A Flicker of a Doubt

This was the first of Daryl Wood Gerber's Fairy Garden Mysteries that I've read, but I was able to follow along without too much difficulty. And now I want to read them all!

Courtney Kelly runs a shop called Open Your Imagination, where she sells fairy gardens and fairy doors and the supplies to make them. She's also filling an order for several large fairy gardens that Violet Vickers wants to decorate for her theater foundation tea and art show.

Nicolas, her friend Meaghan's ex-boyfriend, is back in town. He's one of the featured artists at Violet's show, and he manages to get into confrontations with several people in short order. The tension ramps up when Nicolas's brother shows up demanding to know where Nicolas is and threatening to collect on the sizable debt he claims Nicolas owes him. Shortly thereafter, Ziggy, Meaghan's business partner and friend, finds Nicolas dead outside Meaghan's house. Courtney can't sit idly by and not try to help. And the more she digs, the more unsavory things she learns about Nicolas and his family.

Carmel-by-the-Sea is a delightful setting for this story. It feels like the kind of place where one might find fairies. With all of the creative energy, it also sounds like a place I'd love to visit!

Courtney is a likable character. She has a jewel of a helper in her shop in Joss, and Joss's assistance lets Courtney be there when she needs to be for her friends. Violet is a treat, too. I love that she pokes fun at herself about her excessive use of the word “lovely.”

The more Courtney tries to figure out whodunnit, the more suspects she comes up with. Was it Nicolas's brother? Any one of the several women who apparently had a thing going with him? Suspects are considered and ruled out, and then we're back to square one. Gerber did a good job keeping me guessing as to who the real killer was.

I love the fairies! Gerber includes a lot of lore and information about different fairy types and classifications, and the fairies we meet are charming. Fiona, Courtney's fairy, cracked me up with her efforts to figure out which humans could see her and which couldn't. And the ending of the book left me wondering if we'll see Fiona in the next book in the series. I hope so! (Spoiler: No, Fiona isn't dead. Now go read the book and see what happened.)

If you like a clean cozy mystery with interesting characters, a beautiful setting, and a mystery that keeps you guessing, you need to pick up A Flicker of a Doubt. Heck, start at the beginning of the series. I give this five stars, and now I'm off to catch up on the first three!