A Fatal Bloom: Cozy Garden Mystery

Gerald Finch drops dead at the village fete, and the doctor says heart failure. Roz Pettifer, president of the Lower Wimborne Horticultural Society, says oleander.Nobody listens. Roz is fifty-eight, widowed, and armed with nothing but a chipped teacup and forty years of gardening knowledge. But she knows what belongs in tea and what doesn't, and the floral scent in Gerald's cup is no accident.As Roz maps the village's borders, greenhouses, and grudges, she uncovers a decades-old theft, a treasurer cooking the books, and a conservatory hiding a plant that has no business surviving a Dorset winter. Someone in the horticultural society used expert hands and a poisonous bloom to commit the perfect murder. The killer is as skilled as Roz herself, and possibly better.When the investigation turns dangerous and a second death rocks the society, Roz must solve the case the only way she knows how: through the gardens. Because the growing calendar doesn't lie. And neither do the flowers.A Fatal Bloom is the first book in The Foxglove Lane Mysteries, a cozy mystery series set in rural Dorset. Fair-play clues, no gore, no heat, and horticulture you can trust. Includes a recipe for Sandra Potts's prize-winning Victoria sponge.