A Twinkle of Trouble (A Fairy Garden Mystery)
by Daryl Wood Gerber
About A Twinkle of Trouble
A Twinkle of Trouble (A Fairy Garden Mystery)
Cozy Mystery
5th in Series
Setting - California
Publisher : Kensington Cozies (April 23, 2024)
Paperback : 304 pages
ISBN-10 : 1496744934
ISBN-13 : 978-1496744937
Kindle ASIN : B0CFGF36NM
Carmel-by-the-Sea garden shop owner Courtney Kelly sees things others can’t—like fairies, and hidden motives for murder . . .
Courtney is delighted when her tiny friend Fiona returns from the fairy realm, appearing at the base of a Cypress tree. When her Ragdoll cat, Pixie, emerges from her own portal—aka the cat door—the three set off for a busy day. Busier than usual, since Courtney has rented a small plot of land at the Flower Farm, where she hopes to grow her own supplies for her fairy-garden business. Plus, the annual Summer Blooms Festival is coming up, and Courtney has booked a booth . . .
But the murder of Courtney’s friend, Genevieve, casts a pall over the festival. Ever since Genevieve sold her floral business, she’d been building a career as an influencer. She was perennially opinionated—but in her new role she’d become surprisingly vicious, dissing local entrepreneurs with nasty posts and unwarranted bad reviews. That’s landed a couple of Courtney’s other friends on the suspect list—including Flower Farm owner Daphne Flores. And when a second victim is discovered, seeds of doubt about Daphne’s innocence sprout in Courtney’s mind. With only a germ of a clue, Courtney will have to overturn every rock to get the dirt on the real killer . . .
What I Thought:
This is the fifth in the Fairy Garden Mystery Series and I have read every book in this series. This is one of my favorites series. I love the setting and the characters (especially all the fairies!). I would love to live in a town that had a shop that sold the supplies for and taught classes on how to make a fairy garden. In this installment, Courtney has become friends with some girls she met on a gardening forum and they meet once in a while for tea at Courtney's shop. The Summer Blooms Festival is fast approaching and one of Courtney's new friends, a social influencer, Genevieve, is not invited to participate in the Festival. The first morning of the Festival, she is found dead outside of the Festival grounds. Then another of the ladies from the forum is found dead outside her home. Of course, Courtney and the newly retuned Fiona have to investigate. I enjoyed the plot of this story and this book kept my attention from the start till I finished it. Again, this one of favorite series. I love the whimsy with all the fairies and would love to be able to visit Courtney's shop. Courtney is a very likable protagonist and she is also a very good sleuth. The writing as always was superb and the the story flowed really well, which made it a fast read. There were many twists and turns that kept me guessing as to who the killer could be and I was totally surprised when Courtney finally figured out who the killer was, plus. I am anxiously awaiting a new book in this series and hope there are more new fairies to meet!!!
I received a complimentary copy of this book.
About Daryl Wood Gerber
Agatha Award-winning author
Daryl Wood Gerber is best known for her nationally bestselling mysteries, including the
Fairy Garden Mysteries and
Cookbook Nook Mysteries. As Avery Aames, she penned the popular
Cheese Shop Mysteries. In addition, Daryl writes suspense including the well received
The Son’s Secret,
Girl on the Run, and the popular Aspen Adams series. Recently Daryl, who loves a challenge, published a Christmas romance,
Hope for the Holidays. Fun Tidbit: as an actress, Daryl appeared in “Murder, She Wrote.” She loves to cook, garden, read, and walk her frisky Goldendoodle. Also she has been known to jump out of a perfectly good airplane. You can learn more on her website:
https://darylwoodgerber.com
Author Links
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Are fairies real? Are they nurturing my
garden?
By Daryl Wood Gerber
I love a beautiful
garden. I adore the magnificence of flowers. I treasure the scent of them, too.
I find a garden stimulates all the senses. For years, I enjoyed gardening
because I found it mentally soothing. I could kneel in the garden for hours
planting bulbs or plucking weeds, and I would allow my mind to take a vacation.
I’d listen to music. I’d hum. I was at peace.
However, a
couple of years ago, I realized I was getting too old to do heavy gardening.
Pulling out plants? Forget about it. Rebuilding gardens by removing old plants
that died and refreshing with new ones? Way too arduous. My shoulders began to
hurt. My elbows, too. And, I’ll let you in on a secret, I love to golf. I
didn’t want to injure myself and cut off my chance to golf just because a hole
needed to be dug.
