This book intrigued me with the premise of a murder with Maggie trying to figure out what happened in the community garden.

The author did a great job with all things gardening in the story. The story was a bit slow for me and I lost interest in the middle. I did like the ending and did not guess the killer.

Patricia Santomasso did a good job on the narration.

Thank you @dreamscape_media @minotaur_books for a copy of the book.

3.5 ⭐️ stars
This is a first in series book by an author I have never tried before. I’m not really a gardener, but it was interesting to read and gardeners may really enjoy this series.
Maggie is putting her life together in her grandmother’s home, which she purchased. Maggie is getting to know people in the town and participating in community events. She faces quite a bit of opposition in her new life from a developer who wants to buy her house and a cousin who thinks he is owed something more from the grandmother’s estate via Maggie personally.
Maggie’s relationship with the police is fairly negative throughout the book as she stubbornly investigates and doesn’t share all she knows with the police.
The mystery is good. The murderer fairly well hidden. There were clues that could go in more than one direction.
I’d like to read about these characters again.
I had access to an ebook and audiobook version. The narrator did a good job.
Thanks to Netgalley, Dreamscape Media and Minotaur Books for the opportunity to read this book.

This is an amazing debut novel ❤️ I despise gardening with a passion, having been forced spend so much of my childhood doing just that. My grandma had a huge garden. By huge, I mean we had an apple orchard of about 20 trees, and her garden was longer than the orchard. I decided to read this book, out of all the countless others, though, because one of the characters is named Violet, like my grandma. Just made me smile. Not that it has anything to do with the book.

We don't have a community garden where I live, but I am sure lots of people have them were they live. Could you even imagine going on planting day and finding a dead body half sticking out of the ground? Question: would you use that same plot for the garden after the police cleared it? Eat anything that came out of the ground? Even if the body had only been in the ground for a couple hours? 🤮

I loved everything so much. The murderer was one of the people I suspected, which isn't saying much because I just suspect everyone. Then I can say 'I knew it!' at the end 😆

I really hope this becomes a series!!! Would love to see more books.

Thanks to NetGalley for the free kindle book. My review is voluntarily given.

The Gardener's Plot by Deborah J. Benoit is a captivating cozy mystery that immediately drew me in and kept me engaged until the final page.

My thanks to NetGallley and Minotaur Books/St. Martins Publishing for the ARC of "The Gardener's Plot" in exchange for an honest review.
Overall, a pleasant soothing read. But fans of quirky cozies might find this one bland and a little too connect-the-dots generic. Very skimpy on character development, which I'm assuming the author will continue to flesh out if this is the start of a series.
Here's what I did like. Deborah J. Benoit's love of the art and craft of gardening comes through in almost every page. Her descriptions make the hard work and joy involved in developing a 'green thumb' accessible to readers like me - who think of gardening as unattainable to comprehend, as geometry, chemistry and quantum physics.
I also loved the darkly humorous discovery of the body buried in the community garden, with one foot sticking out.....like something you'd see in one of the more mischievous Alfred Hitchcock TV series episodes. That scene led me to believe that maybe I was in for some kind of oddball black comedy, but the book left me sadly disappointed in that area. There's not a shred of humor in sight anywhere.
The rest of "The Gardener's Plot" was simply okay at best, with amateur gardening sleuth Maggie and best friend Sally deciding to go about Miss Marple-ing the small down in search of the killer. Their constant detecting naturally doesn't sill well with police detective Quinn, leading to countless repetitious warnings for them to knock it off. .
There is, however, a well done harrowing showdown with the murderer, but with characters this thinly drawn, it's hard to work up any genuine excitement about it.
I suspect cozy lovers won't want to miss this, but if Maggie and Sally's mystery-solving careers continue, there's some huge room for improvements here.

The Gardener's Plot is a nice cozy mystery novel that you will want to grab on a rainy day and curl up with. This is my first book by this author and it was definitely a pleasant read for me. The garden aspect of this novel was actually interesting and did not take away from the mystery. The protagonist is likeable, kind, and smart. She makes for a great lead and I believe if this author plans on continuing her universe with this FMC, she will continue to have successful books.

