Murder by Death

I had been looking forward to this book, because I was pretty impressed with the first one. Although I'm a fan of Cattrell's other work, I really fell for this series' backdrop of a woman who creates a beautiful garden and uses what she grows to distill her own essential oils, mixing custom perfumes in her small shop.  I'm not overly interested in the perfume angle, but the gardening and the tiny house she lives in all sound, not to put too fine a point on it, enchanting.

This sophomore entry doesn't disappoint as far as the garden and the distilling goes, and the slight hint at paranormal gifts that was in the first one is expanded upon here, but there's a love triangle in the making, which is always disappointing.  Luckily, the murder mystery was pretty good; the resolution managed to take me almost completely by surprise.  

I'll definitely read a third one, if it's in the offing, and there's a recipe for lavender shortbread in the back of this one I'm itching to try.

Total pages: 306

$$:  $6.00