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A Flower Shop Mystery #6
A Rose from the Dead
Why did I, Abby Knight, agree to attend a convention of funeral directors? I was desperate to drum up more business for my flower shop, Bloomers. What I got instead was murder...
Who knew death could be so much fun?
Abby is amused by the black humor of the usually somber "death professionals" who are attending the Midwestern Funeral Directors Association's regional convention. Even organizer Sybil Blount - known for her cutthroat business practices and the signature rose she wears in her wig - isn't what Abby expects...especially when her corpse is found in a casket.
When Abby's friend Delilah Dove becomes a suspect, Abby shifts into full investigation mode and learns that Sybil's enemies include the prankster son of a big-time funeral director, an eco-friendly purveyor of "green burials," and a strange Goth girl who captures the "music" of departing souls on her tape recorder. It's up to Abby and her boyfriend, Marco, to look beyond the trappings of death and find out who really loved Sybil - and who loved her not.
Who knew death could be so much fun?
Abby is amused by the black humor of the usually somber "death professionals" who are attending the Midwestern Funeral Directors Association's regional convention. Even organizer Sybil Blount - known for her cutthroat business practices and the signature rose she wears in her wig - isn't what Abby expects...especially when her corpse is found in a casket.
When Abby's friend Delilah Dove becomes a suspect, Abby shifts into full investigation mode and learns that Sybil's enemies include the prankster son of a big-time funeral director, an eco-friendly purveyor of "green burials," and a strange Goth girl who captures the "music" of departing souls on her tape recorder. It's up to Abby and her boyfriend, Marco, to look beyond the trappings of death and find out who really loved Sybil - and who loved her not.
283 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published December 4, 2007
43 people are currently reading
1044 people want to read
About the author
Kate Collins
66 books950 followersIndiana native and former teacher Kate Collins is the author of the New York Times best-selling Flower Shop Mysteries, featuring feisty florist Abby Knight and the zany crew at Bloomers. Her books have made the New York Times Best-seller's list, Barnes & Noble mass bestsellers lists, the Independent Booksellers lists, and are available in large print editions in the U.S. and the UK.
3 of The Flower Shop Mysteries are on the Hallmark Mystery Movie channel!
Kate's historical romance novels and her children's books, JANEY WEBSTER, EB*, *EXPERIENCED BABYSITTER, and JASON JERVISS AT YOUR SERVICE, are available now as ebooks in all formats. Great reads for ages 9-14.
Kate graduated from Purdue University with a master's degree in education, taught elementary school for six years, but after the birth of her first child, gave up teaching to pursue a long-time dream of putting children’s stories to paper. After writing short humorous stories for children’s magazines and working part-time as a legal secretary, she sold her first historical romance novel in 1995, publishing seven historical romantic suspenses under the pen name Linda O’Brien before turning to her true love, mysteries.
3 of The Flower Shop Mysteries are on the Hallmark Mystery Movie channel!
Kate's historical romance novels and her children's books, JANEY WEBSTER, EB*, *EXPERIENCED BABYSITTER, and JASON JERVISS AT YOUR SERVICE, are available now as ebooks in all formats. Great reads for ages 9-14.
Kate graduated from Purdue University with a master's degree in education, taught elementary school for six years, but after the birth of her first child, gave up teaching to pursue a long-time dream of putting children’s stories to paper. After writing short humorous stories for children’s magazines and working part-time as a legal secretary, she sold her first historical romance novel in 1995, publishing seven historical romantic suspenses under the pen name Linda O’Brien before turning to her true love, mysteries.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 105 reviews
May 3, 2018
This is such a great series and I'm so glad that it is long running, because when I get tied into characters I don't like to see a series end.
March 8, 2016
I didn't have the will to write another tedious review, but then I thought that if Kate Collins can have the bravado to churn out such a soulless book and charge people for it, then I can write a review that tries to deter people from reading her book. Okay so it wasn't a total wreck, but everything that made this series worthwhile was missing from this story. Abby Knight's reaction to bullying, her happy-go-lucky streak, her open-mindedness, her relationship with Nikki, her response to boredom. I could go on. Avoid at all costs.