Overall, this is a nice read, nothing too crazy, and worth the time!

Big thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the e-arc.

Many thanks to NetGalley and St Martin’s Press for the opportunity to read this ARC.

This is a debut novel for Deborah J. Benoit, and I’m certainly hoping there will be more. As the double-entendre title suggests, it has a gardening theme, with gardens figuring strongly in the main character’s profession, the setting, and the mystery that she sets out to solve. Maggie Walker is a master gardener who writes a column for a gardening magazine. She has just inherited her grandmother’s home in the Berkshires, a place of sweet childhood memories, where her grandmother tenderly introduced her to gardening.

It’s not as easy as that, of course. Her grandmother’s will stipulated that, as the eldest grandchild (and the closest to her), Maggie should have first dibs on buying the house and its adjoining (and far more lucrative) wooded lands. Newly separated and awaiting a sudden divorce, she wants to start over in a place where she has cherished friends and can pursue her journalism career afresh. What decides it for her is her soon-to-be ex’s equally sudden death.

When she gets to town the plots thicken, so to speak. She gets involved helping a local gardener/wealthy philanthropist set up a community garden. She is harassed by a local realtor, brother of a childhood friend who is basically a snob and a bully. The realtor wants to buy her land and will not be turned away. One of the gardeners who has reserved three plots in the new garden is crude and rude and also bullies her for what he perceives as her ineptitude. Her cousin Simon wants what he considers his rightful part in Grandma’s house and is truly a pest.

All this happens before, during, and after the core of the story. On the the morning of the community garden launch, Violet doesn’t show up. She leaves a cryptic note on Maggie’s door that she’ll be late, and no news for her husband and kids. She simply vanishes. Then Maggie almost literally trips over a dead man in one of the plots. The shovel that killed him is in her best friend Sally’s backyard mulch pile. Maggie gets strange notes, multiple hang-ups, unidentifiable messages, parcels sent to her but delivered to the wrong address.

Smart, quick-witted and unwilling to run and hide, Maggie, with her friend/neighbour/assistant sleuth Sally, doggedly searches for answers to her own personal mystery and that of the dead man and the disappearance of Violet. This is mostly a fast-paced, tightly-written debut. There are maybe a few too many characters, and Maggie’s dead husband, though important to her own personal mystery, pops into her mind a bit much. The gardening aspects are nicely woven in. There is just enough detail to engage gardeners without boring non-gardeners. In the manner of cozy small town mysteries, it’s a bit slow in the build-up to the community garden murder. But this is otherwise an excellent start.

Title:  The Gardener's Plot  
Author:   Deborah J. Benoit 
Genre:  Mystery       
Rating:  3.8 out of 5

After life threw Maggie Walker a few curveballs, she’s happy to be back in the small, Berkshires town where she spent so much time as a child. Marlowe holds many memories for her, and now it also offers a fresh start. Maggie has always loved gardening, so it’s only natural to sign on to help Violet Bloom set up a community garden.

When opening day arrives, Violet is nowhere to be found, and the gardeners are restless. Things go from bad to worse when Maggie finds a boot buried in one of the plots… and there’s a body attached to it. Suddenly, the police are looking for a killer and they keep asking questions about Violet. Maggie doesn’t believe her friend could do this, and she’s going to dig up the dirt needed to prove it.

This wasn’t a bad read, although Maggie veered over the line to nosiness as opposed to investigating at times. To me, it wasn’t believable that apparently so many people in this town had land lines instead of cell phones, and that no one ever carried their cell phones with them. Not realistic. The small town feel was well-done, and I enjoyed the gardening aspect, but I probably wouldn’t read any more books, if this were a series.

Deborah J. Benoit is from Massachusetts. The Gardener’s Plot is her debut novel.

(Galley courtesy of St. Martin’s Press in exchange for an honest review.)

(Blog link live 11/6).

