A Sprinkling of Murder
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4.5 • 22 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Featured on Buzzfeed Books!
Fairy garden store owner Courtney Kelly believes in inviting magic into your life. But when uninvited trouble enters her shop, she’ll need more than a sprinkling of her imagination to solve a murder . . .
Since childhood, Courtney has loved fairies. After her mother died when Courtney was ten, she lost touch with that feeling of magic. A year ago, at age twenty-nine, she rediscovered it when she left her father's landscaping business to spread her wings and start a fairy garden business and teashop in beautiful Carmel, California. At Open Your Imagination, she teaches garden design and sells everything from fairy figurines to tinkling wind chimes. Now she's starting a book club tea.
But the light of the magical world she's created inside her shop is darkened one night when she discovers neighboring dog-grooming business owner Mick Watkins dead beside her patio fountain. To make matters worse, the police suspect Courtney of the crime. To clear her name and find the real killer, Courtney will have to wing it. But she’s about to get a little help from an unexpected source . . .
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
At the start of this enchanting series launch from Agatha Award winner Gerber (the French Bistro mysteries), Courtney Kelly, the owner of Open Your Imagination, a fairy garden and tea shop in Carmel-by-the-Sea, Calif., directs a five-year-old customer's attention to a planter on the shop's patio where she hopes the girl will see a fairy named Fiona. The girl does see Fiona. Courtney considers it part of her mission to encourage young and old to see and enjoy fairies, though only believers can do so. When Mick Watkins, the owner of the neighboring dog grooming salon, is found murdered inside Courtney's shop, feisty Fiona joins Courtney and friends in giving Det. Dylan Summers of the Carmel PD some unwanted help in solving the crime. Issues with Courtney and Mick's landlord, the victim's open affair with a prominent councilwoman, his wife's understandable jealousy, and his mysterious manuscript based on a decades-old local tragedy provide the sleuths plenty to investigate. Gerber makes what could have been unbearably cute convincing. Cozy fans will wish upon a star for more.
Customer Reviews
So much fun to read
Courtney Kelly believes in bringing a little magic into your life in the form of a fairy garden. Courtney has a background in landscaping but decided to follow her dream of opening a fairy garden and tea shop. Courtney has believed in fairies most of her life, although she could not always see them. Everything seemed to be going great for the shop until the store’s fairy, Fiona, comes to inform her that there is a dead body in the shop. Courtney rushes to her shop and calls the police, only to become a prime suspect. Courtney, along with Fiona, set out to clear her name and save her business. I loved reading this book. This is a fun and unique cozy mystery. I fell in love with Courtney, her cat, Fiona, and Joss (the bookkeeper for the shop). The characters are well-developed and have great chemistry. The store, Open Your Imagination, is a charming and magically setting for the book. I loved reading about how to make fairy gardens. I have a small one of my own in my reading nook. While reading, I had to urge to rush out and get items to expand my fairy garden and try out the new ideas I had just read about. The mystery is well developed. It has many twists and turns and red herrings to keep the reader involved in solving the murder right along with Courtney and Fiona. I have read books from Author Daryl Wood Gerber other series. I have enjoyed the books of hers that I read, but I think this series is going to be my favorite one of her series. I am excited about reading the next one in the series! All thoughts and opinions are my own, and in no way, I have been influenced by anyone.