Seeds of Murder by Rosie Sandler (2023)

Description

Roses are red. Violets are blue. All the evidence is pointing to you...

Steph Williams has landed her dream gardening job working for the wealthy, gated community of Beaulieu Heights. With her beloved dog Mouse for company, she's quite content to be left alone to tackle the weeds and tend the flowers.

If she happens to overhear secret feuds while working in the gardens, or refused access to a locked shed, she knows not to question it - after all, gardeners should be seen and not heard.

Until she is accused of blackmailing the residents with notes disclosing their darkest secrets. Now she's forced to swap her gardening gloves for a detective's notebook, with just ten days to clear her name.

But when Steph's investigation leads her to discover a freshly dug grave in one of the gardens, she soon realises that the residents are hiding more than it seems - and they'll just about do anything to stop their secrets from being unearthed...

Will Steph be able to nip this case in the bud before it becomes too late?

                                                 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Seeds of Murder is a highly addictive cosy mystery and the start of a promising new series. 

Steph and her adorable dog Mouse are tasked with their new job of maintaining the gardens in an upper-class gated community after the previous gardener proved to be unsatisfactory and quite a dubious character. However, it soon becomes clear that her job role will also entail being a sounding board for all the residents' complaints, secrets and problems which leads to her becoming suspect number one when blackmail letters start appearing.

I enjoyed reading about the characters of Beaulieu Heights as there was never a dull moment with them. I also liked the interesting snippets of gardening information that were thrown in making Steph sound very authentic and knowledgeable about her job.

The mystery proved to be quite complicated to solve as each household seemed to have an eccentric character or someone behaving suspiciously. There are a lot of red herrings to distract and keep the reader guessing. 

The narration of the audiobook is excellent and I found myself listening to the whole thing in one day. A fun read from start to finish. I'm looking forward to continuing with this series.

Seeds of Murder is available now in print, audio and kindle. Amazon