Ellie's business and personal life have been flourishing in her hometown of Poppyville, California, since she opened Scents & Nonsense. She uses her very special skills to craft perfumes that almost magically ease heartache, inspire change, and bring joy--and her customers love to relax in the beautiful garden behind her shop with her corgi, Dash, and her cat, Nabokov. She even lives right next to the garden, in a compact "tiny house"--and she's excited to hear that a journalist is going to write a feature about her home and garden for a national magazine.

But then the journalist is found dead, and suspicion falls on the last person to see him--who just happens to be Ellie's brother's girlfriend. So before everything goes to seed, Ellie must rely on her powers--observational and otherwise--to pick out the real killer from an ever-expanding bouquet of culprits. . . .