The Housekeeper Always Knows

Cozy Mystery · Clean / closed door · 26 chapters + epilogue · 78K novel · 1st person

Complete planning package, 242 pages: the premise, a full codex, every chapter outlined, an AI prompt for every chapter, and the whole launch kit — listing, blurb, keywords, posts, newsletter, reader magnet — already written. One buyer only. When it’s claimed, it’s gone.

For nineteen years, Tammy Gagnon has run Spruce Point, the Kimball family's 1912 shingled estate on an island in Maine's Penobscot Bay. She knows which stair tread creaks, which guest drinks Scotch and which drinks bourbon, and every secret this family has ever spilled in front of her — because nobody lowers their voice around the housekeeper.

Then the patriarch turns up dead at the foot of the conservatory stairs the morning after his eightieth birthday. And his brand-new will leaves the house to her.

Before the nor'easter lets the ferry run, there's the son who pockets her forty-one keys and counts the silver out loud, the family lawyer relaying the detective's instructions in his warm, reasonable voice, a tea tray that came down the dumbwaiter at 11:40 without its napkin, a fire someone wanted at midnight in a room already too warm, and a pillow with her lavender sachet still perfectly centered where nobody slept.

She's spent thirty years being so good at her work that no one sees her, because her mother taught her that invisible meant safe. Someone in this house has spent fifteen years counting on exactly that. One storm-bound weekend is about to make her choose between the discretion that protected her and the voice that might save her.

A contemporary country-house cozy in the Christie tradition, with a Maine Coon who won't go near the hearth rug, and a sleuth nobody thought to suspect of noticing anything. The kind of book where the housekeeper walks into the library with the linen book in her hands, and every head in the family turns toward her for the first time in nineteen years.

WHAT’S INSIDE THIS PACKAGE

⭐️ Story Premise — high-concept pitch, elevator pitch, and Market-Matched™ analysis with triple-category positioning, full Suspense Architecture (tension-and-reveal progression, clue architecture, red herrings with real motives, solvability point), and competitive analysis against four comp titles

⭐️ Complete Codex — full story bible with Tammy Gagnon and six suspects, supporting cast of 9, the Spruce Point estate down to its raised marble hearth, sixteen iron conservatory stairs and the dumbwaiter's green service book, a minute-by-minute hidden timeline of the murder night, in-world documents quoted word for word (the service book, linen count, fire log, will and letters), a single first-person voice system with four example passages in Tammy's dry, exact register, clean-cozy content guidance, and series seeds for 3 future books

⭐️ Chapter-by-Chapter Outline — 26 chapters + epilogue with action beats, emotional beats, key dialogue, chapter-specific sensory details, clue plants and payoffs, ending hooks, and word-count targets, plus a hidden-timeline-vs-reveal-order table, a full fair-play audit and a misdirection map

⭐️ AI-Ready Chapter Prompts — one fully self-contained prompt for every chapter and the epilogue with complete character context, voice guidance, exact clue-planting instructions, and what-not-to-reveal-yet sequencing embedded in each prompt

⭐️ Amazon Launch Kit — the listing, written: Amazon listing with categories and keywords, back cover copy, 50-word short description, and two Ideogram cover prompts with settings lines — plus teaser lines

⭐️ Reader & Promo Kit — Instagram and Facebook posts, newsletter announcement with three subject lines, reader magnet concepts, reader targeting, series marketing, a launch-week social calendar, short-video hooks, and ARC outreach and A+ content copy

⭐️ Market-Matched™ Brief — market snapshot table, five data-backed "why this will sell" bullets, competitive positioning, seven-keyword strategy table with rationale, and full launch positioning including category recommendations, pricing strategy, and cover direction

You write the book. The listing, the blurb, the keywords, the posts, the newsletter and the reader magnet are already written.

One buyer. One story. Exclusively yours.

WHY THIS WILL SELL

→ Mystery > Cozy moves 152 estimated daily sales per top 20 title (2.1 sales-to-comp, Mainstream) — the highest-volume mystery shelf, with ranks climbing steadily since spring 2025

→ Triple-category stack with Amateur Sleuth (2.8 sales-to-comp, 112 daily sales) and Traditional Detectives — three high-volume mystery shelves working for one book

→ The country-house slot is proven, but nearly every bestseller in it is English or historical — this one is contemporary American, with zero period research

→ "Cozy mystery island" and "cozy fall" are both live Amazon searches — a late-October Maine nor'easter hits both at once

→ An overlooked servant sleuth who inherits the house is a built-in series engine — every top-20 cozy is a series, and this one opens straight into Book 2

TROPES

• Closed Circle • Storm-Bound Island • Servant Sleuth • Upstairs, Downstairs • Surprise Inheritance • Birthday-Party Murder • Family Secrets at the Dinner Table • Staff Found Family • Detective Who Underestimates the Help • Fair-Play Puzzle • The Will Was Already Signed • Nobody Counts the Napkins (She Does) • The Cat Won't Go Near the Rug • The Housekeeper Kept the Receipts

HEAT LEVEL

Sweet / Clean — no swearing, no sex, and the crime happens off the page; the only romance is a quiet late-life warmth between the housekeeper and the groundskeeper, shown in coffee mugs and small gestures, no kiss required

Perfect for fans of: Agatha Christie, Katie Gayle, Peter Jay Black, and Richard Osman

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