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    The Darling Dahlias and the Confederate Rose
    The Darling Dahlias and the Confederate Rose
    The Darling Dahlias and the Confederate Rose
    Audiobook9 hours

    The Darling Dahlias and the Confederate Rose

    Written by Susan Wittig Albert

    Narrated by Peggity Price

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Best-selling author Susan Wittig Albert offers this third charming mystery set in the Depression-era town of Darling, Alabama. In the wake of the upcoming Confederate Day celebration, the Dahlias set out to solve a rash of mysterious occurrences. They' re ready to tackle the secret code embroidered on a family heirloom and suss out why one local resident is acting quite strange -- yet nothing prepares them for one of their own being accused of stealing county funds.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateNov 23, 2012
    ISBN9781470320522
    The Darling Dahlias and the Confederate Rose
    Author

    Susan Wittig Albert

    Susan Wittig Albert is the New York Times bestselling author of over one hundred books. Her work includes four mystery series: China Bayles, the Darling Dahlias, the Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter, and the Robin Paige Victorian Mysteries. She has also published three award-winning historical novels as well as YA fiction, memoirs, and nonfiction. She and her husband live in Texas Hill Country, where she writes, gardens, and raises an assortment of barnyard creatures.

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    Reviews for The Darling Dahlias and the Confederate Rose

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    • 5/5
      This is the third book in The Darling Dahlias series by Susan Wittig Albert. I love all of Albert's series'. I like that they are all set in different time periods and have such wonderful characters and she is a fantastic story teller.

      The Darling Dahlias takes place during the depression in Darling, Alabama, a delightful small community.

      The Darling Dahlias Garden Club had inherited a Victorian house from Dahlia Blackstone and they are still busy bringing it back to it's original beauty. The have a nice vegetable garden that provides the members with fresh vegetables, with enough left over to sell at the farmers market on Saturdays. The are also busy, right now, propagating the Confederate Rose, which Miss Rogers is quick to point out, is really a Hibiscus mutabilis, which they plan to plant around the cemetery to honor the Confederate soldiers that buried there.

      But really concerns them at this time is that Verna Tidwell, manager of the office of the County probate clerk and treasurer, has been asked to take a leave of absence. The state auditors have done an audit of the counties treasure's accounts and have found that $15,000 is missing. The previous treasurer recently passed away and his death was called from natural causes. But the word also going around is that he had had alcohol and being as he was a teetotaler, this is thought to be suspicious. The ladies of the garden club aren't sure who they can trust, so set off to get to the bottom of the story and save Verna's reputation.

      And other reputation that are being, possibly, ruined would be Beulah Trivette. Beulah owns Beulah's Beauty Bower, the premier beauty salon in Darling. It seems that Angelina Biggs, whose husband manages the hotel in town, has been on a terror lately. She thinks her husband is having an affair. She stops in at Beulah for her regular hair appointment. As Beulah is washing her hair, she notices that her hair is coming out in clumps. Angelina runs out of the shop threatening to ruin Beulah and her shop.

      There's never a dull moment in Darling. This series is a good way to get an understanding of how people lived in a very different time than we are are currently living.

