Hi there. I’m May Flores-Sato. I help run Patty’s Plant Place, a garden center in Hawthorn Heights, Ohio. My twin sister, Molly, is the shop manager and is there a lot more than me. I do the marketing and financials while she’s the one that gets dirty and does all the planty stuff. She also seems to be solving a lot of mysteries lately. I guess I’ve helped with that, too. Together, we even broke into – well, I shouldn’t mention that publicly. As I was saying, our grandparents opened the shop right after our dad started Kindergarten so it’s been around a while. I started at Patty’s Plant Place after my own kids were born, too. Molly has worked at the garden center since high school with just a break during college.
Anyway, a day in my life? It starts early when my kiddos get up. Hannah and Noah. They’re in elementary school, so get up without alarm clocks around 6:00 a.m.. I get them breakfast and make coffee. I always need coffee. My husband, Joe, is a detective at our local police department. He drinks the coffee and eats breakfast with us but makes his own egg white omelet. No, thank you. Anything involving a pan is too much work that early. And who needs veggies at breakfast? Me and the kids eat toast with peanut butter and honey and fruit on the side most mornings. Or we get some muffins or scones from the Creative Crust bakery.
So I get them ready for the day and take a shower. Usually, Noah has already made a big mess of something in the short time I am getting ready and we have to clean that up before we go. He always makes the mess right after Joe leaves. Plus, Noah never remembers to put everything in his backpack, so I’m always triple-checking it. Hannah, on the other hand, is very responsible. Then I drop them off at school and often have a short errand to run before I head over to Patty’s Plant Place. I always seem to be a little late, no matter what I do. Theo, the other full-time employee, gets there before I do. And Molly is always there before Theo, fiddling with plants in the greenhouse. No one seems to mind that I’m not there until just after 9 a.m. when we open.
There are always customers to help, orders to place, and numbers to crunch. I like the numbers part the most. I usually send people with plant questions to Molly. I do a lot of marketing with social media and other local shops, too.
There’s a family that lives down the road with kids that go to our school and so their kids and my kids both get dropped off from the bus right at the Patty’s Plant Place Parking lot. How great is that? They’re always hungry, so we eat some snacks at the shop before we go home. Often, we go on a bike ride when the weather is nice after school. I keep trying to get Molly into cycling, but she prefers hiking. I’d rather not get muddy in the woods. Plus, now two people have died on the Buckeye Trail behind our garden center. Seems like hiking isn’t a very safe hobby. But Molly has helped solve both of those murder cases. I’ve got to assume there won’t be another one, right?
Secrets, Songbirds, and Succulents: A Succulent Sleuth Cozy Mystery, Book 2
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Release: January 2025
Format: Print, Digital
Purchase Link
The annual Buckeye Trail Town Festival. A trail construction site. And one dead naturalist.
The charming town of Hawthorn Heights is celebrating its connection to the Buckeye Trail with a weekend-long town festival. When a local naturalist is found dead at the bottom of a ravine off the trail, amateur sleuth and garden center manager Molly Green finds herself tangled in a murder investigation – again.
As the Trail Festival concludes, Molly unearths unexpected secrets about the bird-obsessed naturalist’s life along with other people in her small community. When the police focus on who Molly knows is the wrong suspect, she starts her own investigation with her flock of fellow amateur detectives. Will Molly and her team identify the killer or will they fly away free?
Secrets, Songbirds, and Succulents is a heartwarming and suspenseful cozy mystery that will keep readers guessing until the very end. Perfect for fans of small-town mysteries and amateur sleuths with both birding and eco-friendly themes.
Meet the Author
Iris March has a reputation for killing house plants and now she’s killing people off in books? Coincidence? Perhaps not. Iris has spent two decades working in the sustainability field and is usually either reading a book or on a trail. She lives in Ohio with her husband, son, and three cats. Learn more about upcoming books and sign up for her newsletter at irismarchbooks.com.