About this item
From Susan Wittig Albert, the New York Times bestselling author of A Plain Vanilla Murder, comes a tightly crafted novel that juxtaposes the disappearance of a rare, remarkably illustrated 18th-century herbal with the true and all-too-human story of its gifted creator, Elizabeth Blackwell. Herbalist China Bayles' latest adventure takes her to the mountains of North Carolina, where her friend Dorothea Harper serves as the director and curator of the Hemlock House Library, a priceless collection of rare gardening books housed in a haunted mountainside mansion that once belonged to Sunny Carswell, a reclusive heiress. But the most valuable book-A Curious Herbal, created by Elizabeth Blackwell in the 1730s-is missing and Dorothea is under suspicion. China's search for the thief takes on a new urgency when she discovers Miss Carswell's bookseller, the victim of an attempted murder.
About the Author
As a writer, I work in three genres, mystery, historical fiction, and memoir. My mysteries include the China Bayles Herbal Mysteries and The Darling Dahlias, about a Southern garden club in the 1930s, as well as an eight-book series, the Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter, and the 12-book series that my husband Bill Albert and I coauthored under the pseudonym of Robin Paige.My historical fiction includes THE GENERAL'S WOMEN, a wartime romance about Ike's love affair with Kay Summersby; LOVING ELEANOR, about the intimate friendship of Eleanor Roosevelt and Lorena Hickok; and A WILDER ROSE, about the mother-daughter team that produced the Little House books. A WILDER ROSE is currently under option for film.Bill and I live in the Hill Country of Central Texas, where I write, garden, raise chickens, and practice the fiber arts. You can find out more in my two memoirs: TOGETHER, ALONE: A MEMOIR OF MARRIAGE AND PLACE; and AN EXTRAORDINARY YEAR OF ORDINARY DAYS.www.susanalbert.com