Maggie Walker is back in her grandmother’s house, after buying the house before it went on the market since none of the other cousins wanted it. She feels like she’s beginning to get her footing, after her soon-to-be ex-husband’s passing. Along with her friend Violet, she plans on opening a community garden, where the locals can claim a spot for veggies or flowers and cultivate their green thumb. But their plans change when Violet mysteriously disappears on the opening day of the community garden and a body is found partially buried in the freshly tilled soil. Despite repeated requests to “stay out of it and let us do our jobs” from the police, Maggie begins her own investigation, along with her best friend Sally, trying to find Violet and trying to stay a step ahead of the killer.

Overall, a cute cozy mystery, and although I guessed the killer, it still kept my interest. I really like the small-town vibes with it being set in the Berkshires. I think this is the first in a series with this character, and I will be reading more if so. Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martins Press for an ARC of this book; all opinions are my own.

*3-3.5 stars. Not a bad start to a new cozy mystery series. The gardening theme drew me in. It had the usual elements of an amateur sleuth trying to solve a local murder with the police seeming to suspect her! The story dragged a bit in the middle and the whodunit was fairly easy to figure out but it was still a fun read.

Many thanks to the author and publisher for providing me with an arc odyssey this new cozy mystery. My review is voluntary and the opinions expressed are my own.

Maggie has moved into her Gramma's house after her death. A real estate agent is keen to buy the property. Maggie has become involved in setting up the community garden in the town. On the garden's opening day the real estate agent's body is found in the garden. It surprises everyone. Maggie finds herself a person of interest in the investigation. She decides to investigate on her own. Dangerous??
This is a cozy mystery involving a small town and gardening. I really enjoyed reading this book. It was a story that moved along at a brisk pace and was interesting. I would recommend reading this book. It would definitely break you out of a reading slump.

Thank you to #NetGalley, #DeborahJBenoit and #MinotaurBooks for a copy of this book.
#TheGardenersPlot

The Gardener’s Plot is a cozy mystery with a garden – horticultural theme. The novel is author Benoit’s debut mystery and it is quite impressive.

With two murders and a kidnapping, it made this whodunit mystery a very interesting read. The plot is well thought out with enough twists that kept me guessing until the end.

The major characters were well developed. But there seemed to be too many minor characters that diluted the impact they might have had otherwise. The seemingly over abundance of characters got me a little lost and confused on the who’s who at times.

Overall, The Gardener’s Plot is an entertaining cozy mystery for fans of this genre. Four stars.

I was invited to read a DRC and was gifted and early finished copy of the novel from St. Martin’s Press. This review is completely my own and contains my honest thoughts and opinions.

🪴 The Gardener’s Plot - Deborah J. Benoit

3.5 ⭐️ - I liked this one! I was interested in the community garden aspect as I grew up gardening with my Poppy as a little girl. Luckily we never found any dead bodies in the garden tho 😮‍💨. This is a close community, amateur sleuthing, cozy mystery if you’re looking for one with a little sunshine.

I liked this one. I enjoyed the characters a lot. They felt relatable, realistic, and enjoyable. Aside from the murder mystery in their lives. I loved the friendship and growth between Maggie and Sally. It lost me a little in the middle with the pacing, but the end picked up quickly, mysteries were solved, and the showdown was exciting. I recommend this one if you want a mystery on the lighter side (am I allowed to say that about a murder mystery?).

Thank you Netgalley, Dreamscape Media, and Minatour Books for the early ARC and audio copy! You can dig this one up on 11/5!

Maggie Walker is just settling into her new old home and is starting to get her life back on track. She’s ready for a fresh start and when she is asked to help get the community gardens off the ground she jumps at the opportunity. Now that the big day is here nothing is going as planned. Violet Bloom, the woman in charge of the gardens, is nowhere to be found and Maggie finds a boot connected to a body buried in one of the garden plots. The opening day has turned into a nightmare and when Maggie realizes her friend is missing and she may have been the last person to see her she is determined to get to the bottom of the mystery stopping at nothing to find her find and the murderer.

