes that dreams may just come true, ambitious as they seem. Janet had once lived in a beautiful house in Invergail Scotland with her husband, where she had lived for nearly three decades. Now newly divorced, she has come back to the United States, where she has convinced three of her friends to buy a bookshop that recently came into the market. Janet is more a combination of Barbara Bel Geddes, Brenda Blethyn, and Julie Walter. Her friends have the temperament of Nancy Marchand, Meryl Streep, and Eve Arden respectively. Most of the novels are inspired by Molly’s life and experiences as a curator in her Tennessee small town history museum. As such, most of her works save for the Highland Bookshop Mysteries are set in northeast Tennessee small towns, which are eerily similar to Jonesborough, the small town that she lived in for many years. Her “Wilder Rumors” novel is about a bizarre museum curator, while “Lawn Order” features the lead as the owner of a bookstore in another Jonesborough like small town. Molly has never owned a bookstore, but she ran “The Book Place” after leaving her job at the museum. Her Haunted Yarn Shop Mystery series features a woman that takes over her grandmothers yarn shop after her death, only to find that it is haunted.

“Plaid and Plagiarism” is the delightful first novel in the Highland Bookshop Mystery series. The novel is set a few weeks before the start of the Inversgail Literature Festival in Scotland. The four women that have recently bought a bookshop in Inversgail are facing issues with their new move to the small town. Janet Marsh has just been told that she cannot move into her new home yet. Things just get worse when her house is vandalized with the lead suspect an investigative reporter at the local paper. The story gets even more interesting when the women got to check out the house, and find Una Graham the investigative reporter killed with a sickle and dumped in the shed behind the house. Just who had the motive to kill the reporter, and what will the women find when they begin to investigate the case. The novel comes with an interesting cast of characters, as the four women have to get into amateur sleuthing if they are to get their business off the ground.

“Scones and Scoundrels” the second novel is a delightful cozy set in the town of Inversgail in the Scottish Highlands. Daphne Wood a bestselling ecology and environment writer will be spending three months in town, hosted by Janet Marsh and her four friends and business partners that run Yon Bonnie Books. Daphne is an eccentric writer that lives in a cabin in the Canadian wilderness with her dog. Given her eccentricities, she has very little of people skills and is soon causing problems for the bookshop, the library, and the school. But a young man who had taken a room above the bed and breakfast above Marsh’s business turns up dead and Daphne is the lead suspect. Daphne knows that Janet and her partners have been very successful in resolving a previous murder and asks them to help in the case. Things go awry when Daphne turns up dead, apparently from food she got from the Yon Bonnie Books cafeteria. To get out of the fix and save their business, Janet and her partners need to find the killer involved in both murders.

2 Responses to “Molly MacRae”

1. Kris Hancock: 2 years ago

   Will there ever be another Haunted Yarn Shop mystery??????

   Reply
   • Laura of Harvest Lane Cottage: 9 months ago

     I don’t know, but I’m on book 4 and will miss these characters.

     Reply