Darkness at Foxglove Corners

I LOVED this book! In fact I couldn't put it down until I finished the last page. Dorothy Bodoin kept me guessing all through the book and I actually guessed wrong who the 'avenging person' was! It is an outstanding book - full of great description and deadly subtlety that will leave you wanting more. I highly recommend Darkness at Foxglove corners. Written by Suzanne Hurley

A tornado causes English teacher Jennet Greenway to move to Foxglove Corners with her Collie, Halley. There she meets Deputy Sherrif Crane Ferguson and a romance starts. The tornado also flung a mystery in the form of a diary into Jennet's new home territory, turning her into a mystery sleuth trying to solve a decades old murder. As the story unravels, wife abuse and obsessive love add drama to a mystery readers are sure to love in this first volume of the Foxglove Corners mysteries.

With her home demolished by a tornado, Jennet Greenway believes rural Michigan is the perfect place to re-locate. She and her and her collie, Hawley look forward to their new home. Jennet loves everything about Foxglove Corners, including her nearest neighbor and her neighbor's breathtaking garden. Shortly after moving, Jennet reads in the newspaper about a thirty year old journal discovered in the rubble of the tornado. As the newspaper prints chapters from the journal, an old murder is revealed. Everyone throughout the area seems to be captivated by the newly revealed murder. Thus begins Dorothy Bodoin's debut mystery novel, "Darkness at Foxglove Corners." The characters are well defined, but full of surprises. The story is fascinating. Her next novel should be another treat.

Beyond the sprawling wealth and bustle of Detroit's northern suburbs lies the bucolic beauty and gently rolling hills of Michigan's hunt country. Ample Victorian houses, painted in conservative pastels, dot the landscape near small towns like the fictitious Foxglove Corners which is the setting for Dorothy Bodoin's first mystery novel. This is a place from another era when life was simpler and more genteel, but under the pastoral perfection of these quaint country roads and Monet-like gardens are hidden secrets of resentment, revenge, and long-held grudges. As the book opens, a storm is brewing west of the suburbs and it quickly spawns a tornado which destroys the house of Jennet Greenway, the English-teacher-turned-detective heroine of Ms. Bodoin's story. Having long wanted to move on, Jennet picks up the pieces of her life and rather cheerfully begins anew in Foxglove Corners. The tornado has also torn from its hiding place of three decades the diary of an unidentified woman who details her plans to murder her abusive husband. The local newspaper prints the diary in installments and soon most everyone in Foxglove Corners is talking about the mystery. Who is this woman and how could she have gotten away with murder? Ms. Bodoin has deftly plotted this mystery and there are many surprising twists and turns on these country roads, not to mention poison mushrooms in the fields, and a phantom black dog who is mistaken for Jennet's own side-kick, a black collie name Halley. This is, indeed, a captivating book filled with fascinating characters who startle the reader with the unexpected. The colorful details create vivid, memorable pictures and the masterful intricacies of the action keep the pages turning at a fast pace. While this is Ms. Bodoin's first published novel, it reads with a polish and precision expected of a seasoned pro.