"For the Confederate Day celebration, the Darling Dahlias are ready to plant Confederate roses along the fence of the town cemetery. Miss Dorothy Rogers, club member and town librarian, would be quick to point out the plant is in fact a hibiscus. The Confederate rose is not the only thing that is not what it first appears to be in this small Southern town. Earle Scroggins, the county treasurer, has got the sheriff thinking that Scroggins' employee...

"Trying to escape the ghosts of the past, young widow Stella Rothchild, along with her two energetic little boys, has moved back to her roots in southern Tennessee and into her new life at Harper House and the In the Garden nursery. She isn't intimidated by the house nor by its mistress, local legend Roz Harper. Despite a reputation for being difficult, Roz has been nothing but kind to Stella, offering her a comfortable new place to live and a challenging...

"It's the spring of 1933 and times are tough all over. The only businessman not struggling is moonshiner Mickey LeDoux, though he still has to steer clear of federal agents. But banks are closing all over the country, and the small town of Darling is no exception. Folks are suddenly caught short on cash and everyone is in a panic. Desperate to avoid disaster, several town leaders--including Alvin Duffy, the bank's new vice president--hatch a plan...

"It's Christmas, 1934, and the citizens of Darling, Alabama, are unwrapping a big package of Christmas puzzles. Mildred Kilgore and Earlynne Biddle are planning to open a bakery on the square--if they can come up with the right recipes. Charlie Dickens faces two of the biggest puzzles of his career as an investigative reporter, and one of them involves his wife. Cute little Cupcake's talent as a singer and dancer makes her a tempting target for an...

Transports readers to the summer of 1934, when a sensational murder shakes up the small Southern town of Darling, Alabama. When a telephone switchboard operator with a wild reputation is murdered, the ladies of the Darling Dahlias garden club sort out rumors from fact to identify the killer.

It looks like the music has ended for Darling's favorite barbershop quartet, the Lucky Four Clovers just days before the Dixie Regional Barbershop Competition. Another unlucky break: a serious foul-up in Darling's telephone system and not a penny for repairs. And while liquor is legal again, moonshine isn't. Sheriff Buddy Norris needs a little luck when he goes into Briar Swamp to confront Cypress County's most notorious bootlegger. What he finds...

Aria Tang West was looking forward to a summer on Martha's Vineyard with her best friends--one last round of sand and sun before college. But after a graduation party goes wrong, Aria's parents exile her to California to stay with her grandmother, artist Joan West. Aria expects boredom, but what she finds is Steph Nichols, her grandmother's gardener. Soon, Aria is second-guessing who she is and what she wants to be, and a summer that once seemed lost...

The star of public television's top garden show, Louise Eldridge is something of a celebrity. But when a dead body is planted in her backyard, she's in for notoriety of a different kind. . .
Summer is the season for disquiet in Louise's Sylvan Valley cul de sac, and the tradition continues when an uninvited guest crashes a neighborhood soiree. Five years ago, Louise identified Peter Hoffman as the "mulch murderer." Now he's been released from a...

While filming a garden in Connecticut for her TV program, producer and sleuth Louise Eldridge is called to investigate the murder of a specialist in plant engineering. Lots of details on gardens and gardening.

I have a gardener's inherent belief in the natural order of things. Soft-petalled flowers that go to seed. The resolute passage of the seasons. Swallows that fly thousands of miles to follow the eternal summer. Children who don't die before their parents. A community in shock. When eighteen-year-old Rosie Anderson disappears, the idyllic village where she lived will never be the same again. Local gardener Kate is struck with guilt. She'd come to know...