Title: Dead in the Garden
Series: Grasmere Cottage Mystery Trilogy #1
Author: Dahlia Donovan
Publisher: Hot Tree Publishing
Genre: Sweet M/M Cosy Mystery
Release Date: October 6, 2018
Blurb
Join bestselling Dahlia Donovan on a cosy mystery adventure in the Grasmere Cottage Mystery trilogy. With love, wit, and a murder to solve, life for Valor and Bishan is about to get bloody complicated.
Dead body in the garden? Check.
Mystery to solve? Check.
Police focused on the wrong person? Not good.
All grown up and graduated, Valor Tarquin Scott, son to Earl and Countess Scott, owns The Ginger’s Bread, a biscuit shop, in Grasmere in the Lake District. The love of his life, Bishan Tamboli, has turned his music studies into a successful career playing with the London Symphony Orchestra. It’s a perfect life with their cat, spending evenings watching Poirot on the television.
The nightmare begins with one dead former schoolmate, leading police to believe Bishan is responsible.
Valor struggles to solve the cryptic puzzles left behind in a race to prove Bishan’s innocence.
He can’t help wondering how far the body count will rise before they manage to stop the killer.
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4.25 Stars!
Dead in the Garden is book 1 in the Grassmere Cottage Mystery Trilogy and it (and book 2, which releases next week) end in a cliffhanger, so if you don't like those, the good news is that the last book will be released in two weeks, so there's not that much of a wait.
Valor and Bishan are great, lovable characters. The story is told from Valor's POV, so we get to know him better, but he shows us enough of Bishan to see how perfect they are for each other. They've been together for a long time and Valor is attuned to Bishan's peculiarities and his needs as an autistic person and is determined to make things right for him when a killer seems to set his sights on them.
As cozy mysteries go, this one is really good. It had enough detail and intrigue to keep me interested, and as I said before, I loved Valor and Bishan. Dahlia Donovan does an amazing job showing us Bishan's autism in a sensitive, informative manner. My only problem with the book was that there were a lot of characters, mostly Valor and Bish's fellow Harrovians, and it was difficult to keep up with them. Other than that, and of course, the fact that the book ends in a not-too-nice cliffy, I have no trouble recommending this book.
*** Copy provided to Bayou Book Junkie for my reading pleasure, a review wasn't a requirement. ***
Dead in the Garden is the first book in a trilogy by Dahlia Donovan. All three books are connected and continue the same story and mystery so I’d recommend that if you’re going to read this you have the other two books already. This book and book 2 both end with a cliffhanger, so you’ve been forewarned. I am one of those people who hate cliffhangers, and this series did not make me feel any differently about them. The murder mystery spread among the three books so you won’t find out until book 3 who is responsible and the reason for that.
This is the first I’ve read from this author and I thought the writing was really well-done. I especially love cozy mysteries and I thought this series fit well within that genre. The author has built a world full of interesting people. Valor and Bishan were easily likable characters full of personality. These two characters have a history together and you felt that in the reading of the story. There are a lot of characters in this story, with unusual names to me, so I at times struggled keeping characters straight. This was something I struggled with through the series, especially with the addition of so many students from their school days.
The mystery was written really well and I doubt anyone would figure out who the murderer is before the author wants you to figure it out. Something I didn’t expect was Bishan being autistic and how well written his and Valor’s life is together. Valor adjusts situations for Bishan all the time with little thought, it’s just natural. Seeing their relationship and the strengths of both men was a sweet and nice addition to this cozy mystery. This is definitely a book I would recommend, but again, make sure you have the other two books at the ready!
Rating: 4 stars!!
Coming Soon
Releasing October 13, 2018
99c for a limited time
Releasing October 20, 2018
99c for a limited time
Author Bio
Dahlia Donovan wrote her first romance series after a crazy dream about shifters and damsels in distress. She prefers irreverent humour and unconventional characters. An autistic and occasional hermit, her life wouldn’t be complete without her husband and her massive collection of books and video games.
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