Grandmother's Flower Garden by Ann Summerville

Grandmother's Flower Garden (the first in the Pecan Valley mystery series) is currently 99c on Smashwords.com. At checkout, use coupon No. CW26E (expires March 3 2019)


If you haven't tried Smashwords, hop on over and check it out. It has options for many different viewing platforms other than Kindle.


When Bea first arrives in Pecan Valley she’s accompanied by thunder and lightning, and she tells herself the storm will pass. She also tries to convince herself that she’s taking an early retirement, looking for a quiet place to work on her quilts, putter around in her new garden. But returning to the place where the event happened thirty years ago sparks a longing to find out what took place after Bea left Pecan Valley. Although the clouds have now dissipated, another storm is hovering over her new home and when someone is murdered, she has second thoughts about moving to a small Texas town.

Cozy Mystery Giveaway

Until the end of May, 2017, Grandmother's Flower Garden (the first book in the Pecan Valley series) is offered free for download from Smashwords.com.

Use the coupon code at checkout
YD88G


When Bea first arrives in Pecan Valley she’s accompanied by thunder and lightning, and she tells herself the storm will pass. She also tries to convince herself that she’s taking an early retirement, looking for a quiet place to work on her quilts, putter around in her new garden. But returning to the place where the event happened thirty years ago sparks a longing to find out what took place after Bea left Pecan Valley. Although the clouds have now dissipated, another storm is hovering over her new home and when someone is murdered, she has second thoughts about moving to a small Texas town.   

Grandmother's Flower Garden

Grandmother's Flower Garden is currently available for most e-readers on Smashwords for 99c

Grandmother's Flower Garden and Giveaway

Birds in the Air, the second cozy mystery in the Pecan Valley series, will be coming out soon. If you want to read the first book in the series Grandmother's Flower Garden you can download the e-book at Smashwords free.

Use coupon code XU35F at checkout - expiration December 1, 2013

Birds in the Air

Birds in the Air

The Birds in the Air quilt pattern is symbolic of flight or migration and the dominant colored “arrows” once pointed to the direction of safe travel for the slaves.

The Underground Railroad was a network of abolitionists helping slaves escape to the north. Because slaves were forbidden to read and write the abolitionists devised a way to communicate directions to safe territory. One of the ways was to hang quilts with special patterns on the washing line or through an open window appearing that the housewife was simply washing or airing the quilt.

The second book in the Pecan Valley Series, based on the quilt pattern Bird's in the Air, will be available in 2014. Meanwhile here's an excerpt.

Chapter 1

Biddie, although dressed in bright crimson and purple, looked forlorn, melancholy and not up to cheering for the Red Hat Society.

“I haven’t heard from her for over a week,” Biddie stated and slumped into a pink shabby chic chair placed in the corner of the antique mall booth. Her wide brimmed red hat, that was askew, barely perched upon bouffant black hair reminiscent of the sixties.

Bea bit her lip, trying to come up with words of comfort for her friend while wondering how Biddie kept the ends of her hair flipped up in a perfect curve.

“Perhaps she’s flying,” Bea offered. “Doesn’t Rina have flying lessons every day?”

Nodding, the hat slipped farther down, but Biddie neither noticed nor seemed convinced that Rina would take off as it were without letting her aunt know.

Grandmother's Flower Garden

People often ask me where Pecan Valley is. Actually, although it's a fictitious setting in Grandmother's Flower Garden, some of the descriptions are from areas in and around Weatherford, Texas.  There is a an historic courthouse and square and many celebrities have lived in Weatherford including Mary Martin (her son Larry Hagman was born there).  A great place to set a cozy mystery.

good light-hearted mystery

By Avid Reader on April 15, 2013

I enjoyed this book. It was very entertaining. Good beach book read. It kept me guessing throughout the book with an unexpected ending. I liked the way it ended and am looking forward to reading more in this series.

Grandmother's Flower Garden Giveaway

Grandmother's Flower Garden by Ann Summerville is free this week-end (April 6 and 7) for all Kindle users and free until May 30 for Prime Members.

This is the first cozy mystery in the Pecan Valley Series.

When Bea first arrives in Pecan Valley she’s accompanied by thunder and lightning, and she tells herself the storm will pass. She also tries to convince herself that she’s taking an early retirement, looking for a quiet place to work on her quilts, putter around in her new garden. But returning to the place where the event happened thirty years ago sparks a longing to find out what took place after Bea left Pecan Valley. Although the clouds have now dissipated, another storm is hovering over her new home and when someone is murdered, she has second thoughts about moving to a small Texas town.     

Excerpt:

Bea peeked through the blinds in her kitchen. They were still there, both of them. Two feet clad in mud-covered brown boots protruding, uninvited, from beneath the vines of her sunshine yellow squash or was it a cucumber vine? She couldn’t tell from the window. Regardless of which vegetable patch these boots were invading, she had no doubt that the owner was lifeless. After all, who lies beneath vegetation in someone’s well tended garden in the middle of a Texas summer?

This wasn’t what Bea had anticipated when she told her friends she was starting a new life, moving from the hustle and bustle of the city, moving to the country and she said  . . . . Bea paused for a moment, thinking of the words she had used.

“I’ll have a vegetable patch, grow raspberries. I’ll buy storage jars for the vegetables and make jam. Perhaps even pickles.”

But there in the middle of her prized squash . . . Bea lowered one of the blinds with her finger until it resembled a v-shape, scrunched her brow and considered looking for her glasses. No, the feet were definitely pointed toe up among the yellow flowered cucumbers.

What was she to do? The garden club tour was in less than a week and having yellow tape and crime scene people traipsing around just simply wouldn’t do. But regardless which vegetable from the cucumber family had been invaded, this was the second death in as many weeks and she began to reconsider her life changing decision.

Hop on over to the Amazon Author Page for a list of published cozy mysteries by Ann Summerville  here