October 14, 2018
Abby finds herself promoting the flower shop at a convention for funeral directors. The usually conservative professionals partake in some interesting competitions including casket decorating and casket racing. The convention organizer Sybil Blount seems to be a multi-faceted woman. She is a tough business-woman and a cougar. After she is found dead in a closed coffin Abby attempts to determine if either of those attributes has contributed to her death. When her friend Delilah is accused of murdering Sybil, Abby works even harder to find the murderer. Abby has her own prime suspect (s), but the list of potential killers is a bit long and the convention is ending soon. She must work quickly before the suspects all leave town.
The romance of Abby and Marco is in full-swing in the latest flower-shop mystery. The two are busy at the convention, and with the help of Lottie and Grace the group promotes the flower shop and investigates the murder. I feel like the plot in this series moves a bit slower than others I have read. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, it just takes longer to read the books. The characters are well-developed and relatable. This story, like the previous books, contain a touch of humor. I recommend this book. It can stand alone, but I am a firm believer in reading a series in order. The story arc is an important part of the action. I already have the next book and I look forward to reading it.
May 8, 2011
A waste of time; there are far better amateur detective novels out there. As a fan of this genre, all I was looking for in this book is a bit of light fun, an interesting case, and engaging characters. This book failed to deliver on all points.
Abby Knight is the typical stubborn heroine with a supposed knack for solving mysteries. She's also very pretty, and has a tall, dark, hunky boyfriend (we're told this repeatedly). The above is probably standard for these amateur detective/light romance novels, and while I've liked many a similar heroine in the past, I found myself taking an instant dislike to Abby. Instead of being smart, tough, or simply with a talent for getting herself into the right positions and discovering the right clues, Abby stumbles from scene to scene. The "stubborn as a mule" characteristic isn't cute or at all admirable here. Because the Urban brothers pranked her at the beginning, she is instantly biased against them and pretty much decides, with no basis, that they ARE the murderers of Sybil Blount. She stubbornly ignores the possibility that it might have been someone else, and twists whatever leads she finds to fit her preferred suspects. This doesn't just apply to the Urbans, but also to Eli Cotton, her friend Delilah, and so on. Abby repeatedly forms certain opinions, and then insists on them, and says it's "instinct." I felt like smacking her upside the head.
Marco, the hot, hunky boyfriend, is pretty 2D. He's there to make Abby Knight an enviable heroine (she has a hot boyfriend, she's pretty, has a decent job, etc.) and to fish her out of hot water. By the time I reached the end of the book, I lost count of how many times Collins described how seriously hot, hunky and Italian-American he is, plus how much they have the hots for each other and wish to get horizontal. We get the point!
The case is flimsy at best, and the "leads" are just thrown in to make the reader feel like the leads are getting somewhere with solving it. It's all entirely too convenient. Abby and Marco finds tapes that the police missed, they get witness statements that the police haven't even heard of, their friends manage to unearth people's secrets that miraculously form the backdrop to the murder. The whole story is conveniently constructed thus, with no real deductive work (not correctly, anyway) done by Abby, and yet she still manages to stumble onto the truth at the end. The story and the murderer is handed to her on a silver plate, with no reasoning whatsoever.
It was a tiring book to read, and I regret not dropping it when I found the writing clunky and overdescriptive at the beginning. Fans of the amateur detective genre who would like to read about intelligent heroines and equally hunky boyfriends that aren't described a million times throughout the course of the book should perhaps consider work by Heather Webber, Victoria Laurie, Laura Durham, and a number of others. It'll definitely be better than this.
