A Botanist's Guide to Flowers and Fatality

I enjoyed the mystery/whodunnit element of this book more than I did the first, the author clearly improving in this aspect. However, the introduction of a second love interest (while the first is off collecting her botanical specimens in a dangerous country abroad) felt unnecessary. Then, to top it all off, he returns and immediately admonishes her, despite knowing what she was like and liking that aspect of her?