Review: BONES AND ROSES by EILEEN GOUDGE

I confess that this is my first novel by Eileen Goudge, but BONES AND ROSES (read in one afternoon-evening) hooked me immediately. This is an unexpected, but fascinating, interweaving of cozy mystery with serious backdrop. Protagonist Tish Ballard is " anti-hero": a recovering (= currently non-drinking) alcoholic, former real estate broker, now owner of a property management business; dragging on in a relationship not right for either partner, grieving her mother's abandonment 25 years earlier, and caring for her schizophrenic brother.

There's so much to love about this novel, so many plot convolutions; and unlike many cozies, when the author lifts the curtain, that's not the Wizard we see, but ugly reality--past and present.