Abby Knight is the typical stubborn heroine with a supposed knack for solving mysteries. She's also very pretty, and has a tall, dark, hunky boyfriend (we're told this repeatedly). The above is probably standard for these amateur detective/light romance novels, and while I've liked many a similar heroine in the past, I found myself taking an instant dislike to Abby. Instead of being smart, tough, or simply with a talent for getting herself into the right positions and discovering the right clues, Abby stumbles from scene to scene. The "stubborn as a mule" characteristic isn't cute or at all admirable here. Because the Urban brothers pranked her at the beginning, she is instantly biased against them and pretty much decides, with no basis, that they ARE the murderers of Sybil Blount. She stubbornly ignores the possibility that it might have been someone else, and twists whatever leads she finds to fit her preferred suspects. This doesn't just apply to the Urbans, but also to Eli Cotton, her friend Delilah, and so on. Abby repeatedly forms certain opinions, and then insists on them, and says it's "instinct." I felt like smacking her upside the head.
Marco, the hot, hunky boyfriend, is pretty 2D. He's there to make Abby Knight an enviable heroine (she has a hot boyfriend, she's pretty, has a decent job, etc.) and to fish her out of hot water. By the time I reached the end of the book, I lost count of how many times Collins described how seriously hot, hunky and Italian-American he is, plus how much they have the hots for each other and wish to get horizontal. We get the point!
The case is flimsy at best, and the "leads" are just thrown in to make the reader feel like the leads are getting somewhere with solving it. It's all entirely too convenient. Abby and Marco finds tapes that the police missed, they get witness statements that the police haven't even heard of, their friends manage to unearth people's secrets that miraculously form the backdrop to the murder. The whole story is conveniently constructed thus, with no real deductive work (not correctly, anyway) done by Abby, and yet she still manages to stumble onto the truth at the end. The story and the murderer is handed to her on a silver plate, with no reasoning whatsoever.
It was a tiring book to read, and I regret not dropping it when I found the writing clunky and overdescriptive at the beginning. Fans of the amateur detective genre who would like to read about intelligent heroines and equally hunky boyfriends that aren't described a million times throughout the course of the book should perhaps consider work by Heather Webber, Victoria Laurie, Laura Durham, and a number of others. It'll definitely be better than this.
December 30, 2020
I liked Abby Knight a bit better in this one but I didn't enjoy the mystery as much. I'll give this 3.5 for the character development and for the fact that I couldn't figure out who'd done it until the very end. I the first book Mum's the Word I had it practically all figured out before Abby, as I mentioned in that review.
January 14, 2023
This book is fine. I am more of a Gillian Flynn, “Woman in the Window” type of reader but when I was home over Christmas family members had this for me to borrow.
It’s well written and the plot moves logically, it’s just not my cup of tea in terms of suspense. It’s good if you like light-hearted mystery, with no darkness or weird spins.
It’s well written and the plot moves logically, it’s just not my cup of tea in terms of suspense. It’s good if you like light-hearted mystery, with no darkness or weird spins.
May 8, 2024
3.25⭐
June 19, 2015
With a more obnoxious main character and a shaky mystery A Rose from the Dead was probably the worst book in this series yet.
As I said above the MC, Abby was very obnoxious in this book. She was a know-it-all who didn't want one of her friends to help investigate the cast because she was afraid they'd solve it before her. That's a bit like the pot calling the kettle black. Also she made a few reckless moves in this book that made her look stupid. Marco, also, in this book made a few unwise of blatantly obvious wrong choices in this book. However, most of the minor characters were their normal selves, Grace, Lottie, Reilly, and Nikki were all the normal fun characters they've always been.
The mystery was flimsy at best, the killer was portrayed early on and the last "suspenseful" scene was faintly reminiscent of the final scene in the last book in this series, Acts of Violets.
Overall probably the worst book so far in the series, but I'll read the next one because the ones before this were very entertaining.
