Poisoned Primrose by Dahlia Donovan - Book Tour + Giveaway
Poisoned Primrose
Motts Cold Case Mystery Book 1
by Dahlia Donovan
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Autistic, asexual, and almost forty, Pineapple “Motts” Mottley flees London with her cat and turtle to a quaint cottage in Cornwall. She craves the peace of life in a small village. The dead body buried in her garden isn’t quite what she had in mind, though.
Unable to resist her curiosity, she falls directly into a mess of trouble and runs head-first into the attractive detective inspector, Teo Herceg. She tries to balance her business with the investigation, but as the killer focuses on her, staying alive becomes trickier than advanced origami.
Will Motts survive the onslaught of murderously bad luck?
Can she solve the mystery before it all spins out of control and off a cliff?
Chapter One
A cat, a turtle, and a
Pineapple walk into a cottage…. That’s it. That’s the punch line of my life
choices.
“Well, here we are.” Motts closed the solid wooden front door
to her new cottage, leaning back against it and releasing a pent-up sigh. She
opened her bluish-grey eyes to stare at all the boxes, plastic bins, and bags.
“Bugger. You’ve no one to blame but yourself for this, Pineapple Mottley.”
Pineapple Meg Mottley had been so named because her mother
had craved nothing but the tropical fruit during her one and only pregnancy.
There’d only been one issue. No one ever called her Pineapple; her uncle had
nicknamed her Motts as an infant, and it stuck.
Meow.
The plaintive cry came from behind one of the boxes. Motts
moved quickly to lift up her precious cat. Cactus was a tortoiseshell Sphynx
cat; she’d found the poor dear at a shelter and fallen head-over-sneakers in
love. He buried his head in her shoulder-length brown hair, purring his little
heart out.
She stroked the suede-like downy fuzz covering his wrinkly
body. “What are we going to do about this mess? Want to help me unpack? No?”
Figures.
What have I gotten
myself into?
When her auntie Daisy had passed away, Motts had taken the
inherited cottage as a sign. London had always been overwhelming to her senses.
Polperro was a much quieter place with a slower pace suited for her autistic
needs.
She loved Polperro. Her parents were both originally from
Cornwall. A lot of her family lived in the area, as did her ex-girlfriend.
Despite having spent many a holiday with family at the
cottage, Motts found herself overwhelmed by the sudden change. This was a terrible idea. I should’ve sold
the house. I am such a silly fool.
Okay.
Take a few deep
breaths.
Match Cactus’s purring.
You’re going to be
okay.
“Ahh!” She jumped when a rapid knocking on the door jolted
her. “For goodness sake.”
“Motts? You okay?”
She spun around and yanked the door open to find the welcome
sight of her ex-girlfriend, Pravina Griffin, and Vina’s twin brother, Nish.
“I’m….”
How do I finish the
sentence?
Panicked?
In the middle of the
biggest mistake I’ve ever made?
Just slightly overcome
by irrational fear?
Nish moved forward to take Cactus from her arms while Vina
led her inside. “Amma is bringing over supper. She wanted to let the sambar
simmer a little longer. She even made your favourite kind of rice.”
The Griffin twins took after their Tamil mother, Leena, who’d
been a Bollywood star before falling in love with Cadan Griffin, a
Cornish-Indian cricket player. They’d settled in Polperro to run a coffee shop
and bakery. Griffin Brews had been around for thirty-plus years, and now their
children managed it, allowing their parents to retire early.
Leena and Cadan had welcomed Motts with open arms even before
she’d briefly dated their daughter. Motts and Vina had realised over the years
that their close bond felt more like that of siblings. They’d dumped each other
but remained the best of friends, where they’d started in the first place.
“Let’s talk about something less daunting than unpacking. How
goes the dating life? Did you fill out a dating profile on the site I emailed
you?” Vina plucked Moss, Motts’s turtle, out of his travel terrarium. “Well?”
“No, I didn’t. There’s no box to check for asexual,
biromantic autistic.” Motts gently took Moss to return her to a safer place.
“No touching the turtle.”
Dahlia Donovan wrote her first romance series after a crazy dream about shifters and damsels in distress. She prefers irreverent humour and unconventional characters. An autistic and occasional hermit, her life wouldn’t be complete without her husband and her massive collection of books and video games.
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