The lavender was supposed to bring peace.
It led Iris Bellamy straight to a body.
Iris has staked everything on Lavender Lane - the cottage garden nursery she inherited from her grandmother, the one thing in Meadowford-upon-Ash that is entirely hers. With the summer festival weeks away, her biggest worries are rooting cuttings, blending sachets, and keeping her spirited Aunt Cordelia from adding too much sherry to the lemon drizzle cake.
Then a dawn harvest uncovers a man buried beneath her prize 'Provence Blue' rows.
A controversial land developer. A hand-trowel from her own potting shed lying nearby. And every whisper in the village pointing straight at Cordelia.
Iris knows her aunt is hiding something. She can see it in the way Cordelia avoids the back garden, in the stillroom door that is suddenly always locked. The sharp-eyed detective inspector in charge has a grudge against the family - and he is ready to make an arrest.
So Iris starts digging. Not in the garden.
Beneath her grandmother's meticulously kept records she finds contested land rights, a secret love affair, and a codicil to a will that changes the shape of everything. The dead developer had a silent partner on Lavender Lane. Someone who stood to gain everything from his death. Someone who has been pruning the truth for decades - and who smiles at Iris over the garden gate.
The clues accumulate over scones in the village bakery, in the hushed aisles of the library, and at the craft fair where everyone talks too much and says too little. Then a second attack strikes close to home, poisoning the very herbs meant for the festival, and Iris realizes the killer is not finished.
Expose the truth and shatter the family name forever. Or protect Cordelia and let a murderer walk free among the roses.
She was never supposed to be a detective. But justice, it turns out, blooms exactly like lavender - late, fragrant, and impossible to ignore.
The Lavender Lane Affair is a delightfully cozy mystery with a botanical twist, about suspicious inheritances, village secrets rooted deep, family loyalty tested by the truth, and one nursery owner who simply cannot leave well enough alone.
Perfect for readers who love small-town whodunits, gardening heroines, amateur female sleuths, clean cozy reads, and fans of Anthea Fraser and Rachel Ekstrom Courage.
A twisty, cozy whodunit you'll devour in one sitting.
