The Disability Book Archive

[ID: A book cover. The background is a soft green. In the centre, a large yellow circle made to look like the sun. At the bottom of the sun, blue and purple flowers. There is a man at either side of the sun. The man on the left is smiling, with short orange hair, a long sleeved pink dress shirt, black tie, black pants and black shoes. The man on the right has short black hair, a long black beard and mustache, long sleeved shirt with breast pockets, brown pants and brown shoes. The title “Dead in the Garden” is written across the sun, with “Dead” in large white capitals and “in the garden” underlined in lowercase, red font. In between the two men, at their feet, a faint, dark green number “1” with the name of the series “The Grasmere Cottage Mystery Trilogy” in small dark green capitals written across it. The author’s name “Dahlia Donovan” is written at the bottom of the cover in green capitals. /end]

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Content Warning:

• Murder
• Attempted Murder
• Stalking
• Arson
• Kidnapping
• Ableism
• Racism

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Summary:

A Romantic Cosy Mystery.

Join bestselling author Dahlia Donovan on a cosy mystery adventure in Grasmere Cottage Mystery book one. With love, wit, and a murder to solve, life for Valor and Bishan is about to get bloomin’ complicated in this sweet gay romance.

Dead body in the garden? Check.

Mystery to solve? Check.

Police focused on the wrong person? Not good.
All grown up and graduated, Valor Tarquin Scott, son to Earl and Countess Scott, owns The Ginger’s Bread, a biscuit shop, in Grasmere in the Lake District. The love of his life, Bishan Tamboli, has turned his music studies into a successful career playing with the London Symphony Orchestra. It’s a perfect life with their cat, spending evenings watching Poirot on the television.

The nightmare begins with one dead former schoolmate, leading police to believe Bishan is responsible.

Valor struggles to solve the cryptic puzzles left behind in a race to prove Bishan’s innocence.

He can’t help wondering how far the body count will rise before they manage to stop the killer.

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Notes:

This is the first book in the The Grasmere Cottage Mystery Trilogy. The main plot of the book spans all three books so I do not believe it can be read as a standalone.

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Archivist Comments:

I’ve actually visited Grasmere. The gingerbread is delightful. Bit difficult to get a wheelchair around though.

So some things to note: the mystery in this book doesn’t actually seem to be complete. It isn’t solved until the third book by the looks of it, and people aren’t necessarily happy with that. Also, the relationship between the MC and his boyfriend is already long established by the time of the narrative, and the boyfriend, who is the autistic character in the story, apparently spends most of it in jail.

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