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The Barn
A barn with a wooden cow’s head peeking out of the loft…Two girls bicycling on a September day in 1990…The friend they find dead in the barn…
For the next thirty years, the case of Joseph Wheeler’s murder lies as cold as a New Hampshire winter. Deborah Strong has settled in the town she grew up in, learning to heal after her friend’s murder, and later, the deaths of her husband and child in an automobile accident. When her former best friend Rachel Cummings returns home for the funeral of Joseph’s mother, the precarious peace Deborah has found as the town’s librarian is threatened.Against the backdrop of the beautiful but cold New Hampshire landscape in January, Deborah and Rachel reopen the cold case of their murdered friend, and uncover secrets about their neighbors that have festered for thirty years, as they often do in small towns.The Barn is a story of friendship lost and recovered, of secrets buried and revealed, and of the power in forgiving others… and ourselves.
For the next thirty years, the case of Joseph Wheeler’s murder lies as cold as a New Hampshire winter. Deborah Strong has settled in the town she grew up in, learning to heal after her friend’s murder, and later, the deaths of her husband and child in an automobile accident. When her former best friend Rachel Cummings returns home for the funeral of Joseph’s mother, the precarious peace Deborah has found as the town’s librarian is threatened.Against the backdrop of the beautiful but cold New Hampshire landscape in January, Deborah and Rachel reopen the cold case of their murdered friend, and uncover secrets about their neighbors that have festered for thirty years, as they often do in small towns.The Barn is a story of friendship lost and recovered, of secrets buried and revealed, and of the power in forgiving others… and ourselves.
214 pages, Kindle Edition
Published July 3, 2020
About the author
Sharon L. Dean
19 books30 followersSharon L. Dean grew up in Massachusetts where she was immersed in the literature of New England. She earned undergraduate and graduate degrees at the University of New Hampshire, a state she lived and taught in before moving to Oregon. Although she has given up writing scholarly books that require footnotes, she incorporates much of her academic research as background in her mysteries. She is the author of three Susan Warner mysteries and three Deborah Strong mysteries. Her collection Six Old Women and Other Stories explores settings in New Hampshire. Leaving Freedom has been re-released in June 2023 along with a sequel, Finding Freedom. Dean continues to write about New England while she is discovering the beauty of the West.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
December 14, 2020
Two female characters who have nothing but their God-given intuition set out to solve a murder. What a thrill!
Read full review in the 2020 Holiday issue of InD'tale Magazine.
Read full review in the 2020 Holiday issue of InD'tale Magazine.
January 22, 2021
An oversized black and white wooden cow’s head overlooked all from the upper loft of the barn. Downstairs, a boy is found dead. The two girls who find him are linked together in mysterious ways to this death, split apart by the violence that has entered their world, only to be drawn back together in an overwhelming need to uncover who killed Joseph. Sharon Dean weaves a rich tapestry of a woman struggling to overcome grief reconnecting with an old friend as they try to unlock the door that binds them together and drives them apart. “The Barn” is as forgiving as the bleak New Hampshire setting is unforgiving. I would highly recommend this book of renewal and redemption.
November 23, 2020
The Barn earns 5/5 Spying Cowpie...Clever and Totally Engaging!
Sharon L. Dean has penned a compelling first in her Deborah Strong Mystery series with my favorite element...a cold case! The Barn had always been suited best for illicit gatherings of teens hoping to get high, drunk, or canoodle. The building was old, the red paint peeling, but it was the large black and white wooden cow’s head, a leftover from a long ago dairy and dubbed “Cowpie,” that eerily stood watch from above. However, in 1990, The Barn was also an out of-the-way place to commit murder. Deborah and Rachel were the best of friends enjoying the last of the warm September weather, biking out to The Barn. There they recognized a bike propped against the wall, but inside they discovered the body of Joseph Wheeler...dead. Thirty years later, the murder remains unsolved. Deborah promises her friend that she’ll assist in the search for the killer, but with so much time having passed, evidence and memories long deteriorated, missing, or unreliable, and many residents not happy about opening old wounds, will their efforts be for naught? What about the anonymous threats to “Forget Joseph”? Are lives in danger?
