Title: Taken Too Soon
Author: Edith Maxwell
Series: Quaker Midwife Mysteries #6
Publisher: Beyond the Page
Release Date: September 8, 2020
Pages: 217
Book Source: ARC

“Following a long betrothal, midwife Rose Carroll and her beloved David are finally celebrating their marriage with friends and relatives, when a most disturbing telegram interrupts the festivities: the young ward of Rose’s aunt has suffered a mysterious death, and Rose’s help is needed urgently on Cape Cod. Reluctantly agreeing to mix her honeymoon plans with murder, Rose embarks on an investigation that will expose family secrets and a community’s bigotry.

As Rose does her best to comfort her aunt in her loss and also learn as much as possible about the poor young victim’s death, she discovers that each new clue points to a confounding list of suspects: a close friend of the victim who may have harbored secret resentments, an estranged brother of David’s with an unsavory reputation, and the son of a Native American midwife who supposedly led the young woman astray. And as Rose grows closer to identifying the perpetrator, the solution will rattle her assumptions about her own family and faith …” – Amazon

Kim’s Review

I was pleasantly surprised with Taken Too Soon by Edith Maxwell. I read a lot of cozy mysteries, but not many Quaker or Amish ones. I had read an Amish cozy a few months back and some of the reasons it was off putting to me was how sickly sweet everyone was, the protagonist was passive-aggressive to her boyfriend, and the murder was super easy to solve.

While the murder was easy for me to solve in Taken Too Soon, no one was overly sweet, the protagonist realized there are evil people in the world, and Rose treats her husband with respect and love.

I was actually really pleased at how competent and intelligent Rose came across. In other cozy mysteries the sleuth will not even speculate about people and their motives, only discovering a clue when it practically trips her. Rose was theorizing about children out of wedlock and nasty men who molest and rape (although that word is never mentioned) young girls. I was so taken aback by this that I even mentioned it to my husband.

And it was really strange that while reading Taken Too Soon I felt myself slow down and get more peaceful. I don’t know if it was the Thees and other types of speech that I’m not accustomed to reading or the beautiful descriptions and great character development, but I didn’t feel myself reading quickly through this book, and yet it was a fast paced story.

I am so happy I read Taken Too Soon and look forward to more books in the Quaker Midwife Mystery series. If you haven’t read any in the series yet, you may want to start with book one, Delivering the Truth, although Maxwell writes so well that you won’t be lost if you start with a book later in the series.

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