Lori C. (dollycas) reviewed on 5/8/2016 + 651 more book reviews

Dollycas's Thoughts

Lila Wilkens has my dream job. I would even love to do a bit of sleuthing.

We return to Inspiration Valley for the 4th time and Lila is helping to organize a grand affair to help launch Damian York's new gardening book. As part of the event Lila's own garden is to be featured but when she is pulling out some old shrubs she makes a terrible discovery. A human skull, thought to be a young woman. As if that isn't enough across town another woman is found dead/murdered in her garden. So in addition to her workload Lila now needs to get down and dirty to solve an old mystery and a new one.

The first three books in this series were written by a writing team of Ellery Adams and Sylvia May. Susan Furlong becomes Lucy Arlington for this story and I truthfully didn't notice much of a change in writing style, which is good, but not an easy feat, so kudos to Ms. Furlong.

I really enjoyed the behind the scenes look at an book agent's job and the joy Lily has when she can tell an author she has sold their book to a publisher. Then the way she helps their stories shine with some really good advice and nurturing. In a time when big publishers are cutting back on their cozy mystery contacts Lila gives us insight to the publishing process. I just hope this series continues to survive the cuts.

I really treasure the relationship Lila has with her son Trey. I will not lie, it made me miss my son Kris a lot.

In addition to the mysteries there is some romance with Sean and Lila and Makayla and Jay. Sean may not be moving fast enough in the direction Lila would like but Jay has pulled out all the stops to move his relationship with Makayla forward.

The mysteries themselves are very interesting. Are the connected in some way? or is it just a coincidence that the skull/skeleton was found as another murder happened. Lila wants to get justice for the young girl buried on her property but she is also invested in finding the killer that left a garden club member smelling her roses for the last time.

I was completely captivated by this cozy. We are given just a little tease for the next what to expect for Lila in the next installment. The good thing about reviewing this book right now is that Off the Books was released this past February and it on my shelf calling me. I see some juggling in my reading schedule happening soon.

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