Reading this novel was very bittersweet as it is the last of "A Glassblowing Mystery" series and even when a pleasurable series has ended, there is a tiny hope that the author might write about these characters again. As Sarah Atwell was a pseudonym used by Sheila Connolly who lost her battle to cancer in Spring 2020, that tiny hope is bid a very sad farewell. A member of a cozy mystery FB group that I joined recommended using the website "Fantastic Fiction" to search an author's name to learn if a pseudonym(s) is(are) used which led me to discovery of this series. I'm very grateful as I don't know that I would have discovered this series independently and I’ve been fascinated since childhood with hand-blown glass and the artisans that achieve extraordinary beauty in their glass creations. To discover the series was then written by a favorite cozy mystery author was very special. Each novel in the series can be enjoyed as a stand-alone but I would highly recommend reading the 3 books in order to have the highest delight possible in each character’s development and life steps.

I was always intrigued by what sparked Glassblower Emmeline Dowell’s (Em for short) imagination to translate whatever she was viewing (e.g. Arizona landscape, stained glass, gem stones) into unique creations to sell in her shop called "Shards." When Em was working on her design pieces in her glass studio different techniques were explained which heightened images in my own imagination of the finished creations. As a heading at the beginning of each chapter in "Through a Glass, Deadly," (the 1st novel in the series), a term related to glassblowing is defined from various glassblowing resources not necessarily specifically related to that chapter but the overall theme of the novel. I read through the headings of the 1st novel again before reading the 2nd and 3rd titles of the series as glassblowing terms are not part of my daily vocabulary and using the headings as a reference helped me enjoy the descriptions of Em’s work in her studio.

The gem stone that is part of this storyline is Peridot with the primary source located on the San Carlos Indian Reservation (north of Tucson). I had never heard of Peridot before but descriptions in the novel and pictures available on Google Images highlight their beauty.

"San Carlos is home to the world’s largest deposit of Peridot the August birthstone, ‘Heart of the Earth’ and ‘Stone of the Sun’ man has collected these crystals for thousands of years the world over." Source: http://www.sancarlosapache.com/Attractions.htm

For those that love to travel to actual destinations of settings used in novels, you may want to visit Tucson, Arizona, during the annual event of the Tucson Gem, Mineral & Fossil Showcase. https://www.visittucson.org/visit/events/tucson-gem-mineral-fossil-showcase

Secondary characters that have been favorites of this series are all part of the final storyline of the series and I closed the book smiling.

For those interested in gem stones, the author has provided a list of "Sources" following the last chapter.

If you enjoyed this series, you may be interested in my p.s. note provided on my review of the 1st novel in the series, "Through a Glass, Deadly." ( )

Em comes home from a vacation in Ireland with some bad news for her brother Cam, Alison has decided to stay there instead of come home with Em.

Cam takes this very hard and takes off to be by himself for a while. Meanwhile, Em is trying to get back into her glassblowing business, her relationship with Matt and generally normal life.

When a strange man stops in and asks if he can rent some time with Em's glass furnaces life turns very strange. After about a week of being gone both Alison (who came back a couple of days later) and Em start worrying about Cam while Em is more and more concerned about Denis her odd renter.

There is a lot going on in this story with a dead body, gems that are so important to Denis and the disappearance of Cam. Not to mention the two relationships, Em and Matt and Cam and Alison.

I didn't figure this one out until Atwell wanted me to, so it was a fun read.

Not as much glass lore in this one, but plenty of information about Peridot gems, apparently found all over the world but in the U.S. the largest deposit is in Arizona, on the reservation and controlled by the Apache Tribe. ( )

Snake in the Glass is a cosy mystery set in Tuscon, Arizona in which Em Dowell, a local glass blowing artist, gets caught up in hunting down the murderer of someone involved in gem tampering and is increasingly worried by the fact her brother seems to have disappeared. The book is on the more credible end of the cosy scale though it treads the well-worn path of having the heroine in a relationship with the police chief to achieve some of that believability. I've no idea if the premise of the book (that rough gems can be improved upon by heating them to extreme temperatures and that this is perfectly legal) is real but Atwell did a decent job of making me believe it could happen. The characters are interesting and well-developed and there's a nice mix of background information on glass blowing (and the gem selling industry) and if it had been about 50 pages shorter I'd have rated it higher (there was a quite boring section near the beginning where nothing at all happened except people ate a lot of meals). ( )