Pru Parke is happy
with her life at Greenoak helping her brother Simon restore the
gardens and enjoying the closeness with her husband Christopher.
However, when a friend from Austin, Texas calls and asks for help
getting ready for the Chelsea Flower Show, she finds it hard to
resist. Christopher is supportive and so they're off to London where
Pru will help the Austin gardeners get oriented and ready to develop
their garden.
Things don't work
out quite as advertised. The Austin Garden Club arrives minus the
president, Twyla, who was supposed to take the lead from Pru. Without
Twyla, Pru finds herself taking on more and more responsibility for
the garden. With the rain and cold, building the garden without
enough help is becoming a chore. However, when Twyla arrives things
get worse. Pru meets her briefly on the evening she arrives. The next
morning they find her body in a trench on the garden site covered
with rocks. From that one meeting, Pru feels a kinship with
the other woman. Now she wants to find the killer and make sure Twyla
realizess her dream of a garden at the Chelsea Flower Show.
This is a leisurely
cozy mystery. The pace matches the pace of gardeners putting together
their displays. As usual the gardening details are realistic,
including the rain and mud in the spring in England. The Austin
details are also accurate. If you're a Texan, or love Texas, you'll
find this delightful.
Pru is a character
you want to like. She's talented and responsible and wants to help
other people realize their dreams. I was pleased to see more of
Christopher doing detective work in this novel. He's almost too good
to be true. He loves Pru and tries to protect her, although this
isn't always an easy job.
I enjoyed the book
although the mud and rain of the early chapters were depressing. I
also felt that the inability of the Texas women to get down to work
was rather unrealistic. Maybe it was Twyla's dream, not theirs, but
still they seemed to do too much time away from the garden prep
leaving it to Pru
.
I received this book
from Net Galley for this review.
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