Ink and Intrigue at Ivy Tree Inn

Stumbling across a dead body could be the making … or breaking of an aspiring reporter.

In the midst of 1958, when the workforce is predominantly male, societal norms dictate women should be compliant, fashionable housewives. To Ariadne Winter, the sole tradition she aims to embrace is that of being fashionable. Amidst the ambiance of Ivy Tree Inn, where she's been dispatched as a writer for Ladies’ Lifestyle Magazine, her focus wavers as she grapples with an interview assignment concerning a Hollywood starlet on the cusp of royal matrimony—an event hailed as the "Wedding of the Century." While Ariadne dutifully attends to her task, her heart yearns for the pursuit of her collegiate ambition; to be an investigative reporter for a renowned newspaper.

However, fate intervenes when she discovers a dead body and recognizes the opportunity it presents to write her way into the role she desires. Yet, as Ariadne delves deeper into the lives of the inn's inhabitants, she uncovers a labyrinth of intertwined relationships and long-buried secrets among guests and staff alike, yielding a plethora of suspects. With a murderer on the loose, her magazine deadline looming, and the inn cordoned off by authorities, Ariadne faces a race against time to untangle the web of deceit and solve the murder before she loses more than just her job.

Ellen Butler is the international bestselling author of the Karina Cardinal mystery series. Her experiences working on Capitol Hill and at a medical association in Washington, D.C. inspired the mystery-action series. Book critics call the Karina Cardinal mysteries, “intelligent escapism” and “electrifying yet light-hearted and humorous.” Butler also writes historical spy fiction. Her WWII spy novel, The Brass Compass, won a 2022 Speak Up Talk Radio Firebird Book Award for historical fiction. The second book in the duology, Operation Blackbird: A Cold War Spy Novel, is inspired by true events, and won a Next Generation Indie Book Award gold medal for historical fiction. Reviewers are calling it “riveting,” and, “a thrilling adventure.”