Mums and Mayhem (A Magic Garden Mystery #3) by Amanda Flower #bookreview #mystery #fantasy #magic
Title: Mums and Mayhem
Author: Amanda Flower
Publisher: Crooked Lane Books
Publication Date: August 11, 2020
Page Count: 327
My rating: 5 stars
About the book:
A famous fiddler has been kilt. A magic garden’s left to wilt. Does Fiona Knox’s father hold the guilt? Will florist Fiona’s blood be spilt?
World-famous fiddle player Barley McFee arrives in blustery Bellewick, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, for a grand homecoming concert organized by jeweler Bernice Brennan. Fiona Knox, owner of the Climbing Rose Flower Shop, is starting to regret volunteering to help with the concert. Bernice is an exacting taskmaster, and Fiona has enough tension dealing with her parents, who have traveled from Tennessee to visit Fi and her younger sister, Isla, and to reveal a secret about Fi’s birth. But when Barley is found dead in his trailer during the concert’s intermission, and his death is shockingly tied to Fiona’s father, Fiona discovers there are more secrets surrounding her family than she realized.
Much to the chagrin of handsome Neil Craig, Chief Inspector of the County Aberdeen Police, Fiona delves into the case to clear her father’s name. To make matters worse, Fiona learns that Duncreigan, the magical garden that she inherited from her godfather, is dying. At some point during the concert, someone broke into the garden and cut the centuries-old climbing rose–the source of the garden’s magic–from the standing stone.
The stakes are higher than ever and Fiona could lose all that she’s grown unless she’s able to dispel this terrible curse and dig up the truth–fast.
Mums and Mayhem by Amanda Flower is the third book in the cozy A Magic Garden Mystery series. Each book of this cozy mystery series has it’s own mystery to be solved within the book so they could be read as a standalone if choosing to do so. However, the characters personal stories do carry over from book to book for those that read all the books from the beginning.
Readers were introduced to Fiona Knox in the first book of the series when she got a call from a lawyer in Scotland informing her that her godfather had passed and she would be inheriting his estate. Within days of receiving the call Fiona’s fiancé ran off with the cake decorator and her flower shop went out of business so what better to do than hop on the next flight to Scotland and claim her inheritance.
Now Fiona feels like she’s getting her life back on track in Duncreigan, Scotland becoming the caretaker of her godfather’s magical garden and cottage and opening her own shop, the Climbing Rose Flower Shop. But now Fi’s parents have come all the way from Tennessee to visit just in time for a world famous fiddle player, Barley McFee, to end up murdered and Fi quickly finds out that her own father has ties to the famous musician.
Being someone that enjoys all kinds of genres when it comes to reading I really enjoy when authors put a twist on a genre and add in elements of another so the A Magic Garden Mystery series is right up my alley adding in a bit of fantasy to a cozy. I’m also a fan of a couple of Amanda Flower’s other series so I already knew I loved her writing and I continued to do so with this series. This series also takes readers to Scotland so it fits right into my love of virtual travel too and add that in with another fun mystery this is a series that I loved returning to and would continue to do so.
I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.
Find this book online:
Goodreads / Amazon**
About the author:
Carries Book Reviews 
This sounds utterly enchanting Carrie. What a lovely review!
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Great review! So glad you liked this one Carrie!
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Thanks!🙂
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Wonderful review Carrie. This is another series that I have not started yet, but definitely want to read. I also love when a cozy mystery has a twist. Looking forward to starting this one.
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Thanks Carla! I need to go back and read her other series myself since I always like the ones I am reading.🙂
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This looks like such a delightful cozy mystery Carrie!
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Yes it is Wendy! All of her series I have tried so far have been great.🙂
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