Daisies For Innocence

Written by Bailey Cattrell

Narrated by Vanessa Daniels

Elliana Allbright's life has blossomed in Poppyville, California, since she opened Scents Nonsense, a custom-made-perfume store. Her skills with aromas and botanical essences-some from her very own garden-seem almost supernatural. Her perfumes can evoke emotions, bring about change, or simply make people happy. Customers are flocking to the store to buy her wares or just to sit in her beautiful garden, sip tea, and enjoy homemade cookies.

But Ellie smells trouble when she learns that her part-time assistant Josie is dating her ex. And before she can tell the young woman to beware of his charms, she finds Josie dead in the Enchanted Garden. Now the prime suspect in Josie's murder, Ellie must search for the real culprit in Josie's past-because it'll take a miracle to nip this problem in the bud.Contains mature themes.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Jan 5, 2016
• ISBN: 9781494588236

Reviews for Daisies For Innocence

[dollycas · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Dollycas’s ThoughtsElliana Allbright has a fantastic place in Poppyville, California. At the front of her lot is Scents & Nonsense, her store, where she sells items scented from the flowers in her very own garden. The Enchanted Garden fills the side and back yards right up to the front of her tiny house. I can picture it so clearly in my mind with her bird bath and other whimsical touches surrounded by flowers that bloom all year. Even a few extra special varieties.Ellie has a gift of matching the right scent to each person for any occasion and her Gamma’s journal is the guidebook to everything growing in the garden. Everything is coming up roses until her friend and employee, Josie Overland, is pushing up daisies, dead in the garden. Not so enchanting.The was a fun read. Because of the location of the body, Elliana is the prime suspect. One of the officers on the case is best friends with her ex so she knows she isn’t going to get much help there but his partner, Detective Lupe Garcia, has a more open mind and actually investigates. I liked that Ellie didn’t just jump into the investigation. She stayed in touch with Garcia and they shared infomation. We meet several unique characters throughout the book. Friends from her high school days, friends that Ellie made before her divorce and new friends since opening her store. Ellie shop also has a resident feline and she has a Welsh Corgi named Dash too.The book started a little slow for me but soon I was fully engaged and stayed up until early in the morning to finish. The mystery has its share of plot twists to keep readers guessing and I was surprised to learn I had picked the right culprit from the bunch.I loved the aromatherapy theme and was thrilled to see the blends at the end of the story.Bailey Cattrell has planted all the seeds to get this series off to a blooming start.

[newsieq · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Elliana Allbright has a keen sense of smell – and she’s using it to her advantage by opening a perfume/aromatherapy shop in her native Poppyville, California. She opened the shop after she split from her husband Harris, the owner of a Poppyville restaurant they once ran together. A short time after Ellie’s employee, Josie Overland, announces that she’s been dating Harris, Josie is found dead – murdered – in Josie’s scent garden.Two cops are on the case and one of the, Max Lang, is a friend of Harris’s and fixated on Ellie as a likely suspect. That could have something to do with the fact that Harris is telling lies about Ellie, including that Ellie was incredibly jealous of Josie for dating him. As if! The other detective, Lupe Garcia, is keeping an open mind and Ellie decides to do some sleuthing and feed the information she gathers to Detective Garcia. Complicating this is the return of Ritter Nelson to Poppyville. Elliana had a school-girl crush on him and she finds herself getting a little weak in the knees seeing him again. Daisies for Innocence is a good cozy mystery … one thing that annoyed me was having Ellie refer to her late grandmother as “Gamma,” as if she’s still three years old. Plus there’s a little “woo-woo” going on and I’m not a big fan of woo-woo.

[Amanda Anson · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Recently divorced Elliana Allbright owns the shop Scents and Nonsense where she uses her gift for scent and picking up on peoples emotions to custom make perfumes that evoke memories and brings comfort. When her employee Josie is killed outside her shop and she looks like the prime suspect it’s time for her to nose out the real killer.

I love Elliana and her adorable dog Dash. I don’t have a very green thumb but Elliana with her love of gardening and aromatherapy reminded me of my mom and sister and how they tend to their gardens. I am looking forward to visiting Poppyville again and hanging out with these new friends.

The narrator for this audiobook did a great job and made the story come to life.

[andy5185 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

To have the ability to sense what scents make people peaceful would be a pretty cool skill. That its inherited from groovy Gamma even better. An enchanted garden, essential oil splendiferousness and a Corgi best friend made this light read a goodie.

