Multiple Giveaway Alert!
Kindle copy of Murder Among the Roses
Kindle copy of Murder Under the Mistletoe
Kindle copy of Murder in Bloom
Audio codes for Murder Among the Roses & Murder Under the Mistletoe
Let us know in the comments which giveaway would you like to go in for!
HERO PLANTS
At the Chelsea Flower Show this year, weeds were being rebranded as “hero” plants. A third of the show gardens this year featured brambles, thistles, and knapweed, traditionally considered weeds, to highlight their benefits.
In Murder Under the Mistletoe, Abby Finch learned that her show garden design had been accepted for the Maybridge Show. Murder in Bloom, the third in my cozy crime series, opens on medal day.
The show garden theme is “Back to Nature” and she has created a disused quarry that is being reclaimed by nature and the plant she’s used are those that have made there own way there. Dandelions and willow herbs blown in on the wind, foxgloves whose seeds would have been walked in on the boots of workmen or walkers or, like the rowan tree and brambles, dropped by birds.
And there are nettles which grow wherever man has intruded, providing food for the caterpillars of several species of butterfly. It’s not the first time they’ve appeared as a hero plant in one of my books.
Here’s Honey giving Lucien a hard time in Redeemed by Her Midsummer Kiss.
‘Look at these!’
She shook the dying plants in his face, the bright yellow rubber gloves she wore adding to the bizarre image.
He looked at them then frowned.
‘They’re nettles.’ This madwoman was berating him over nettles? ‘Dead nettles.’ Clearly not a disgruntled member of the gardening club... ‘Whoever sprayed them did you favour, but it wasn’t me.’
‘Not dead. Dying,’ she snapped back. ‘Dead nettles are lamium album, a valuable nectar source for bumble bees. These are urtica dioca, the habitat and food source for red admiral, peacock and small tortoiseshell butterflies.’
These resilient ‘superweeds’ play a crucial role in our gardens and meadows – one study published in 2022 said that weeds were actually twice as likely to attract bees and other insects as flowers - and the gardening community is now encouraging us to appreciate their value.
I have my own “wild” spot. My daughter gave me a Hawthorn sapling for my birthday when I first moved into my apartment. It’s now five years old and in the summer smothered with white, nectar providing blossom and in the autumn covered with berries. There’s also a pyracantha – a thornless one!) that does the same job.
I have a heap of dead wood provided by cuttings from shrubs which provides a bug hotel habitat for bees, insects and beetles and I’m doing my best to remember that when I catch myself on the brambles that have made themselves at home there, that it’s a hero providing food for the birds in the autumn (and humans, too) and a safe space for small mammals.
Liz Fieding
Liz Fielding met her husband when they were both working in Zambia and were keen members of the Lusaka Theatre Club. He was playing John de Stogumber in St Joan, and she was the pageboy to the Earl of Warwick. He swore it was the purple tights that got him.
Years spent in Africa and the Middle East provided the background to many of Liz's romances. Her first, An Image of You, was set in Kenya, in a place where they had spent many happy weekends on safari. It was plucked from the slush pile because the feisty feminist heroine made her editor laugh. Emotion touched with humour has been the hallmark of her work ever since.
After writing 70 books for Harlequin Mills and Boon, Liz has now turned to crime, signing with Joffe Books for three "Maybridge Mysteries", the first of which, Murder Among the Roses, is published on 18th April.
Liz Fielding on the web:
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Liz Fielding has a new book out:
MEET ABBY FINCH. SHE’S A BUSY MUM OF THREE, AN EXPERT GARDENER AND THE STAR OF YOUR NEW FAVOURITE COZY MURDER MYSTERY.
One part jealousy. Two parts rage. Somewhere in Abby’s sleepy little village, the perfect murder is brewing . . .
Abby enters the Maybridge Flower Show, never dreaming for one moment that she’ll win the gold. Or an invitation to appear on telly, alongside gardening legend Daisy Dashwood!
Some people say Daisy’s a tiresome diva. But starry-eyed Abby can’t wait for the cameras to start rolling. Until . . .
Daisy staggers out on stage. Only to collapse at Abby’s feet.
Her demise might seem like a tragic accident — resulting from a cocktail of booze and hay-fever medicine.
But Abby’s not so sure. She starts digging, to uncover shifty suspects at every turn. From snarky co-stars to a toy-boy lover, they all had reason to want Daisy dead and gone.
And that’s not the only puzzle playing on Abby’s mind . . .
In life, Daisy went nowhere without her trusty caddy of healing teas. Now it’s vanished.
What if someone’s been tampering with Daisy’s favourite cuppa?
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Multiple Giveaway Alert!
Kindle copy of Murder Among the Roses
Kindle copy of Murder Under the Mistletoe
Kindle copy of Murder in Bloom
Audio codes for Murder Among the Roses & Murder Under the Mistletoe
Let us know in the comments which giveaway would you like to go in for!
