The Larkspur Hollow Garden Club Mysteries: Book 5
Publication Date: August 9, 2026
A bouquet nobody sent. Forty-eight puzzles to the truth.
All week, the Larkspur Hollow Garden Club has been selling Valentine’s parcels — a bouquet and a card to every house in the valley — to save a grand old Vermont house from falling down. On the night of the benefit, quiet, kind Winnie Talbot receives the most beautiful flowers anyone has ever sent her, and a card asking her to meet.
By morning she has been pulled from Larkspur Creek. The whole Hollow agrees she slipped on the ice. Retired schoolteacher Eleanor “Nell” Ashworth does not.
And nobody can say who sent those flowers. There is no order form, no payment, and no shop in the county that could have grown a rose like that in February.
But this time, the detective is you.
Each chapter hands you a scene and a word search. Solve the puzzle, and the leftover letters reveal a hidden clue — a suspect cleared, a motive exposed, a secret the Hollow would rather keep buried. Track them across forty-eight puzzles and you’ll be ready to name the killer, the motive, the weapon, and the place before Nell does.
Six suspects. One bouquet nobody can account for. A verdict only you can reach.
A complete solve-along mystery — no apps required. Just you, a pencil, and forty-eight word searches that build to a single solution. Perfect for cozy-mystery lovers and puzzlers alike.
Book Five of the Larkspur Hollow Garden Club Mysteries. Every book is a complete case and can be read on its own.
Sharpen your pencil. Larkspur Hollow is waiting.
When a community member’s body is found in Larkspur Creek, amateur sleuth Nell Ashworth suspects murder.
Author Jody Chaffin continues the Larkspur Hollow Garden Club Mysteries series with The Borrowed Bouquet.
Just as with previous installments, readers are provided with short chapters followed by a word search. Leftover letters are used to provide clues about suspects, motives, means, or places. At the end, confirmation (plus fun extras) is offered online.
The Valentine’s Soiree, with the Whitaker estate to receive the proceeds, highlights the community’s prized flowers delivered as part of the Valentine’s parcels. How could such an important event be marred by the death of a volunteer?
The Borrowed Bouquet once again provides an enjoyable interactive cozy mystery, complete with a cast of possible suspects.
Jody Chaffin writes cozy mysteries for readers who like to do more than turn the page, pairing small-town whodunits with word-search puzzles you solve right alongside the characters. When he isn’t hiding a secret in a grid, he’s building software or out playing sports. He lives in Missouri.
His debut series, The Larkspur Hollow Garden Club Mysteries, follows a tight-knit Vermont garden club through small-town secrets with every solution hidden in the puzzle pages for readers to find.
