City girl Poppy desperately wants to pay off her debts, quit her dead-end job, find her father... oh, and keep a plant alive. But she knows that these are just hopeless dreams--until the day a letter arrives. Suddenly, Poppy is on a train heading deep into the English countryside to claim a mysterious inheritance. And the last thing she expects to receive is a cottage garden nursery--complete with romantic climbing roses, scented herbs, a bossy, talkative ginger cat... and a dead body.

Now she must solve the mystery or risk losing her new home and the chance for a fresh start. But who would want to murder a gardener in a sleepy little village? Could a reclusive inventor have something to do with the killing? What about the brooding crime author next door? And why is her long-lost cousin so desperate for her to sell the cottage?

Poppy might not know her pansies from her petunias, but that doesn't stop her digging for clues. The only problem is that she could be digging her own grave too...