TLC Book Tours Book Review: The Red Book Of Primrose House

Author: Marty Wingate
Title: The Red Book of Primrose House
Publisher: Alibi
Publish Date: Nov 4, 2014
Buy: Amazon

Review Copy Provided By: TLC Book Tours and NetGalley

Book Blurb: In Marty Wingate’s charming new Potting Shed Mystery, Texas transplant Pru Parke’s restoration of a historic landscape in England is uprooted by an ax murderer.

Pru Parke has her dream job: head gardener at an eighteenth-century manor house in Sussex. The landscape for Primrose House was laid out in 1806 by renowned designer Humphry Repton in one of his meticulously illustrated Red Books, and the new owners want Pru to restore the estate to its former glory—quickly, as they’re planning to showcase it in less than a year at a summer party.

But life gets in the way of the best laid plans: When not being happily distracted by the romantic attentions of the handsome Inspector Christopher Pearse, Pru is digging into the mystery of her own British roots. Still, she manages to make considerable progress on the vast grounds—until vandals wreak havoc on each of her projects. Then, to her horror, one of her workers is found murdered among the yews. The police have a suspect, but Pru is certain they’re wrong. Once again, Pru finds herself entangled in a thicket of evil intentions—and her, without a hatchet.

Review: I love this beautiful English cozy series. Pru Parke is just a great, unique heroine. She's 51 and working as head gardener at a manor house in Sussex.

I love that she only has one love interest, Christopher Pearse, and that their relationship is a good one and we get to see that develop as this book goes one. Christopher plays a bigger part in Pru's life rather than the mystery in this book. He also is doing his best to protect her from the killer too.

The mystery involves the death of one of her assistants, after a string of vandals hit the garden she's working in. At first you think the victim just might have deserved what he got. He was a bit of an old fashioned guy and a curmudgeon at large, but as the story goes on, you find he really did care for his daughter's well being.

The police have a suspect or two, but like Pru, you know that they can't be right. In fact, you might be a little bit angry at their first choice of suspects, when you have at least two floating around your head as potentials.

You also get to learn a bit more about Pru's English ancestry in this book, which proves to be as exciting as the murder. There's also some drama surrounding Christopher's son, who is working in Dubai.

The mystery is solved before the book is finished, which felt a little bit odd to me, but there were other things, like the status of Pru's employment that needed wrapping up. It made the end of the book feel a bit awkward, but it didn't hurt the quality of the story at all.

There's great character development here and a whole slew of quirky secondary characters that make this a great read and a great series.


Rating: 5 flowers