Blue Dahlia
Number 1 in Series
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3.8 • 23 Ratings
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- £5.49
Publisher Description
Recently widowed, Stella Rothchild is no stranger to the ghosts of the past, but the move from Michigan back to her roots near Memphis, Tennessee is supposed to be about the future. Her two energetic young sons are thriving in their new school. Stella's got a great job managing successful nursery 'In the Garden' and an interesting boss and landlady in local legend Roz Harper. She even has a new friend in Hayley Phillips, the feisty young pregnant woman who turns up at Harper House, Stella's new home, looking for a job. More than that, Stella feels an instant attraction to 'In the Garden's' landscaper, Logan Kitridge, who gets under her skin and makes her feel truly alive for the first time in years. But there is someone at Harper House who isn't happy about Stella's growing feelings for Logan - the Harper Bride, an unidentified woman whose grief and rage have kept her spirit alive long past the death of her body. Love and loss broke her mind, and in her madness, she will stop at nothing to destroy the new passion that Logan and Stella have found.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Flower metaphors run amok in this first installment of Roberts's newest trilogy, which focuses on a quaint nursery called In the Garden and the haunted estate neighboring it. The book starts out at a plodding pace, with the sudden death of Stella Rothchild's beloved husband and her subsequent move, with her two young boys, from Michigan to the outskirts of Memphis. Fortunately, the pace picks up after Stella plants her roots at Harper estate and secures a job managing In the Garden, which is owned by Roz Harper, the same blunt, self-assured woman who presides over the estate. Though strictly regimented Stella forms a fast friendship with Roz, she clashes with Logan Kitridge, the nursery's sexy landscape designer. Logan is the antithesis of Stella brash and impulsive, he thrives on chaos but their enmity inevitably gives way to love. The scenes between them crackle with wit, charm and sexual tension, and are rivaled only by the warm relationships that develop among Stella, Roz and Hayley, a distant relative of Roz's who comes to the estate seeking a fresh start. Less effective is a subplot involving a ghost who doesn't seem to approve of Stella's relationship with Logan. This thread provides a few spooky moments, but it would have been more effective without the prologue's clich d setup. While this book isn't vintage Roberts, it's a promising start to a new series.