As I said above the MC, Abby was very obnoxious in this book. She was a know-it-all who didn't want one of her friends to help investigate the cast because she was afraid they'd solve it before her. That's a bit like the pot calling the kettle black. Also she made a few reckless moves in this book that made her look stupid. Marco, also, in this book made a few unwise of blatantly obvious wrong choices in this book. However, most of the minor characters were their normal selves, Grace, Lottie, Reilly, and Nikki were all the normal fun characters they've always been.
The mystery was flimsy at best, the killer was portrayed early on and the last "suspenseful" scene was faintly reminiscent of the final scene in the last book in this series, Acts of Violets.
Overall probably the worst book so far in the series, but I'll read the next one because the ones before this were very entertaining.
May 26, 2015
Another Abby Knight adventure, while enjoyable and I'll,probably read the rest of them, it was predictable. I enjoy reading these books for fun. In this book Abby and Marco investigate a murder at a mortuary convention to clear the name of their friend Delilah Dove. I this book Abby and Marco work more as a team than they have in the past. It does have a humorous side story with Abby's mother sculpting something for Marco's sister's baby shower.
September 16, 2015
I was warned about this book and have to concur with the warning. Everyone in this book just seemed so out of character - especially Marco. I have heard the series gets back on track after this one so I will definitely continue with it since I have grown to really like the series as a whole.
August 3, 2018
This series has some of the most delightful clever writing I have enjoyed in a while. I enjoy books that entertain and even are a bit light hearted, but not dumbed down. I appreciate clever and witting and even subtle humor in books. This series has all of that.
Abby Knight is the owner and operator of a flower shop, Bloomers, and she will do just about anything to make it succeed.. including attending a convention for funeral directors to drum up some business. She laughs at the various characters there.. the pranks.. the jokes.. the events (casket decorating!).. but she isn't laughing when the director of the conference is found dead in a casket and her friend, Delilah is the prime suspect.
Abby sets out to prove Delilah is innocent and find the real killer no matter what.... and that what could be serious business for Abby!
Abby Knight is the owner and operator of a flower shop, Bloomers, and she will do just about anything to make it succeed.. including attending a convention for funeral directors to drum up some business. She laughs at the various characters there.. the pranks.. the jokes.. the events (casket decorating!).. but she isn't laughing when the director of the conference is found dead in a casket and her friend, Delilah is the prime suspect.
Abby sets out to prove Delilah is innocent and find the real killer no matter what.... and that what could be serious business for Abby!
August 13, 2021
It's been a while since I last visited the small town in Indiana where Abby Knight owns Bloomers, a little flower shop that's up against national chains with their online presence.
As the book opens, Abby is inside a coffin. Two brothers attending a funeral directors convention. Abby is there as an exhibitor, and she allowed twin brothers to prank her into getting inside the coffin. She gets out, but soon the obnoxious chairwoman of the convention dies brutally at the hands of a killer. Abby gets nosy and sleuths almost as well as she sells flowers.
This book should have been a four-star experience or more. I gave it three stars because Abby seemed more shrill and obnoxious than usual. The shrillness grated on me this time. But I enjoy this series so much, and the author writes so well that I will eagerly continue reading it.
As the book opens, Abby is inside a coffin. Two brothers attending a funeral directors convention. Abby is there as an exhibitor, and she allowed twin brothers to prank her into getting inside the coffin. She gets out, but soon the obnoxious chairwoman of the convention dies brutally at the hands of a killer. Abby gets nosy and sleuths almost as well as she sells flowers.
This book should have been a four-star experience or more. I gave it three stars because Abby seemed more shrill and obnoxious than usual. The shrillness grated on me this time. But I enjoy this series so much, and the author writes so well that I will eagerly continue reading it.
March 2, 2023
In this one (#6) Abby is attending a Funeral Directors convention and is sharing a booth with friends Delilah and Max. When the event organizer (Sybil) is murdered, Delilah is a suspect. After all, she had a run-in with Sybil, and was the last person admittedly to see her alive. Abby and Marco have to clear her name, and in the course of things, find out who really killed Sybil.