Set in New Hampshire, once called home by Sharon Dean and her husband, its chilly winter weather adds to the chill of the crime and its impact on the small community. Revisiting the tragic murder opens emotional wounds and fears, unfolds steadily with several intriguing theories and suspects, and the threats to stop could come from anyone. This wide-open element created an absorbing page-turner tempting me to fast forward to the end, but I resisted the impulse and thoroughly enjoyed the exploration, secrets, regrets, guilts, strained friendships, and like the impending storm set to hit the town, the ultimate reveal explodes! The first-person narrative focuses on Deborah’s perspective on the drama along with exploring her own tragedy and contrasting her grief experiences with Rachel’s. Through descriptive language and dialogue, Dean fills one’s senses from the wind rattling the windows to the freezing temps that brought snow and ice, and the characters and their personalities are well painted from introspective to overzealous, from quiet to angry, from remorseful to “keep away from me.” I couldn’t put the book down! I finished it in two day including well into the early hours. Interesting fact! Susan Warner, the lead in Dean’s three-book Susan Warner Mystery series, has a cameo in this series as a reference since she lives in the area and had solved three murders herself. Don’t miss this drama!
Disclosure: I received an ARC from the author. My review is voluntary with honest insights and comments.
Sharon L. Dean has penned a compelling first in her Deborah Strong Mystery series with my favorite element...a cold case! The Barn had always been suited best for illicit gatherings of teens hoping to get high, drunk, or canoodle. The building was old, the red paint peeling, but it was the large black and white wooden cow’s head, a leftover from a long ago dairy and dubbed “Cowpie,” that eerily stood watch from above. However, in 1990, The Barn was also an out of-the-way place to commit murder. Deborah and Rachel were the best of friends enjoying the last of the warm September weather, biking out to The Barn. There they recognized a bike propped against the wall, but inside they discovered the body of Joseph Wheeler...dead. Thirty years later, the murder remains unsolved. Deborah promises her friend that she’ll assist in the search for the killer, but with so much time having passed, evidence and memories long deteriorated, missing, or unreliable, and many residents not happy about opening old wounds, will their efforts be for naught? What about the anonymous threats to “Forget Joseph”? Are lives in danger?
Set in New Hampshire, once called home by Sharon Dean and her husband, its chilly winter weather adds to the chill of the crime and its impact on the small community. Revisiting the tragic murder opens emotional wounds and fears, unfolds steadily with several intriguing theories and suspects, and the threats to stop could come from anyone. This wide-open element created an absorbing page-turner tempting me to fast forward to the end, but I resisted the impulse and thoroughly enjoyed the exploration, secrets, regrets, guilts, strained friendships, and like the impending storm set to hit the town, the ultimate reveal explodes! The first-person narrative focuses on Deborah’s perspective on the drama along with exploring her own tragedy and contrasting her grief experiences with Rachel’s. Through descriptive language and dialogue, Dean fills one’s senses from the wind rattling the windows to the freezing temps that brought snow and ice, and the characters and their personalities are well painted from introspective to overzealous, from quiet to angry, from remorseful to “keep away from me.” I couldn’t put the book down! I finished it in two day including well into the early hours. Interesting fact! Susan Warner, the lead in Dean’s three-book Susan Warner Mystery series, has a cameo in this series as a reference since she lives in the area and had solved three murders herself. Don’t miss this drama!
Disclosure: I received an ARC from the author. My review is voluntary with honest insights and comments.
January 20, 2022
This is the first book in the Deborah Strong mystery series by Sharon L. Dean. It is a standalone book.
I read it because I received an ARC of the second book to review, and I dislike leaving previous books of a series unread.
Positives:
*Premise
Two estranged friends meet after many years and experiences to try to solve the murder of a common friend.
*Writing style
Vivid descriptions of the small town Shelby, its people, and its climate.
*Mystery
Enough secrets and suspense to keep readers guessing.
*Protagonist
Likable, strong woman. A librarian!
Negatives:
*Plot and character development
Joseph and Mary Wheeler’s deaths drive the story. Yet, not enough details about their characters or their lives.
*Relationships
- Rachel and Deborah are friends who have been out of touch for long. When they join to solve a murder, you would expect them to talk. However, you see them finding more significant secrets about each other than the murder.
- The relationship between former librarian Bertha and Seth raises many questions but Dean leaves us to wonder and speculate.
- The story is peppered with mentions of Lucille’s life and experiences, perhaps just to add to the mystery. Dean tells you that Mary and Lucille were friends but fought right before Mary’s death. She hints at the reason but does not elaborate on that, probably because it is unrelated to the murder.
*Cross-reference to other book series
Susan Warner, the protagonist of Dean’s Susan Warner Mystery series, makes a cameo appearance. I expected her to reveal something of great importance or help Deborah and Rachel solve the mystery. However, that was not to be. The whole idea seemed rather wasteful.
*Sleuthing
Deborah and Rachel did not appear to do much active ‘detecting’. All they seemed to do was ask around, annoying people who wished to forget the past and get on with their lives.
