Seeking Signs — Staci Angelina Mercado

The 2013 Midwest Book Award winner for historical fiction.One hundred years ago, Minnie Seamer's death shocked her rural Iowa community. A young farmhand found her body hanging in the barn on a rainy summer morning in 1913. The coroner ruled it a suicide, but distraught family members were not convinced. Was it suicide -- or was it murder?Seeking Signs, based on actual events, is the story of a young girl's search for answers in the wake of a family tragedy. To solve the mystery of her older sister's puzzling death, 13-year-old Elsie follows tips from a booklet titled "The Baum Detective Agency Course." As she begins observing and gathering evidence, Elsie encounters clues that call into question the coroner's report and lead her into a shadowy world of deceit and betrayal. Elsie's notebook and entries from Minnie's diary reveal an unexpected truth: a truth that interprets a young wife's troubled past in a community not as safe as it seems.Seeking Signs takes the reader into a world steeped in history and superstition. As Elsie hunts for signs, her voice brings the time period and its people to life. The answers she finds take her investigation to a conclusion that changes the path of her life forever and ultimately catapults her from innocence to a compelling coming of age.