Storm Publishing 2023 ISBN: paperback 078-1805080848 – also available as an ebook and an audiobook (narrated by Tamsin Kennard, who has the most gorgeous voice)
Order from Amazon UK here (affiliate link – earns me a small commission if you choose to buy the book there!), Amazon US here or Amazon Australia here; or you can order the paperback from any bookshop (all you need to do is quote the ISBN).
Georgina Drake’s retirement plan: join a pilates class, take up gardening, and… solve a murder?
Widowed Georgina Drake has no regrets about moving to beautiful, sleepy Little Wenborough in rural Norfolk. Until she opens the door to her guesthouse and finds the dead body of her latest guest, irritable university professor Roland Garnett. And on top of that she’s suddenly hearing a woman’s voice through her hearing aids.
Completely shaken by the discovery, Georgina can hardly believe it when the police conclude that Professor Garnett was poisoned, with a dinner delivered by Georgina herself. Is she about to be accused of murder? Georgina needs to pull herself together, try to ignore the distracting voice, and clear her name!
Asking around, it seems Roland Garnett offended half the village during his three-week stay and made unwelcome advances to the rest. But who was provoked enough to poison him? Georgina’s best lead is the deadly oleander found in Roland’s system. Her gardener, Young Tom, had access to the plant, but before she can talk to him Tom becomes the killer’s next victim.
As the crimes mount up, so do the clues, but does Georgina have what it takes to follow them to their conclusion? Even when her amateur sleuthing puts her next in the killer’s sights…?
Behind the book
- It’s dedicated to my grandmother, my mum and my cousin – sadly, none of whom are here to celebrate my first crime novel with me, but I’m pretty sure they know
- It’s set in Little Wenborough, a fictional village in Norfolk – actually a mash-up of the Wensum (the river where I take my spaniels for a walk in the mornings) and Attleborough (the town where I grew up)
- There’s a cold-case crime and a modern-day crime to solve in each book in the series
- It all started when I got hearing aids, a few years back, and wondered: what if I could hear things that other people couldn’t? (Which is why there’s a character you might not expect…)
- Like me, my heroine Georgina is deaf – but neither of us let it hold us back!
- It’s not just about the murder: it’s about friendship, about making a new start in life and about second chances.
- And you can expect to find Shakespeare, spaniels, good cake, and a few sneaky musical references mixed in there