The Vanished Heart: The Ozarks Cozy Mystery Series

Book 19: The Ozarks Cozy Mystery Series

by Dianne Harman

Genres: Mystery; Cozy Mystery; Animal Cozy Mysteries

Synopsis

Some disappearances are never solved. Some secrets are never meant to stay buried.

Della's life in Clover, Missouri has finally found its rhythm. Her vintage shop is thriving, her relationship with Bryce is deepening, and the ghosts of her past are beginning to rest. But when a lead surfaces about Lydia Bland, a young woman who vanished without a trace over forty years ago, Della can't walk away.

Lydia Bland was seventeen when she disappeared on an April evening in 1978. She was supposed to walk six blocks home. She never arrived. The town wrote her off as another runaway or tragic victim. But Della has discovered evidence suggesting Lydia didn't die—she ran. And she might still be living in Wichita, Kansas.

With Bryce and her faithful St. Bernard Moose by her side, Della embarks on a road trip across Kansas in search of answers. What begins as a simple investigation becomes a journey into a decades-old mystery that touches on everything Clover tried to forget: the tangled secrets of the Denton family, the disappeared children, and the people who chose silence over truth.

When Della finally tracks down the woman who's been hiding in plain sight for forty years, she uncovers a story of survival, fear, and impossible choices. Lydia didn't just run from Clover—she ran from someone who made her believe that staying meant death, and that the people she loved were safer if she vanished forever.

Now, after four decades of silence, Lydia must decide: stay hidden in the quiet life she's built, or return to face the family that never stopped searching and the truth that's been waiting all these years.

Because some hearts vanish to survive. And some truths refuse to stay buried.

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Release date: January 29, 2026

Print pages: 197