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Petals of Malice: A Morrow Bay Mystery - A Cozy Murder Thriller with Botanical Clues, First-Person Sleuthing & Small-Town Secrets
Paperback
Series: Morrow Bay Mysteries, Book 2
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Nov 23 2025
Pages: 244
Weight: 0.73
Height: 0.51 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
Summer in Morrow Bay is supposed to be easy money for June Calder. The Summer Flower Festival brings crowds, camera flashes, and a weekend of sales that can carry her greenhouse through the slow season. June is still learning how to be a harmless nursery owner instead of the woman she used to be, and she would love nothing more than to keep her head down, teach a workshop on pollinator friendly planting, and stay out of every local feud.
Then Pansy Harrow arrives.
Pansy is the visiting pageant director, sharp tongued, controlling, and determined to run the festival like a war zone. She humiliates contestants, picks fights with judges, and makes June a public target within hours. When Pansy turns up dead in a bed of prize blooms right after their onstage blowup, the town does not have to think hard about who to blame. A viral photo puts June near the scene, and Deputy Theo March has to treat her like a suspect even if his instincts say otherwise.
June knows plants do not cooperate with lies. Pollen transfers, crushed stems, seed labels, and subtle toxin residues tell the real story. With the Salt Sisters stirring up trouble in their usual loving way and Theo trying to keep June out of danger, she follows botanical clues through festival politics and old grudges until the trail snaps into something darker. Someone has been using floral shipments as cover for illegal cargo, and Pansy died because she got too close to that pipeline.
To clear her name, June has to find a killer who understands plants almost as well as she does, and expose a supply chain that reaches far past Morrow Bay. Every step puts her cover at risk, and every glance from Theo makes it harder to pretend she does not care what happens here.
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