Reviews

The Winter Garden Mystery by Carola Dunn

carliekw's review against another edition

4.0

These are quick and easy listens when I’ve had lots of drive time. I like Daisy’s personality and the cadence of the narration.

book_concierge's review against another edition

3.0

Digital audiobook read by Bernadette Dunne

Book number two in the Daisy Dalrymple series has our heroine traveling to Occles Hall to research her latest article for Town and Country on England’s country manor houses. Lady Valeria is none too pleased at this intrusion, but Daisy IS “to the manor born” so she is tolerated. Still, when Daisy asks to photograph the winter garden the last thing she expects to find is a body.

Daisy cannot help but get involved when she sees an injustice being carried out, so she convinces Alec Fletcher of Scotland Yard to investigate. There are a number of secrets being kept by the residents of the household and some are bound to come out in the process of getting at the truth of the murder.

This is a charming cozy mystery series set in the 1920s. Daisy is charming, inquisitive, intelligent and resourceful. She does sometimes plunge headlong into trouble, but on the whole, she is appropriately cautious and responsible. I also like her slow-burning relationship with Fletcher.

Bernadette Dunne does a fine job voicing the audio book. She has great pacing and enough skill as a voice artist to give the many characters sufficiently unique voices.

livhamlin's review against another edition

adventurous lighthearted medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

adelita18's review

adventurous funny hopeful mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

I'm glad I gave Book 2 of the Daisy Dalrymple series a chance after being somewhat disappointed by the “Death at Wentwater Court”. The story was much more engaging, the characters were developed in a much more realistic way, and Daisy has more of a backbone and doesn’t compromise her values or the investigation. I was glad Phillip Petrie also came off as less of a bumbling idiot in this story. The book rushed through the resolution of the investigation and I felt the evidence leading to the murderer was a bit thin in pursuit of more interesting and bombastic characters. I’m hopeful book 3 in the series continues to improve in the evidence arena. 

singalana's review against another edition

lighthearted mysterious reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.25

When I picked up this book, I didn’t know that this was the second book in a series, but luckily it wasn’t a problem. Despite some groundwork for characters and their relationships laid out in the previous book, the story stands well on its own.

The story is set in 1920s England after the war. War and the influenza pandemic pop up a few times in the text, and  I think that it manages to ground the story in the period that it’s set in. The book (and the series) is about a young woman named Daisy Dalrymple. She gets invited to a manorhouse to do a magazine article about it. Soon, a body is discovered in the winter garden. Daisy invites his friend Alec from the Scotland Yard to investigate the murder since the local police seem to be afraid of the powerful lady of the manor.

The characters are interesting but perhaps not that memorable. It's a light and cosy murder mystery but needs more. I had a decent enough time, but I’m not sure if I’m interested enough to continue the series. 

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Content Warnings

Minor: Homophobia, Pregnancy, Cursing, Child death, Abandonment, Classism, Death, and Alcohol

delilahreads's review

fast-paced

4.0

mimster's review

4.0

Enjoyable 

jane_kelsey's review against another edition

4.0

So enjoyable. My guilty pleasure series.

kraley's review against another edition

3.0

These are fun little mysteries. I like the turn of the century atmosphere. I'll read the next in the series as soon as I can get it!

Upon second reading: I don't know if I wasn't paying attention, or if the writing just is t that memorable, but I hadn't even realized that I had read this until I came to Goodreads to write about it. Still a good little mystery and I like all of the characters.

iskanderjonesiv's review against another edition

2.0

In this second installment of Carola Dunn’s cozy mystery series set in 1923 England, plucky Daisy Dalrymple embarks on another assignment for Town and Country magazine and discovers that daffodil bulbs aren’t all that’s buried in a country estate’s flower bed.

Feisty flapper Dalrymple is a breath of fresh air to the occupants of gloomy Occles Hall in Cheshire, among them her former school chum, wallflower Bobbie Parslow, and the thorny mistress of the manor, Lady Valeria. While photographing the barren ground behind the house, Daisy suspects someone has been digging amidst the soil’s first green shoots—and promptly unearths the corpse of Grace Moss, the missing parlor maid. So begins a harrowing romp as the dead woman’s shocking secret is revealed.

**