Susan Wittig Albert

Former attorney-turned-herbalist China Bayles finds her busy life further complicated when her teenage son discovers the skeletal remains of the victim of a not-so-accidental death during a dig in a cave and a local gathering is interrupted by murder.

Between the herb shop, the catering business, and a weekend paper-making class, China Bayles has her work cut out for her. And now China's half-brother is opening up old wounds, trying to investigate their father's supposedly accidental death, and her husband is taking on the case-meaning she's just bound to get involved.

Susan Wittig Albert, “who consistently turns out some of the best-plotted mysteries on the market,”* delivers the charm and suspense in her latest herbal treat, Mourning Gloria. Now ex-lawyer and current herbalist China Bayles must stop a killer whose evil is burning through Texas…

 

China is relishing the scents, produce, and even the showers of spring. She’s also busy hosting Pecan

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The Dahlias become suspicious of the newest visitors to Depression-era Darling, Alabama, rumored to be the Naughty and Nice Sisters from the Ziegfeld Frolic, who specialize in dancing nearly naked, and dig for the truth when one of the pair denies the association.

"For the Confederate Day celebration, the Darling Dahlias are ready to plant Confederate roses along the fence of the town cemetery. Miss Dorothy Rogers, club member and town librarian, would be quick to point out the plant is in fact a hibiscus. The Confederate rose is not the only thing that is not what it first appears to be in this small Southern town. Earle Scroggins, the county treasurer, has got the sheriff thinking that Scroggins' employee...

"Spring, 1935 finds the little Alabama town of Darling excited about their new local radio station, WDAR. But there are problems brewing at the newspaper, where a trio of new hires causes headaches for editor Charlie Dickens. That's not the worst of it, though, as the Dahlias discover when the newest resident at Bessie Bloodworth's Magnolia Manor is found dead. She had overindulged in a large and very rich chocolate cake--but was something else baked...

With the help of a lawyer friend in Texas, China Bayles investigates a cold case involving a valuable piece of Mexican art after suspecting that it may be connected to the death of another friend. "When China's and Ruby's friend Karen Prior is mugged in a mall parking lot and dies a few days later, China begins to suspect that her friend's death was not a random assault. Karen was a filmmaker supervising a student documentary about the fifteen-year-old...

It's Labor Day weekend, 1935, and members of the Darling Dahlias--the garden club in little Darling, Alabama--are trying to keep their cool at the end of a sizzling summer. This isn't easy, though, since there's a firebug on the loose in Darling. He--or she!--strikes without apparent rhyme or reason, and things have gotten to the point where nobody feels safe. What's more, a dangerous hurricane is poised to hurl itself in Darling's direction, while...

Sleuth and herbalist China Bayles of Pecan Springs, Texas, joins Mike McQuaid, the town's police chief to investigate the murder of a land developer. They have to hurry if they don't want the case to clash with their honeymoon. They are getting married.

High-powered Houston attorney China Bayles has forsaken big bucks in the big city to become a good ol' gal in tiny Pecan Springs, Texas. She's opened an herb store and now dabbles in New Age arts and crafts, hangs out with the local "single and loving it" ladies, and solves crimes in her spare time. And it's a good thing she does--Pecan Springs is in the throes of a witch hunt. First it was the appearance of sacrificial artifacts. Then it was a Wiccan...