A day in my life. Hhmm. What’s a day in my life like? Out of my control is the easy and most accurate answer, now that I’ve got four roommates: two humans, two cats. Plus all sorts of shenanigans keeping us on our toes.

Not that I’m complaining about any of it. Five years ago, when my husband Steven passed, I honestly thought that my days of joy were over. A few months later I heard that Alan Macmilan was sick, and I reached out. Alan and his wife Lilly Jayne had always been good customers of Bits, Bolts and Bulbs, the hardware store and garden center that Steven and I opened fifteen years ago. Excellent customers, in fact. Lilly always believed in keeping Goosebush businesses thriving by shopping local. Anyway, we’d been friendly, but we became friends then. Good friends. I’d like to think I helped Lilly through a dark time after Alan passed, but it was a joint effort of the Garden Squad.

What is the Garden Squad? Well, it started when Lilly, her best friend Tamara, her housemate Delia and I decided to help out a friend by doing some guerilla gardening in the middle of the night. The friend was getting hassled with fines from the town, and she was too proud to ask for help. Then we started doing other projects, keeping our identity secret to avoid red tape. Then the Garden Squad started righting some other wrongs around town, helping justice prevail. Warwick, Tamara’s husband, joined the Squad. Then Roddy, Lilly’s handsome next door neighbor joined as well.

Last fall I sold my house, bought one, then sold it. Long story. Anyway, I needed to find a place to stay while I looked for another house. So I moved into Windward with Lilly and Delia. I thought it would be a few weeks, but we’re going on six months. The house is so big that I’m not putting Lilly out, and I’m comfortable in my own suite of rooms. The cats, Luna and Max, have accepted me. And Delia and I always get along. Lilly doesn’t seem to mind, especially since I tend to stress bake, and I’m on a bread spree.

So what’s a day in the life of Ernie Johnson look like these days? Baking bread, running the store, keeping an eye on the progress in Alden Park, going to open houses, contributing to group dinners, and collecting gossip for Lilly. It’s busy, complicated, and full. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Off to make some more brioche dough, and to proof a loaf for dinner. I’ve got some news to tell Lilly about the latest exploits of Stan’s father. Man’s up to no good, that’s for sure. Question is, what can the Garden Squad do about it?

The Plot Thickets, A Garden Squad Mystery #5
Genre: Cozy
Release: October 2022
Purchase Link

Springtime—and another murder case—comes to Goosebush, Massachusetts, in Julia Henry’s latest installment in the Garden Squad Mystery cozy series featuring sixty-something gardener Lilly Jayne!

With spring’s arrival in Goosebush, Lilly and the Beautification Committee turn their eyes to new projects. A cleanup of the historic Goosebush Cemetery may be in order, after Lilly and Delia find the plots there sorely neglected and inexplicably rearranged. Lilly soon discovers that Whitney Dunne-Bradford snapped up custodianship of the graveyard once she inherited Bradford Funeral Homes. But before Lilly can get to the bottom of the tombstone tampering, she stumbles upon Whitney’s body at the Jayne family mausoleum . . .

Though at first it appears Whitney died by suicide, Lilly has doubts, and apparently, so does Chief of Police Bash Haywood, who quickly opens a murder investigation. Plenty of folks in town had bones to pick with Whitney, including her stepdaughter, Sasha, and funeral home employee, Dewey Marsh—all three recently charged with illegal business practices. But when the homicide inquiry suddenly targets an old friend, Lilly and the Garden Squad must rally to exhume the truth before the real killer buries it forever . . .

About the author
As Julia Henry, Julie Hennrikus writes the Garden Squad series for Kensington. The fifth book in the series, The Plot Thickets, will be released October 25, 2022. As Julianne Holmes she wrote the Agatha nominated Clock Shop Mysteries for Berkley Prime Crime. As J.A. Hennrikus she wrote the Theater Cop Mystery Series, and has published several short stories. Julie is the executive director of Sisters in Crime. She blogs with The Wicked Authors, JHAuthors.com, T:@JHAuthors, I:@JHAuthors.

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