To summarize, a good book that didn't quite hit the spot. I wanted to shake the story hard and wait for everything to settle in the hope that when they did, all the elements would sit right.
I read it because I received an ARC of the second book to review, and I dislike leaving previous books of a series unread.
Positives:
*Premise
Two estranged friends meet after many years and experiences to try to solve the murder of a common friend.
*Writing style
Vivid descriptions of the small town Shelby, its people, and its climate.
*Mystery
Enough secrets and suspense to keep readers guessing.
*Protagonist
Likable, strong woman. A librarian!
Negatives:
*Plot and character development
Joseph and Mary Wheeler’s deaths drive the story. Yet, not enough details about their characters or their lives.
*Relationships
- Rachel and Deborah are friends who have been out of touch for long. When they join to solve a murder, you would expect them to talk. However, you see them finding more significant secrets about each other than the murder.
- The relationship between former librarian Bertha and Seth raises many questions but Dean leaves us to wonder and speculate.
- The story is peppered with mentions of Lucille’s life and experiences, perhaps just to add to the mystery. Dean tells you that Mary and Lucille were friends but fought right before Mary’s death. She hints at the reason but does not elaborate on that, probably because it is unrelated to the murder.
*Cross-reference to other book series
Susan Warner, the protagonist of Dean’s Susan Warner Mystery series, makes a cameo appearance. I expected her to reveal something of great importance or help Deborah and Rachel solve the mystery. However, that was not to be. The whole idea seemed rather wasteful.
*Sleuthing
Deborah and Rachel did not appear to do much active ‘detecting’. All they seemed to do was ask around, annoying people who wished to forget the past and get on with their lives.
To summarize, a good book that didn't quite hit the spot. I wanted to shake the story hard and wait for everything to settle in the hope that when they did, all the elements would sit right.
December 5, 2020
As I reached the mid-point in Sharon Dean’s latest mystery novel, “The Barn,” I went to the kitchen to make myself some hot coffee. As I walked back to the couch, I was surprised to find myself in Arizona, 70 degrees outside in December. Dean’s setting of New Hampshire in the winter, in the days preceding and after a crippling snow storm, complete with power outage, were so set in my consciousness that I almost believed I was there, living in a small New Hampshire town called ‘Shelby,’ having just welcomed my best childhood friend Rachel back home for the funeral of our friend’s mother, Mary. I already knew all the inhabitants of Shelby, almost intimately, and although the setting looked like a Normal Rockwell painting ‘After the Storm’ as Dean mused in the book,” I also knew that beneath that peaceful and quaint veneer were secrets and wounds, with a 30 yr old murder, a ‘cold case,’ and all the townspeople as suspects.
The second half of the book deepened the mystery and kept me guessing until the end. I must say “The Barn” was a very satisfying read, and I will miss the town of Shelby in the winter, and Deborah, and Rachel, as I miss my own home town and my dear childhood friends who have moved far away.
The second half of the book deepened the mystery and kept me guessing until the end. I must say “The Barn” was a very satisfying read, and I will miss the town of Shelby in the winter, and Deborah, and Rachel, as I miss my own home town and my dear childhood friends who have moved far away.
December 15, 2020
Cold cases are notoriously difficult to solve, especially in the middle of a harsh New England winter when the snow piles up and the power goes out. This is the challenge that faces Deborah Strong, the main character of Sharon L. Dean’s latest mystery, The Barn, when her best friend, Rachel, returns to the New Hampshire town where they both grew up, determined to solve the thirty-year-old murder of a male classmate. Both women have lost loved ones: Deborah, her husband and young child in a car accident; and Rachel, the classmate who was her high school sweetheart and their unborn child through a miscarriage. Yet while Deborah has found a measure of comfort in the Church, Rachel’s anger and grief still rages, driving their investigation to its shocking conclusion despite warnings to stop.
Well-developed characters like Deborah and Rachel and other denizens of their small town, vivid scenes with carefully chosen details, and first-rate storytelling with often beautiful prose combine to make The Barn a compelling novel from start to finish. I’m looking forward to the next book in Sharon L. Dean’s Deborah Strong series.
Well-developed characters like Deborah and Rachel and other denizens of their small town, vivid scenes with carefully chosen details, and first-rate storytelling with often beautiful prose combine to make The Barn a compelling novel from start to finish. I’m looking forward to the next book in Sharon L. Dean’s Deborah Strong series.
