I've always enjoyed mystery stories about
detectives who garden or gardeners who do some sleuthing. Brother Cadfael from
the Ellis Peters novels is a great example, as are Rosemary Boxer and Laura
Thyme from the British television series Rosemary
and Thyme. Every year around this time I get my name on the hold list at
the library for the latest China Bayles book by Susan Wittig Albert. This year
I was fortunate enough to receive an advance reading copy of the first book in
a new mystery series while waiting for Albert’s latest book, and it looks like
I will now be adding Tess Spencer to my list of fictional detectives to follow.
As presented in the series debut Miranda Warning by Heather Day Gilbert,
the main character Tess Spencer is not a gardener or herbalist like the other
detectives I have mentioned, but plants nonetheless play an important role in
the story. Another character in Miranda
Warning compares Tess to Nancy Drew, and a resemblance can indeed be found
in the uncanny knack that Tess and Nancy both have for untangling the confusing
web surrounding mysteries. Like China Bayles, Tess solves her mysteries in a
small town setting with the support and help of her husband, other family
members, and a cast of endearing friends.
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| Foxglove (Digitalis purpurea) photographed by Philip Jägenstedt in Stora Hultrum, Sweden. File from the Wikimedia Commons, released by the photographer into the public domain. |
When I was about a fifth of my way through the
book, I thought I had everything all figured out, but instead I found plenty of
twists and surprises to last through to the end. Miranda Warning was an enjoyable book and I will look forward to
the next installment. Hopefully plants will continue to be featured prominently
in the series, but even if this doesn’t happen, it will be fun to see what Tess
Spencer confronts when we meet her again. I hope that next time Tess will even
share some of her favorite recipes, like Nikki Jo’s eggnog pumpkin bread!
The book will be released on West Virginia Day,
June 20, 2014. It is available in Kindle format and paperback from Amazon.
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| Deadly nightshade (Atropa belladonna) photographed by Kurt Stüber. File from the Wikimedia Commons, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. |
Thank you for posting this, Aly! I loved reading your review on Goodreads. I also LOVE the idea of sharing Nikki Jo's recipes in these books...it's something I'm looking into! And I love that you picked up on the Nancy Drew references. I keep thinking this series is sort of like the grown woman's Nancy Drew. Thanks so much for reading and sharing such a thorough review!
ReplyDeleteAs someone who went through every Nancy Drew (and Hardy Boys) in the local library as a kid, I welcome this grown-up version. Of course Nancy and Tess are different in many ways, but they have some of the same appeal to readers.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate that so much! And BTW--I've decided there will be a WV recipe at the end of each book! Grandpa John L's Cornbread Recipe in MIRANDA WARNING. Thanks for that great idea!
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