My name is Gwen Stevens, and I love Halloween. Not creepy, horror movie type Halloween. I love little kids dressed up as princesses, pirates, and cute ghosts. I love the way my small town of Star Junction dives into the holiday headfirst. I love candy. Yes, I’m not afraid to admit that I eat my fair share of peanut butter cups and mini-Twix bars while handing out candy to adorable trick-or-treaters. It’s one week before Halloween and the day could not be more perfect. The air is cool, the sunshine is warm, and I’m helping my mom decorate the front of our flower shop, Camelot Flowers, for the annual Star Junction small business decorating contest. She’s determined to win the fifty-dollar gift card and more importantly, rub her victory in the face of Burt from Cozy Cut Pet Groomers further down Main Street.
Yes, my name is Gwen, short for Guinevere, and my family owns a flower shop called Camelot Flowers. I’ll let you guess what my dad’s favorite hobby, bordering on obsession, is. Back to arranging the flowers covering the full suit of armor my mom set up in the front window of the shop.
Perfection can’t last forever, and today was no exception. My errand to drop our entry form at city hall should have been quick, but stumbling on a dead body has a way of derailing anyone’s plans. To make matters worse, someone had dressed up the body as a scarecrow and set it up in the fall display in front of city hall. I swear, I don’t go looking for dead bodies. They just find me. The one bright spot of the situation was getting to see Star Junction police detective, Finn Butler, but even that was tempered by the aforementioned dead body. You can only feel so many butterflies in your stomach at a crime scene. My shock continued when they moved the body and the scarecrow’s hat fell off to reveal my neighbor, Trevor. Dead bodies are bad enough, but when it’s someone you know? I was out of there.
Now, no one liked Trevor very much, which is about to make this murder investigation much more complicated than it should’ve been. Too many suspects, not enough evidence. I can tell it’s stressing Finn out, which can only mean one thing—I have to help him solve this murder. Ugh! Just thinking about investigating a murder at Halloween gives me the shivers. We need to catch this killer so I can go back to focusing on the fun parts of Halloween—the candy, my costume for the Fall Festival later this week, and finally cleaning the cobwebs off my complicated love life.
Sunflowers, Scarecrows, and Scandal, A Camelot Flowers Mystery Book 3
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Release: October 2024
Format: Print, Digital
Purchase Link
From author Erica Wynters comes a hauntingly good Camelot Flowers Mystery…
It’s Halloween in Star Junction, and the town is gearing up for a spooky good time. That is, until florist Gwen Stevens discovers the dead body of her neighbor Trevor—dressed as a scarecrow in the Halloween display in front of City Hall with an ominous note from the killer tucked into the pocket of his costume!
Murder investigations are always complicated, but when the friends of Trevor’s wife all confess to murdering him, the local police detective Finn Butler is stuck sorting through their conflicting confessions, leaving Gwen to dig up the truth.
Ghosts and goblins aren’t the only things that go bump in the night as Gwen searches for the murder weapon, sorts through enough suspects to fill a kid’s trick-or-treat bag, and finally makes a decision between dating Finn or her long-time best friend and crush, Chris. As Halloween approaches, can Gwen unmask a murderer or will this unsolved case haunt the small, peaceful town of Star Junction forever?
Meet the author
Erica Wynters crafts stories that are fast paced and fun to read. She’s always pushing for that perfect blend of swoony romance and keep-you-up-late-at-night suspense. Her heroines are strong, intelligent, and give their heroes a run for their money.
She lives in the Phoenix area with her husband and two kids. She may have lived most of her life in the frigid midwest, but now she spends her time in the warmth and sunshine of Arizona. She loves hiking, hunting down waterfalls in the desert, reading (of course), and napping. Can napping be considered a hobby? When not weaving tales of romance and danger, Erica works as a Marriage and Family Therapist helping others find their Happily Ever Afters.