November 17, 2020
This first Deborah Strong mystery brings the reader to the small New Hampshire town of Shelby. Unlike Dean's previous protagonist Susan Warner, who was an English Professor, Deborah Strong is a small town librarian, a job she chose to come back to her childhood town after a tragic car accident took her husband and child. But even small towns know how to keep their secrets.
Some thirty years earlier, Joseph Wheeler's lifeless body was found in a barn, but nobody was ever held responsible for the murder. When Joseph's mother dies, her funeral becomes the occasion for old but long separated friends Deborah and Rachel to start asking questions about Joseph's death. Those questions stir up the past in ways that challenge both women to the core. It takes all their wherewithal to get to the truth and stay alive on the way.
Some thirty years earlier, Joseph Wheeler's lifeless body was found in a barn, but nobody was ever held responsible for the murder. When Joseph's mother dies, her funeral becomes the occasion for old but long separated friends Deborah and Rachel to start asking questions about Joseph's death. Those questions stir up the past in ways that challenge both women to the core. It takes all their wherewithal to get to the truth and stay alive on the way.
January 4, 2021
Beautiful Prose, compelling emotion, and a 30-year old mystery
Sharon Dean’s “The Barn” is more than a cozy mystery. It is a beautiful, almost elegant piece of writing that draws in the reader right from the start. Deborah Strong is a small-town librarian in New Hampshire who regrets having lost her best friend, Rachel. When Rachel comes back to Shelby to attend Mary’s funeral, a woman who had been like a mother to her, the circumstances surrounding Joseph’s death, their high school friend, resurfaces. Solving a thirty-year-old case is Rachel’s objective, and she asks Deborah to share the journey, and eager to reunite with her best friend, Deborah accepts the challenge.
I had to read this book in one day. I was so engaged in the beautiful descriptions and the emotions of the characters that I could not leave this story until I reached the end.
I highly recommend this book and look forward to the series of Deborah Strong mysteries.
Sharon Dean’s “The Barn” is more than a cozy mystery. It is a beautiful, almost elegant piece of writing that draws in the reader right from the start. Deborah Strong is a small-town librarian in New Hampshire who regrets having lost her best friend, Rachel. When Rachel comes back to Shelby to attend Mary’s funeral, a woman who had been like a mother to her, the circumstances surrounding Joseph’s death, their high school friend, resurfaces. Solving a thirty-year-old case is Rachel’s objective, and she asks Deborah to share the journey, and eager to reunite with her best friend, Deborah accepts the challenge.
I had to read this book in one day. I was so engaged in the beautiful descriptions and the emotions of the characters that I could not leave this story until I reached the end.
I highly recommend this book and look forward to the series of Deborah Strong mysteries.
March 8, 2021
The French have a word, terroir, that refers to the qualities of a place, usually environmental, which collectively give unique characteristics to a thing. While normally applied to vineyards, it could just as easily apply to Sharon L. Dean’s novel The Barn. The setting is rural New Hampshire in winter. One can see the paint peeling from clapboard sidings; hear the scrape of a snow shovel; feel the piercing chill of a blizzard; smell a wood-burning fire; and, taste the chowder. Isn’t that one reason why we read—to be transported? Ms. Dean arranges a pleasant journey, less about the mystery of a beloved boy’s death than one about the unsolvable mysteries of friendships and families, including the non-related by blood “kin” of the residents of an isolated New England village. It’s a trip worth making.
October 23, 2020
I received a copy of The Barn as a gift and thoroughly enjoyed the deep emotional life of the characters and the cozy mystery they become involved in. Deborah Strong is a likable and resilient character, made strong by the harsh New Hampshire winters and losses in life. I enjoyed that she was a librarian and loves books. The author writes beautifully, something that can be missing in some mystery genres. I recommend this book to cozy mystery lovers.
April 26, 2021
This was an unusual and startlingly lovely mystery that asks profound questions about dealing with trauma. In most mysteries, finding the killer is not only the goal but the admirable course of action. But sometimes in life, and in this novel, an obsession with solving a mystery from the past and an inability to move on can have tragic consequences. Well done.
January 27, 2023
Slow….
Lots of detail of every day New Hampshire winter life that filled the pages without advancing the mystery. I kept at it but I didn’t take to Rachel, I struggled to accept the 30 year delay to wanting to find Joseph’s killer, and I found the pausity of genuine suspects a challenge, guessing the killer well before the end.
Lots of detail of every day New Hampshire winter life that filled the pages without advancing the mystery. I kept at it but I didn’t take to Rachel, I struggled to accept the 30 year delay to wanting to find Joseph’s killer, and I found the pausity of genuine suspects a challenge, guessing the killer well before the end.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews