About the Book
After Aggie Dunkirk’s career is unceremoniously ended by her own mistakes, she finds herself traveling to Wisconsin, where her grandmother, Mumsie, lives alone in her rambling old home. She didn’t plan for how eccentric Mumsie has become, obsessing over an old, unsolved crime scene–even going so far as to re-create it in the dollhouse.
Mystery seems to follow her when she finds work as a secretary helping to restore the flooded historical part of the cemetery. Forced to work with the cemetery’s puzzling, yet attractive archeologist, she exhumes the past’s secrets and unwittingly uncovers a crime that some will go to any length to keep quiet–even if it means silencing Aggie.
In 1946, Imogene Flannigan works in a local factory and has eyes on owning her own beauty salon. But coming home to discover her younger sister’s body in the attic changes everything. Unfamiliar with the newly burgeoning world of criminal forensics and not particularly welcomed as a woman, Imogene is nonetheless determined to stay involved. As her sister’s case grows cold, Imogene vows to find justice . . . even if it costs her everything.
Excerpt
She paused in front of the tilting tombstone. It wasn’t tall. It was just an average marker of worn gray granite. Nothing fancy. But there was most assuredly a rose at its base. A small pink rose, like a bud that was picked before it could bloom. Picked too early.
Her eyes skimmed the name on the stone.Hazel Elizabeth Grayson
b. January 19th, 1927 – d. July 18th, 1946Grayson. The name sounded vaguely familiar, but then it wasn’t an uncommon surname either. She bent and lifted the rose, even though she felt as if she shouldn’t. As if she was disturbing something sacred.
Who would have sloshed through this much to put a rose on a grave of someone who had died over seventy years ago?
Aggie moved to put the rose back in its original position when she caught sight of something on one of the outside petals. It was black, inky, with the pigments bleeding into the veins of the flower petal. She frowned, pulling it close so she could try to interpret it.
It was writing. Writing on a flower petal with what she assumed was a permanent, fine-tip marker.
Her breaths came shorter now. She’d stumbled onto someone’s homemade epitaph for a long-dead Hazel Grayson.
Not over.
Not over? Aggie drew back. “What’s not over?” she mumbled. She turned the rose in her hand, but only the one petal was marred with ink.
“Pardon?” Collin asked from yards away.
Aggie cast him a disturbed look. His smile faded as he caught the angst that crossed her face, probably stretching from her brown eyes to the light spattering of freckles to the corners of her lips.
“Is something the matter?” Concern edged his voice, enhancing his accent.
Aggie frowned, shaking her head. She looked back at the rose, at the petal that slipped loose from its stem and floated toward the ground. It drifted softly until its pink softness rested on the mud at the base of the gravestone.
Not over.
Aggie had no desire to be in the middle of an untold story. A story someone had penned remembrance of onto a rose petal.
She dropped the rose, ignoring the way her shoe crushed it into the messy ground.
“Everything’s fine,” she called back to Collin.
Lies.
But sometimes lies were far better than the truth. Sometimes, at least, a lie didn’t hurt as much.
Review
Jaime Jo Wright has delivered another atmospheric story for lovers of Gothic-style suspense—partly set in a graveyard, no less! But as well as delivering some chills and thrills, she also delivers a poignant story about the ways we process and deal with grief—or not, as the case may be. Not only is the historical storyline set in the immediate aftermath of World War II, as the young men who return from war try to settle back into civilian life, but both Imogene (historical setting) and Aggie (contemporary setting) have recently lost a family member—in Imogene’s case, in brutal circumstances.
Counterbalancing the darker side of this story is archaeologist Collin O’Shaughnessy, who brings his professional and personal insights to the story with a gentle touch of dramatic flair and an eclectic collection of colloquialisms. He is, in a word, charming. If I may be allowed two words, I would say quite charming! And his role as an archaeologist works on a literal and metaphorical level: “I’m just an archaeologist, Love…I help uncover dead things and bring their stories back to life.” This applies to the characters who are buried under the weight of their grief as much as it does the characters who are buried in the earth.
While both stories kept me firmly in their grasp, I did find this a less intense read than Wright’s previous novels. It was intriguing more than suspenseful for me, and I wasn’t convinced by a few aspects of the mystery when all was revealed. But that won’t stop me eagerly anticipating the next offering from Jaime Jo Wright.
I received a copy of this novel from the author. This has not influenced the content of my review, which is my honest and unbiased opinion.
About the Author
Professional coffee drinker & ECPA/Publisher’s Weekly best-selling author, Jaime Jo Wright resides in the hills of Wisconsin writing spirited turn-of-the-century romance stained with suspense. Coffee fuels her snarky personality. She lives in Neverland with her Cap’n Hook who stole her heart and will not give it back, their little fairy TinkerBell, and a very mischievous Peter Pan. The foursome embark on scores of adventure that only make her fall more wildly in love with romance and intrigue.
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