So I delved
into fairy gardening, and now I’m addicted. What is fairy gardening? It’s like
doll housing for your garden. How did my passion for fairy gardening start? I
went to a Renaissance Fair and I met a woman who fairy gardened. Her gardens
were so spectacular. One had little lights flickering over a patio. Another was
dedicated to dancers.
After going to
the fair, I rushed to a shop where I saw even more epic fairy gardens, and I
bought items so I could, ahem, dig in! I was enthused beyond belief.
How do you make
a fairy garden? Well, there are a couple
of ways. You can plant dwarf plants in
pots and, using fairy figurines and environmental pieces like swings or tree
stumps, or any number of gates, fences, and chairs, you can create a story. You
can also create fairy gardens at the base of a tree without planting a thing. A
fairy door is perfect for that. Add a message behind the fairy door, and you
invite fairies to visit. If you don’t
have a green thumb, don’t fret. You can also make a garden using fake plants.
I’ve made a few of those, and they reside inside my house.
At present, my
backyard is populated by dozens of fairy gardens. I have fairies reading books.
Fairies being read to by owls. Fairies dancing. Fairies playing piano. Fairies celebrating
birthdays. I have inserted adorable positive-thinking signs in many of the
gardens. One says Believe! Another says Live your dream. I’m
forever tweaking the gardens because, yes, even fairy gardens require tending.
At least the weeds and plants are small, which means the holes I have to dig
are small, too. Whew. I’ve even learned to repaint some of the figurines
whose colors might fade in the sunlight.
What’s really
wonderful is I feel by adding fairies to my garden, I think I’ve stimulated the
rest of the garden to bloom accordingly. In truth, there might be some kind of
paranormal activity going on. My garden was sort of static before I made my
first garden. The soil in Los Angeles needs lots of amendments and fertilizer.
I was adding both, but the garden wasn’t thriving.
But now, it is.
Sure, we just had a huge bout of rain and good watering helps, but this growth
spurt started even during the drought. Los Angeles has plenty of hot, dry
weather.
Am I nuts to
think there might actually be fairies in my garden? What do you think? I can’t
see them—how I wish I could—but I feel their presence.
By the way, for
those of you who have taken an interest in fairies, you probably know that
there are woodland fairies and water fairies.
But did you know that there are four classes of fairies? There are nurturers, guardians, intuitive,
and righteous fairies.
In my Fairy
Garden Mysteries, Fiona is a righteous fairy, which means she needs to bring resolution to embattled souls. That’s why she bonds with Courtney and helps
her solve murders. She cannot read minds. She cannot make culprits tell the
truth. Nurturer fairies are exactly what they sound like. They encourage
gardens to grow. [I think it’s nurturer fairies that have found that
homes in my garden.] Guardian fairies protect minds and thoughts and
are very smart and organized. Fiona’s aunt Merryweather Rose of Song is a
guardian fairy who oversees the goings on at the local library. Intuitive
fairies are the ones who can communicate with other intuitive fairies, even at
great distances. They don’t us ESP, but their skills are quite similar.
If you ever
want to get into fairy gardening, there are all sorts of Youtube videos to
watch and books to read. And there are dozens of places online where you can
shop to your heart’s delight to find just the right figurine or environmental
pieces for your gardens. I find many on Etsy, but there’s also the
fairygardenstore.com, minifairyworldgarden.com, Michael’s craft shops, Amazon,
and more. Just type in “fairygardenfigurine” in your browser and start clicking
away.
Warning: the craft can be addictive! But if you get into it, who knows? Maybe you
will see your garden flourish, too!
Fairy best
wishes!
A Corpse at the Witching Hour: A Food Blogger Mystery
by Debra Sennefelder
A Corpse at the Witching Hour: A Food Blogger Mystery
Cozy Mystery
6th in Series
Setting - Connecticut
Publisher : Beyond the Page Publishing (October 6, 2023)
Paperback : 228 pages
ISBN-10 : 1960511394
ISBN-13 : 978-1960511393
Digital ASIN : B0CKM7LTGJ
When Paula Charles isn't writing under the towering trees of the Pacific Northwest, she can be found in the garden with her hands in the dirt or sitting on her front porch with a good book and a glass of iced tea. She has a love for small towns, ghost stories, and pie. Paula lives on a small farm in Southwestern Washington with her patient husband and a handful of furry and feathered critters. Paula also writes cozy mysteries under the pen name of Janna Rollins.
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