Genre: Mystery
Mass Market Paperback; Digital Book
ISBN #: 9780451476906
Berkley Publishing
303 Pages
$6.47; $7.99 Amazon
August 28, 2018
⭐⭐
Ellie is happy running her perfume shop, Scents & Nonsense, in the charming town of Poppyville, California. And she's even happier when she can use her inherited abilities to infuse her perfumes with an extra special something that eases woes or solves problems for her customers. But she'll need those abilities and more when murder comes to town.
Ellie and her women's business group, the Greenstockings, are helping to open a new museum about local history. While sorting through the collection of artifacts, they discover a time capsule from the days of the gold rush. Among the contents is a strange botanical manuscript that local history professor Eureka Sanford believes is extremely rare and valuable. When the professor is found dead in the museum, Ellie has no choice but to sniff out the intruder...but this one may have roots that are as old as Poppyville.
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This is the third book in the series and I really wanted to like it as well as the first two (although I did like the second one better than the first, I will admit). But I was turned off completely when I found out what the professor was doing.
First, they find an old butter churn and discover that it's a time capsule from the 1800's. When, among much fanfare, it contains an old botanical notebook, Ellie finds it's hot to the touch - at least for her. The rest of the items - a diary page and large gold nugget among them - seem to be just pieces of history.
But the professor who takes charge of everything (save for the nugget which has been removed to the bank) for the museum. While the botanical notebook haunts her, Ellie goes to see if she can look at it again and finds the professor dead and all the items missing.
Now, of course, Detective Max Lang thinks she's guilty, but Ellie isn't going to sit still while he tries to pin a murder on her. She's determined to figure out where the notebook is, and who stole it and why...
This book started out well enough, and it was discovered that Ellie's ancestor was the woman in a photo found in the churn. I thought this could be interesting. But it wasn't. It seems the esteemed professor was going to write a book on the photo and the botanical notebook, which would have both belonged to Ellie as the rightful descendant. And she wasn't going to ask Ellie if it was okay to do so, or include her in the book, or ask for her help. Basically, she was going to steal the items for her own profit. I didn't like this one whit, and I didn't feel sorry for her death after that.
I also don't like Max at all. I get that he's the friend of her ex-husband. But did he hate her when they were married, too? Or did he just develop that when they got divorced? There's no reason at all for his attitude unless he loves her ex-husband Harris and is jealous of her for having been married to him. He's a character the book could do without.
It disappointed me so much that I didn't much care for the book after that. And I cared even less for Ellie's "relationship" with Ritter. Which isn't a relationship at all. He goes away for work months at a time, only returning while he's waiting to leave again. He doesn't have any plans to really have a future with her if he's never there. Just around often enough to make sure she isn't seeing anyone else. Nope. No future in that.
These things ended the series for me. Even if there were any more books, I wouldn't read them.
https://www.amazon.com/Marigolds-Malice-Enchanted-Garden-Mystery/dp/0451476905/ref
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2918984673
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