Author: Pamela Simboli

Now is a good time to learn about spring planting and getting your garden prepared for the new season. Wave Hill Garden in the Bronx has 2 upcoming programs of interest to check out. The Horticultural Lecture Series: The Curious Plantsman—Challenging Convention: Plant Trials by Design and Workshop with the Gardeners: Habitat Cutback for Home Gardens.

The NY Botanical Garden operates a children’s program teaching about gardening, composting, and pollination. Two groups up to age 12 gather in the children’s garden where kids can plant, harvest and get dirty while learning about the natural world. Highly recommended! Classes also prepare light meals with ingredients from the garden and take home fresh vegetables and herbs as they grow.

This new thriller begins with a video gone viral. A man and a woman sit across from each other in a diner. The security footage shows them talking. Suddenly, the woman slumps forward and dies. Strange and yet years ago Maya saw the same thing happen to her best friend. With the same man. She has never recovered. Maya is the only person who believes the man murdered these women. How can she prove it?

This cozy mystery by T. A. Williams is currently available as an audio book and ebook on our Hoopla platform. Dan Armstrong is a retired DCI from England recently retired and separated from his wife. As a retirement gift, he goes on a writer’s retreat to Italy. Hoping to be distracted from his failing marriage, a dead body turns up and he is asked to assist in the investigation with the local police. As Dan gets more involved in the case, he begins to see a new life for himself in a new country. This low-key detective story builds on the local color and atmosphere as much as the murder mystery. By the end I was already looking for number two in the series which I am almost finished with (A Murder in Chianti).

Adele Parks’ latest novel follows a high end escort in London. Dora is paid well for her services, but she knows it’s a dangerous job. When she decides to end her career as a prostitute she agrees to one last job. The novel goes back to Dora’s days as a teenager and we learn why she entered this profession. When she decides to marry her only friend she realizes it is more difficult than she thought to extricate herself from this world. People from her past return to seek revenge and her last job may turn out to be deadly.