BookFest 2024: First Place Historical Mystery He signed on to map the New World, not solve a cold-blooded homicide. But his dream job just became his worst nightmare… Left an orphan, Angus MacKay has no formal education, leaving him little chance of success. When Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon hire him as an assistant on their ground-breaking expedition, Angus sails to the American colonies, seeking an opportunity to prove himself. The contentious Maryland-Pennsylvania border has seen skirmishes pitting neighbors against each other for eighty years. But tensions reach a boiling point when Angus stumbles over a dead body. Suspects abound, including locals who spy on each other and native tribes who were there first. When an incompetent sheriff is determined to arrest Angus, the game changes from drawing a line on the ground to defining the line between good and evil. Desperate to prove his innocence, Angus inches closer to the truth with each mile they measure. Will he catch the real culprit before it's too late? Or will it be his head in the noose? From the treacherous crossing of the stormy Atlantic to the wild, untamed wilderness of Colonial Pennsylvania, Death on the Line is a rich, entertaining tale of a moment in American history and a young man's quest to make something of himself. Book 1 of The MacKay Mysteries, a series of historical murders. "History buffs are going to love this one, but they're not the only ones. Amorosi combines factual inspiration with her own inventive storytelling to create this thrilling historical murder mystery. Though the characters are fictionalized, many of the places and subjects in this story are based off of true events. Charles Mason was a real person who surveyed the border between Maryland and Pennsylvania in the mid 1700s, and it was from his journals that Amorosi acquired many of the plot points for her story. The true historical events that inspired this story really help bring this story to life for readers, but it's made most memorable with Amorosi's creative spins on history." - Independent Book Review