Steady and Slow is book 45 in the Tales From Grace Chapel Inn series about three sisters who run a bed-and-breakfast from their maternal ancestors' Victorian house in the village of Acorn Hill, Pennsylvania. Their late father, Daniel Howard, had been the pastor of nearby Grace Chapel, hence the name.

Widowed Mrs. Louise Howard Smith teaches piano as well as keeping the inn's books. Alice Howard is a part-time nurse. Divorced Jane Howard was a professional chef in San Francisco. She does the cooking and gardening. They share in housekeeping tasks.

These books have a formula: there will be a main problem and one or more problems for subplots. Guests and/or townspeople will be involved. Faith will play a part in resolving the problems.

A tortoise shows up in the inn's garden. Jane is worried about kitchen contamination, but Alice talks her into letting the creature stay in their laundry room overnight. Of course she can't find another place for the reptile to stay until the owner can be found, so MP (the initials carved on her shell) remains in the laundry room. How will Wendell, their cat, take this?

Eva Quigley, one of their guests, awakens Jane's competitive streak after a game of scrabble. At least I got to learn more about quoits, which is not as much like a game of horseshoes as I'd thought.

Louise happens to be present when a man named Herb Hoffstritt comes to the library with a letter his great-grandfather wrote to his great-grandmother during the Civil War. It mentions something that happened at Acorn Hill. The letter doesn't use the word 'battle,' but it isn't long before rumors of a Civil War battle taking place in Acorn Hill are over town. It's driving Louise nuts. Can the story be tracked down, clarified, and verified?

NOTES:

Chapter 2: According to the October 2, 1863 letter that Herb Hoffstritt found, the nearby town of Potterston was once named 'Potters Town'.

See chapter 3 for more information about tortoises.

Chapter 5 has information about quoits.

I liked the way Alice got a little boy named Blaine to apologize for being unkind in chapter 6.

See chapter 16 for the story about Sadie Mitler's WAVES uniform pin and the story about Kendra Villeneuve's (the plumber's wife) parents.

See chapter 17 for a information about special needs children being taught in regular classrooms.

The mayor talks about his 1860 Lincoln ferrotype button in chapter 20.

As usual, this was a fun read. I particularly enjoyed the newspaper article about the Civil War fracas and I think it would make a good subject for reenactment.

The recipe this time is Honey-Nut Fruit Salad.

Cat lovers: Wendell, the Howards' big gray tabby, has more action than he usually does. I particularly enjoyed his scenes with M.P., the African spurred tortoise. ( )