A summer festival. A champion sheepdog circuit. And a dog-toy mogul found dead with a squeaky toy shoved in her mouth.

Julia Holmes came to Frosty Pines, Wisconsin to help her cousin and stayed because it finally felt like home. Now she’s running the yarn shop, tangled up in Maple Hill Knitters drama, and figuring out what’s simmering between her and architect Owen Peters. It’s a quiet life. She’s starting to love it.

Then the annual sheepdog trials roll into town, flashy dog-toy mogul Marti Kessler turns up dead beside a shepherd’s crook, and Frosty Pines stops being quiet.

Marti had enemies the way border collies have energy: enthusiastically, and in every direction. With Blu the Australian Shepherd on the scent and the knitters incapable of minding their own business, Julia starts pulling threads, and they lead somewhere dark: financial grudges, festival rivalries, and secrets someone will kill twice to protect.

When a second body surfaces and someone breaks into her shop, the truth comes clear. The sheepdog trials are just the cover story. The real competition’s been happening behind the scenes all along.

Can Julia flush out the killer before Frosty Pines’ favorite summer tradition becomes its most infamous?

Danger at the Sheepdog Trials is a warm, sharp Midwestern cozy for fans of Maggie Sefton, Amanda Flower, and Laurie Cass, packed with Northwoods atmosphere, a scene-stealing Australian Shepherd, and a slow-burn romance that’s finally starting to heat up.

Book 2 in the Northwoods Knitting Mysteries.