Deadly Nightshade

Book 1

When a celebrated food critic drops dead at a village fête, botanist Hazel Morgan finds herself investigating a murder that strikes dangerously close to home.

After six years away, Hazel has reluctantly returned to Thornworthy to help her grandmother Maggie run the family’s traditional herb shop. But her homecoming takes a sinister turn when Italian celebrity chef Paolo Vincenti dies during the village fête, poisoned minutes after judging a herbal tea competition.

With her grandmother as the prime suspect and a methodical detective inspector closing in, Hazel is drawn into the investigation, and must use her botanical expertise to uncover the truth.

From the gossip-filled tea rooms to Thornworthy Hall’s aristocratic gardens, everyone seems to have something to hide. Between threatening phone calls, break-ins, and cryptic warnings from unlikely allies, Hazel must untangle a web of greed and old grudges before the killer strikes again.