A Flicker of a Doubt (A Fairy Garden Mystery)
Cozy Mystery
4^th in Series
Setting – California
Kensington Cozies (March 28, 2023)
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 320 pages

Synopsis

Fairies are trending hard, especially when it comes to fairy garden décor in Walmart and Target and on Amazon. The latest installment in the nationally bestselling Daryl Wood Gerber’s Fairy Garden mysteries is a perfect read for Laura Childs readers and all fans of whimsy and charm.

With a theater foundation tea and an art show planned at Violet Vickers’s estate, Courtney is hired to create charming fairy gardens for the event. It’s not so charming, however, when her best friend Meaghan’s ex-boyfriend turns out to be Violet’s latest artistic protégé. Even worse, not long after Meaghan locks horns with him, his body is found in her yard, bludgeoned with an objet d’murder.

There’s a gallery of suspects, from an unstable former flame to an arts and crafts teacher with a sketchy past. But when the cops focus on Meaghan’s business partner, who’s like a protective older brother to her, and discover he also has a secret financial motive, Courtney decides to draw her own conclusions. Fearing they’re missing the forest for the trees, and with some help from Fiona the sleuthing fairy, she hopes to make them see the light . . .

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Guest Post

Over One Thousand Characters

Character names are important. Think about these: Indiana Jones . . . James Bond. . . Hercule Poirot.  They’re iconic, right? Names can distinguish the character.  John Smith would never have resonated as an adventurous archaeologist.  Jim Bond just wouldn’t be as dashing as James. And Hercule? Can you even imagine another name for him?

Over the course of the past twelve years and twenty-seven published books, I’ve created over a thousand characters, and I have given “nearly” all a different name. [I think I named a couple of women Martha. Oops!] When I’m fashioning a character, I start with the alphabet. I like my characters in any single book to have names that are different from the other characters’ names; that way readers won’t get confused. So let’s say my main cast consists of Courtney, Fiona, Meaghan, Wanda, and Kipling. Now I bring in some cursory characters who might appear in book one, five, and eight. They still need names, so I add them to my list, and I’ll try to use other letters like Z=Ziggy and Y=Yoly. Then I come up with the guest cast. Suspects, victims, the occasional witness. How do I keep them all straight? I make a list for each book and each series, and I consult them regularly. Except for poor old Martha. Ha!

As to the personality that goes with a name, let’s think about that. Is Tammi going to act the same as Tamara? Is Nicole going to behave like Nikki? Nikki, with the double-K, is a strong sounding name. In my mind, she’s feisty and on-the-ball.  Nicole, on the other hand, sounds gentler, more refined, possibly an artist.  Now, I’m not saying that Nikki couldn’t be an artist and Nicole couldn’t be feisty, but for me, this is who they become . . . as I write them.

Funny story, and the reason why I use the alphabet list. . .

Early in my writing, in one of my books, my publisher had given me a bible with the names Amy and Amelia Well, both started with Am, and I found myself consistently making mistakes—typing Amelia when I’d meant to type Amy and vice versa.

Side note:  Have you ever read a book where there’s, say, an Ann, Amy, Analise, and Annabelle in the cast, or a similar combination, and after a while, you’re wondering who’s walking onto the page? Kid you not! I read a book with five men whose names all started with a J. And they were all in the same scene. Boy, was I confused.

Anyway, when I changed Amelia, who was shy and tentative, to Rebecca, her character made a U-turn.  Rebecca became plucky, coltish, and curious. Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not saying all Amelia(s) are shy and tentative.  Look at Amelia Earhart.  Talk about personality.  But in my  creative mind at the time, Amelia didn’t have pluck.  Rebecca did!

Think about your friends.  Would you have named them differently?  How about your family?  Do any have nicknames that have stuck because that’s just who they are?  Peanut, Pooh, Rocko?

Names. I love coming up with them. I enjoy seeing how my characters take shape based on their names. I just hope I don’t run out of possibilities. There are only so many letters in the alphabet.

Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

Down by the spring one morning

Where the shadows still lay deep,

I found in the heart of a flower

A tiny fairy asleep.

~Laura Ingalls Wilder, “The Fairy Dew Drop”

Slam! Slam-slam-slam! Slam!

My insides did a jig. I dashed down the hall to the back of Open Your Imagination, dusting my hands off on my denim overalls while wondering what in the world was going on.

Fiona, the teensy righteous fairy that appeared to me the day I opened my fairy garden shop, fluttered to my shoulder. Her limbs and gossamer wings were trembling.

“What’s happening, Courtney?” she managed to squeak out. She hated loud noises. Hated surprises. I didn’t like them, either.

Pixie, my Ragdoll cat, trailed us. She mewed.