I dunno, is it just me? Abby really irritated me this go round. I freely admit to reading out of order, and perhaps the older in the series Abby is more mature than this younger Abby. Whatever the reason, I wanted to swat this Abby several times.
I thought the story line was a bit forced at times and I figured out who it had to be that killed Sybil...not based on clues but on the fact that at the end, it was the only logical choice. But it was certainly readable so 3 stars.
I dunno, is it just me? Abby really irritated me this go round. I freely admit to reading out of order, and perhaps the older in the series Abby is more mature than this younger Abby. Whatever the reason, I wanted to swat this Abby several times.
I thought the story line was a bit forced at times and I figured out who it had to be that killed Sybil...not based on clues but on the fact that at the end, it was the only logical choice. But it was certainly readable so 3 stars.
June 26, 2018
This might be the first book in this series in which I found Abby Knight annoying rather than endearing. She was mean to one of her coworkers, more stubborn than usual, and she seemed dead-set on believing certain individuals were responsible for a crime that she refused to see reality. Also, the story takes place (mostly) away from Abby's flower shop, so the normal ambiance was missing. I hope the next installment in the series is back to the normal routine.
March 4, 2019
Abby decides to rent a booth at a funeral convention. You would think its boring and drab not this one. A dead body is found and one of her dearest friends & very much respected funeral director is the prime suspect and Abby is determined to clear her name.
Abby begins to learn the ropes of the PI business. It's another fabulous and adorable read. I can never put it down. I ordered the next three because i go through these books quickly. #FlowerShopMystery
Abby begins to learn the ropes of the PI business. It's another fabulous and adorable read. I can never put it down. I ordered the next three because i go through these books quickly. #FlowerShopMystery
October 22, 2020
This was easily my favorite book of the series so far! The change in scenery was interesting, the characters were compelling, and the subject matter was unique. We saw our usual characters along with some really interesting funeral directors and funeral business people. Turns out they’re quite the rowdy crowd! Some of Collins’s books drag a bit in some places but this one was non-stop action, probably because it took place over what I think was only 2 days.
May 31, 2020
This is the second Flower Shop mystery I’ve read, I really like them. Abby is set up at a convention for funeral directors. She get locked in a phone booth coffin, has to listen to a weird harp-player across the aisle, and of course, there’s a murder. There were laugh-out-loud funny antics, and an attempt on her life when she gets too close. All in all, a good story.
March 7, 2019
Very cute mystery. Abby Knight owns a barely thriving floral business. In order to get more business she attends a Funeral Director Association convention. When the director of the convention is killed and her friend is accused, Abby looks for the killer.
November 30, 2020
Perfect title! A really unique venue for the Bloomers crew, a lot of shenanigans and a host of trouble. Abby and Marco are trying to find out who killed Sybil, to clear Delilah from being accused. A whole lotta 'lively' characters with a bunch of dead-ends, make this for a humdinger of a whodunit!
December 22, 2022
An interesting look at the funeral business, from the viewpoint of a flower shop owner. Somewhat humorous because of the rather odd collection of characters at this conference. This is a cozy mystery which I would recommend to cozy mystery lovers.
November 3, 2019
Mystery series. Keeps me guessing. A heads up- she's sleeping with her boyfriend now, so I won't be ready any more if these.
January 11, 2020
Cute and relaxing read
July 3, 2020
I love the imagery and I cracked up laughing highly recommended!
April 2, 2021
I wish funeral conventions were really like the book it would be fun to see the reworked coffins
October 16, 2021
Great book from this series. Fun setting, interesting story, nice characters
September 17, 2022
Funny, witty and of course - it is a killer ;)
October 23, 2022
I am done with this series. They started off so-so, but have devolved into inane drivel.
November 21, 2022
All of the worse 'cozy' formula devices. And not presented very good either. Main character is not likeable.
January 10, 2023
A nice complex mortuary themed mystery. I really love the characters in this series.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 105 reviews