Cozy mysteries are my go to genre and I am always looking for new authors and series to discover. I had never read anything by Deborah J. Benoit, but this book definitely has me interested in reading more by her. I was pulled in from the very beginning of this mystery and loved the journey I was pulled along on as Maggie searched for the truth. I liked the town and characters that were set up in this mystery and found this to be a fun, fast paced mystery. It kept me guessing the whole time and I was surprised at the end when everything was revealed. I would love to see more books with Maggie as the lead and will need to check out more by this author. If you are a cozy mystery fan who likes gardening this is a good book to try.

This is the best debut cozy mystery I have read in some time. It is the winner of the publisher's first novel award and I can see why. Benoit has created a number of interesting characters. I like Maggie. A gardener at heart, she is living in the freedom of her near-ex being accidentally killed before their divorce was final. She has returned to the town familiar from her youth. That reveals friends and enemies. I like Sally, neighbor from childhood, now an aggressive sidekick who is as determined to solve a murder as Maggie is. But there are also those who despise Maggie. Catherine, wife of the town chief of police, has been at odds with her since grade school. Benoit provides readers with good character construction of both friends and foes.

The plot has a good balance of mystery investigative development and character thought and action. Benoit's writing style is quite good with some clever word construction along the way. There is a serious dose of suspense near the end that made me want to know how the last scenes worked out. I do wish there had been a few more gardening tips though I really appreciated her description of planting tomato starts.

A great cozy mystery with well drawn characters, a well constructed plot, a good dose of heart pounding suspense near the end, and the potential of a romance in the near future. I do hope there is another in this series as I liked this one so much. I will be eagerly watching for it.

I received a complimentary egalley of this book from the publisher. My comments are an independent and honest review.

Pascal said “All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”. Maggie could have been fine if she could continue gardening in her backyard instead of setting up a community garden for everyone's benefit (!). Look what that got her? Boot with a foot in it (and rest of the body connected to it)

She further could not sit still and decided to solve this mystery on her own. She did not wanted to be the person of interest as she was the one who dug the body. She did not want her not missing friend to be the one either. But where was her friend? Who would want to kill someone in that quiet town? Most importantly, when was this cousin gonna shut the f*ck up about the proceeds from the house?

Another example of "wholesome" sleuthing by ordinary people trying to clear their names. Is it a sign of people not trusting police to solve these murders and not finding the right people or is it just because of the curious nature of people? Whatever the reason is, it is another one for curious minds.

Maggie has moved into her Grandmother's Victorian home and is busy getting the flower beds back in shape. She's also helping with the new community garden. When the head of the garden goes missing and a dead body shows up in the garden, Maggie is ready to ask questions and find her missing friend. A good introduction to A new series. A gentle cozy mystery with good characters and plot. I enjoyed this book and look forward to the next in the series.

I had high hopes for this one. The plot sounded great. Unfortunately for me the characters fell flat. I pretty much couldn’t stand Maggie or Sally, and the rest were frankly unforgettable. There were several storylines that just didn’ need to be included or that wrapped up with zero oomph. There were a ton of details that didn’t need to be included when they could have been used in other parts of the book.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC. The Gardeners Plot publishes November 5, 2024.

A nice cozy debut that I suspect heralds a new series. Maggie, who has inherited her grandmother's home and her green thumb is more than a little shocked when a body is found in one of the community garden plots on the day the garden is opened. And where is Violet, who is the leader of the garden? This has all the nice small town cozy vibes, with multiple suspects (and villainy) a real estate issue, a friendly law enforcement officer, and a garden. It's just twisty enough to keep you guessing. Maggie makes for a good intrepid amateur. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. Good read and I'm looking forward to more from Benoit.

this small town mystery has our main character Maggie & her best friend Violet planning on opening a community garden but on the day of the grand opening, Violet is no where to be found & there’s a body found in one of the gardening plots..
we then follow maggie attempting to investigate the disappearance of Violet & deal with the shock of the dead body in her community garden!
this book is full of gossip and some pettiness, which is always welcome in a suburban mystery! it was entertaining and i personally really enjoyed the gardening aspect, but imo the twist fell a lil flat for me. i did find the writing style entertaining & easy to follow!