Blue Dahlia
by Nora Roberts
Piatkus $105
The first of the In The Garden trilogy is set in an old Tennessee mansion with a resident ghost. After her husband dies in a freak accident, Stella Rothchild and her two sons move back to her roots in Memphis, where she works as the manager of a garden centre in the grounds of Harper House. The mistress of the estate, Roz Harper, persuades her to live in the large house, along with Hayley, a young pregnant cousin of Roz's. The three women become friends. Stella starts a romance with ruggedly handsome landscaper Logan Kitridge. But someone isn't happy about the affair - the family ghost, known as the Harper Bride. As the women dig into the history of Harper House, they discover that grief and rage have kept the Bride's spirit alive. And now, she'll do anything to destroy the passion between Logan and Stella.