“Don’t worry, you two,” I said. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”

I drew to a halt outside the storage room. The door opened and slammed.

When it opened again, I pressed a hand against it. “Hey! Stop! Meaghan, c’mon.”

The door opened wide, and Meaghan Brownie gawked at me. Her face was red, her eyes were ablaze with fury, and her curly hair was writhing like wild snakes.

“What the heck has you so angry?” I asked. I’d sent her to fetch a box of gemstones. I had plenty, so coming up empty wasn’t what was upsetting her.

“Nicolas!” She huffed. “He texted me. And . . . And . . .” She waggled her cell phone.

“Oo-oh!”

Nicolas was her ex-boyfriend, a temperamental artist. A few months back, she’d asked him to move out while her mother had needed comforting. He’d never returned.

“Oo-oh,” she repeated, before grabbing one of the Tupperware boxes filled with gemstones and skirting past me. She stalked toward the main showroom.

Pixie and I followed. Fiona flew above my pal, sprinkling her with a calming silver dust.

Fairies couldn’t change human behavior, but they could offer potions that might help the human solve problems. In this case, to find peace.

“He’s so . . . so . . . ”

Meaghan was not using her inside voice, but I wasn’t worried about her upsetting our customers. It was early. Nobody was in the shop yet. Not even Joss Timberlake, my right-hand helper. She’d asked for the morning off, so I’d invited Meaghan to help me prepare some items.

Why did I need help? Because yesterday Violet Vickers, a wealthy widow who donated to numerous worthy causes, had ordered an additional dozen fairy gardens to be used as centerpieces for the theater foundation tea she was serving on Mother’s Day. Why additional?

Because she’d already commissioned me to make a dozen very large, elaborate fairy gardens to be installed when Kelly Landscaping, my father’s company, completed the total redo of her backyard.

It was May first. I wasn’t hyperventilating. Yet. But I also wasn’t sleeping much.

“Let’s go to the patio,” I said. “I’ll bring some tea.”

“I don’t want tea,” Meaghan groused as she breezed out the French doors to the patio, the folds of her white lace skirt wafting behind her.

The shop’s telephone jangled. I decided not to answer. Whoever was calling would call back. Meaghan, my best friend who I’d met a little over ten years ago when we were sophomores in college, needed me more. I followed her, glancing at Fiona wondering why the calming potion wasn’t working. Fiona, intuiting my question, shook her head.

“Isn’t it a beautiful morning, Meaghan?” I took the box from her and set it on the workstation table in the learning-the-craft area at the far end of the patio. “Gorgeous, in fact.”

The fountain was burbling. Sunshine was streaming through the tempered-glass, pyramid-shaped roof. The leaves of the Ficus trees were clean and shiny. I’d already wiped down the wrought-iron tables and chairs and organized all the verdigris baker’s racks of fairy figurines.

Plus I’d removed dead leaves from the various decorative fairy gardens. Presentation mattered to me and to my customers.

Meaghan muttered, “Ugh.”

“Start at the beginning,” I said. “Nicolas texted you.”

“Yes.” She plopped onto a bench and rested her elbows on the table.

“What did he write?” I asked.

“He wants me back.”

I opened the box of colorful gemstones and ran my hands through them: hematite, labradorite, amethyst, obsidian, and more.

“But I don’t want him back,” Meaghan said.

Fiona landed on the rim of the box. Her eyes widened. “Are they for the fairy doors, Courtney?”

“Mm-hm.”

“They’re pretty.”

Not only was I making the gardens for Violet, but I had three upcoming fairy garden door classes scheduled. Fairy doors were miniature doors, usually set at the base of a tree, behind which might be a small space where people left notes or wishes for fairies. They could also be installed into a fairy garden pot.

“I mean, I used to,” Meaghan went on. “But I don’t anymore. We have nothing in common.” Idly, she drew circles on the tabletop with her fingertip. “I did the right thing, don’t you think? I did, didn’t I?”

Over the course of our friendship, I’d kept my mouth shut. Nicolas and Meaghan had never made sense. She was outgoing and personable; he was quiet, to the point of being morose.

Granted, he was a talented artist, and she, as a premier art gallery owner, appreciated his gift, but that was not enough to sustain a healthy relationship. Not in my book, anyway.

About the Author

Agatha Award-winning author Daryl Wood Gerber writes the nationally bestselling Cookbook Nook Mysteries, the Fairy Garden Mysteries, and the French Bistro Mysteries. As Avery Aames, she pens the popular Cheese Shop Mysteries. In addition, Daryl writes the Aspen Adams novels of suspense as well as stand-alone suspense. Daryl loves to cook, fairy garden, and read, and she has a frisky Goldendoodle who keeps her in line!

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