      I'm really looking forward to read the next adventures of Darling Dahlia's.
    • 4/5
      The Confederate Rose is not a rose. It’s a hybiscus whose blossoms are white in the morning, pink in the afternoon, and red in the evening. The name also has another meaning, revealed in the book. In 1932, the women of the Darling Dahlias, a long-time gardening and social club in Darling, Alabama, decide to plant Confederate Roses around the town cemetery before Confederate Day. In THE DARLING DAHLIAS AND THE CONFEDERATE ROSE, Susan Wittig Albert paints a picture of life in Darling during the Depression. She writes of how the economic crisis affects the residents of this small town by describing the daily life, work routines, telephone party lines, and personal reactions. She mentions prices for food, services, and merchandise and how the townspeople managed to feed their families and neighbors. She also brings up the possible nomination of Franklin D. Roosevelt, offering comments that are pertinent in the 2012 election. She also includes six Southern recipes at the end of the book. There are two main plots and one subplot. The first one regards the missing $15,000 (a very large amount of money in those days) from the county books. The Dahlias’ treasurer, Verna Tidwell is accused of the theft and asks the president, Liz Lacy, to prove her innocence. Liz agrees to help her friend and has to decide whether the evidence against her proves her guilt. The second plot involves the discovery of a secret code on a pillow (revealed by the yarn-tearing habit of a cat) that dates back to the early 1860s. The pillow was the only possession that Miss Rogers, the town librarian, had when she showed up at an orphanage when she was five years old. She doesn’t know who her biological family was and hopes the local newsman, Charles Dickens, will be able to decipher it. What he finds has some very accurate, historical importance. The third subplot is the erratic behavior of Mrs. Biggs, wife of a wealthy hotel owner, as she exhibits paranoid behavior, culminating in her reaction to her hair falling out. The combined efforts of beautician Beulah Trivette and the town pharmacist determine the cause of the problem: the diet pills she has been taking which contain, among other ingredients, arsenic and strychnine. Mrs. Biggs, has gained a lot of weight over the years and started taking the pills to help her lose weight. At the same time, she eats excessive amounts of food at her meals. One question that I hope will be resolved in a later book, is why she has become a compulsive eater and what will be done about that. It is different situation than that of someone who is weighty but also healthy and comfortable with who she is. One thing I like about these books is that the women have strong ties to each other and their community and are comfortable with their lives. They are not drooling over every man they see. The book is a pleasant, gentle mystery that doesn’t rely on grisly murders to make its case.
    • 4/5
      Entry in the always enjoyable series about Darling, Alabama in the 1930s. Love reading about the familiar characters and life in the south in the 30s. Interesting mystery as well.
    • 4/5
      Susan Wittig Albert takes readers back to the American South in the 1930s – her third book set in Depression-era Darling, Alabama. Two main “mysteries” dominate in this book, set in 1931. Liz Lacy, president of the Darling Dahlias women’s garden club, is holding the fort while her attorney boss, Mr. Moseley, is away. And the first case in the door is Verna Tidwell, club treasurer, who appears to be in trouble with the law. Verna can’t wait a week for Mr. Moseley to return, so the women have to come up with a plan of their own to keep Verna out of jail while they figure out who is embezzling from the county government. Miss Dorothy Rogers, another Dahlia and the town librarian, has a mystery on her hands, involving her own grandmother –whom she knows nothing about. Might she have left a coded message in a pillow – the item she has that belonged to her ancestor?The Darling Dahlias books are the coziest of cozy mysteries. As usual, the writing is top-drawer, the story is sweet and upbeat, the characters engaging and memorable. What more can a reader ask? Recipes!
    • 5/5
      Ms. Wittig Albert's Darling Dahlia series is a winner. It's a wonderful historical cozy series set in small town Darling, Alabama in the late 1930's. This recipe for success is as follows:Mix some old time Southern charm with half a peck of nefarious deeds, half a peck of elderly southern belles, half a peck of great depression gardening and cooking tips. Then a pinch of southern civil rights in the 30's, a pinch of wonderful eccentric personalities, maybe more than a pinch of crafty criminals. Mix all this up in a big giant bowl and top with believable characters and you have the Darling Dahlia series. She even seasons with some true southern historical facts.The ladies of Darling are back in this book and they are all trying to help their friend Verna who is under suspicion of embezzling funds from the County Commissioner's office. With Myra May and Violet on the switchboard, and an old newshound by the name of Charlie Dickins, and their own southern common sense the Dahlias have all they need to put an end to this threat to one of their own.These books are just so much fun to read. I can't wait for the next one. With this series and the China Bayles series, Ms. Wittig Albert is one of my favourite cozy writers right now. She ranks right up there with M.C. Beaton and Carolyn Hart in my opinion.