[murderbydeath · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Bailey Cattrell is also Bailey Cates is also Cricket McRae. This is the third series she's written that I've read and if the first book is any indication of what's to come, it'll be the best yet. The first series she wrote was as Cricket McRae and it was a Home Crafting series. I loved it; the MC was intelligent and independent and I found the different home crafts in each book fascinating. The second series, currently ongoing, is the Magical Bakeshop series she writes as Bailey Cates. It's cute, the magic is interesting and I enjoy them, but the MC is a bit more wide-eyed innocent and there's an air of immaturity (in the sense of age and experience). In Daisies for Innocence the author has come full-circle while retaining a little of the magic of the Bakeshop series. Ellie's a little more world-weary, and she's coming out the other side of that time in life when you really figure out who you are. Gardening, the meaning of flowers, and aromatherapy are the backdrop and the subtle magic here is closer to magical realism than paranormal. She weaves interesting facts about flowers and crafting natural products into the narrative gracefully and while it's clear that the author believes in living light upon the Earth, she's never preachy about it. The plot is well-structured and the mystery all comes together towards the end so there's no telegraphing the murderer early on (although in retrospect there was one scene...). My only real complaint about the book was the unrealistic animosity and lack of professionalism shown by one of the detectives and the over-compensation of the other. Both threw the rhythm of the book off a bit since neither were subtle; otherwise, this was an excellent start and I'm really looking forward to the next one.

[mary_beth_robb · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Love this new series

[joannefm2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Elliana Allbright owns a shop that makes perfumes, soaps, body lotions, etc., in the town of Poppyville, California. She opened it after a messy divorce from her husband Harris; one in which he kept the restaurant they owned together and bought her out. She has a part-time employee named Josie, and one day she tells Ellie that she's been dating Harris and asks if it's a problem. Ellie assures her it isn't, Ellie leaves to run some errands and leaves Josie handling the shop.She doesn't see Josie again that day, and the next morning her little Corgi Dash goes outside and won't stop barking. Ellie follows, and finds Josie's body just outside the gate to her Enchanted Garden which is in the back of her shop. She calls the police and is questioned. Detective Lang, a friend of her ex-husband Harris, is convinced she murdered Josie out of jealousy; convinced because Harris told him Ellie was extremely jealous and probably did it.Since he's not looking elsewhere, she figures it's up to her to find out who the killer is. At least his partner, Detective Lupe Garcia, is rational and helpful, which gives her hope. When Garcia tells her that it appears Josie was stabbed in the park, but died in the garden, you'd think Lang would realize that it wasn't her fault, but he doesn't. So Ellie starts doing what she can to find out who would want Josie dead, and hopes to find out before Lang puts her behind bars for life...I really liked the title of the book and the fact of the garden in the back, filled with plants that Ellie uses to make her concoctions. A lot of the book was good, but then there was the taint of Detective Lang...(To see a spoiler on my thoughts about Lang, please see my review on Goodreads).While the plot was decent, there wasn't really a lot of alternative suspects. No one stood out, and nearly everyone was nice. Those that weren't all seemed to have alibis the night Josie was killed. I didn't feel that we were given enough clues to get close to finding the killer ourselves (and isn't that why we read mysteries?) It was as if people were there, and then discarded along the way - no one was really questioned by Ellie, she just observed them, or pretty much said hi - in other words, they wouldn't have been viable suspects anyway.This is a light-hearted read and a decent start to a new series. I would have liked to have seen more emphasis on character development and perhaps a little less on the power of aromatherapy. I didn't get the feeling of knowing any of the characters, but perhaps that will be remedied in the next book in the series. A cute cozy mystery for a lazy evening.

[bookofsecrets · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Ellie Allbright is the owner of Scents & Nonsense, an aromatherapy shop in the charming town of Poppyville, California. The botanical essences used in her fragrance blends come straight from her own enchanted garden next to her shop. Having recently divorced, Ellie is happy moving on with her life and running her business, until her part-time employee is found murdered outside her store.It took a while for the mystery to start moving along, but it was hard to figure out once it did. Ellie is dealing with a good cop/bad cop situation with the police investigation -- bad cop sees her as the prime suspect. To save herself, Ellie does her own investigation into the background of the victim, and she's surprised to find several possible culprits.I enjoyed the aromatherapy theme in this book, especially since Ellie has a supernatural gift in knowing just the right scent to give her customers. Her special blends come in handy with the murder investigation too. This was a light and fun cozy, and a great start to a new series.Disclosure: I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.