Kathleen Ernst

Chloe Ellefson is making a fresh start in Wisconsin as collections curator at Old World Wisconsin, an outdoor ethnic museum showcasing 19th century settlement life. On her first day, an elderly woman begs her to find a Norwegian ale bowl that had been earlier donated to the museum. However, before Chloe can find the heirloom to return it to her, the elderly woman dies in a suspicious car crash. She soon discovers that digging up the history and location...

"This is a book with great meaning for those of us who grew up on farms, and a book to be shared with young people eager to know more about pioneer life." —Jerry Apps, author of "Old Farm: A History" and "Whispers and Shadows: A Naturalist's Memoir"

"A Settler's Year" provides a rare glimpse into the lives of early immigrants to the upper Midwest. Evocative photographs taken at Old World Wisconsin, the country's largest outdoor museum

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Chloe Ellefson is excited to be learning about Wisconsin's Cornish immigrants and mining history while on temporary assignment at Pendarvis, a historic site in charming Mineral Point. But when her boyfriend, police officer Roelke McKenna, discovers long-buried human remains in the root cellar of an old Cornish cottage, Chloe reluctantly agrees to mine the historical record for answers. She soon finds herself in the center of a heated and deadly controversy...

"For curator Chloe Ellefson, a family bonding trip to Decorah, Iowa, for rosemaling classes seems like a great idea -- until the drive begins. Chloe's cop friend Roelke takes her mother's talk of romantic customs good-naturedly, but it inflates Chloe's emotional distress higher with each passing mile. After finally reaching Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum, Chloe's resolve to remain positive is squashed when she and Roelke find Petra Lekstrom's...

"When Pomeranian immigrant Hanneke Bauer reaches Wisconsin in 1855, she believes her dearest dreams are coming true. After reuniting with her husband Fridolin at his farm near Watertown, she will help create a true home. Instead, she receives the shocking news that he is dead. Hanneke quickly learns that Wisconsin life is not as bucolic as it seems. Alone and destitute, she is determined to discover the details of Fridolin's death. Her efforts prompt...

Curator and occasional sleuth Chloe Ellefson is off to Minneapolis to help her friend Ariel with a monumental task. Ariel must write a proposal for a controversial and expensive restoration project: convert an abandoned flour mill, currently used as shelter by homeless people, into a museum. When a dead body is found stuffed into a grain chute, Chloe's attention turns from milling to murder. Back in Milwaukee, Chloe's love interest Roelke has been...

When Kirsten's new friend Erik disappears, she has to figure out whether he ran away to get out of some promises he made, or whether something else has happened.

While working as a reporter during her summer vacation in 1935, Kit uncovers a mystery at the Cincinnati Zoo involving suspected break-ins at the monkey house.

"Four months after her turbulent arrival, Pomeranian immigrant Hanneke Bauer is still struggling to feel at home on the Wisconsin farm she inherited from her husband. She does savor a growing friendship with tinsmith Karoline Ketzler, but that solace vanishes when Karoline's daughter Jacobine finds her father dead from a vicious attack. When the deputy sheriff's suspicions fall on Karoline, Hanneke employs her own talents to investigate the crime....

In the early 1700s, twelve-year-old Suzette, an Ojibwa-French girl, hopes that her father will win the fur-trapping contest so that he can quit being a voyageur and stay with his family year-round, but when he is accused of stealing, Suzette must use her knowledge of both French and Ojibwa ways to find the real thief.