Synopses & Reviews
The past six months have been tough on River City, Missouri's leading florist Bretta Solomon. Still getting used to being a fairly young widow and upset over having regained some of the weight she worked so hard to lose, Bretta is throwing herself into her latest project: the restoration of her new home, the historic Beauchamp mansion.
Bretta and her flower shop staff have been working overtime, decorating for the upcoming public open house. But a week before the big event, catastrophe strikes: the mansion's former owner, River City matriarch Cameo Beauchamp is strangled in a roomful of people during a momentary blackout. But that's not the worst thing. The murder site is Bretta's ballroom during a dinner-party preview of the house, and several of River City's upstanding citizens are present. Cameo had just accused--but not named-someone in the group of blackmail, and the manner of her death makes them all murder suspects.
Ignoring her promise to local sheriff Sid Hancock not to get involved in the investigation, Bretta becomes determined to discover what deadly secrets the blackmailer had uncovered and reveal Cameo's killer - before becoming the next victim.
Review
"Satisfying."--
Publishers Weekly"Suspenseful."--Kirkus Reviews
Synopsis
A BOUQUET OF HOLIDAY MURDER The Christmas season has arrived in River City, Missouri, and for Bretta Solomon, owner of The Flower Shop, it's a rush of poinsettias, garlands, and festive boughs of holly. Still mourning the loss of her husband and trying (unsuccessfully) to resist the rich holiday deserts, she's thrown herself into the renovations of her new home: the city's historic Beauchamp mansion. Unfortunately, at her gala holiday open house for the town's leading citizens, murder crashes the party...
River City's prickly matriarch, Cameo Beauchamp, announces that one of Bretta's guests has been blackmailing her, but before she can point the proverbial finger-she's strangled with a string of Christmas tree lights during a dramatic momentary blackout. Soon, Bretta is digging into the dirty secrets and dark manipulations of a family and a community, cultivating her green thumb and formidable detective skills in a dangerously fertile garden of evil right in her own backyard.
About the Author
With the Bretta Solomon series,
Janis Harrison has combined her career as a florist with her love of writing. She and her husband live near Windsor, Missouri, where they operate their own greenhouse business.