The Garden Plot Thickens in The Potting Shed Mysteries
Posted: Friday, May 30, 2014 12:30 pm
The Reporter-Times
What do you do when you’re a garden writer who wants to write novels? If you’re Marty Wingate, you stay planted in the garden and pen the Potting Shed Mysteries series. The recently released first book in the series, The Garden Plot, tells the story of Pru Parke, a friendly Dallas native living in England, who is seeking a head gardener position so she can afford to stay in her adopted country.
In order to pay her bills, Pru takes on a variety of private gardening jobs. What occurs on one client’s site presents her with a mystery to unravel. While digging in the soil of a broken-down potting shed, she unearths an ancient Roman mosaic. Her delight at the find soon dampens considerably when she returns to the shed and finds a dead body in the spot. Though the police are on it, Pru has a hard time distancing herself and starts to ask a lot of questions, which angers the killer, who feels she’s already dug up too much.
A mystery reader and longtime garden writer, Wingate is a regular contributor to Country Gardens and other magazines, and is author of Landscaping for Privacy. She also leads gardening tours throughout England, Scotland, Ireland, France, and North America.
“As a garden writer and someone who visits England, Ireland, and Scotland on a regular basis, it has worked well to write the mystery series,” she says. “I’ve had a fabulous time in the make-believe world I’ve created in the garden. It’s certainly freeing to write fiction, and the process is a lot like gardening. You design, dig, and plant, and then tend to the garden and watch it flourish.”
Admire Wingate’s handiwork by grabbing a copy of the book, which is in e-book format, on Amazon. And if you enjoy Pru’s story, you won’t have to wait long to read more. Subsequent mysteries in the series will be released every six months.
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Friday, May 30, 2014 12:30 pm.
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