Review: Still Life and Death by Tracy Gardner

Posted June 28, 2024 by Lola in Mystery, Review, Romance / 1 Comment

Still Life and Death (Shepherd Sisters Mysteries #3)
by Tracy Gardner
narrated by Karissa Vacker

My Rating: 4 stars

Genre: Cozy Mystery
Age Category: Adult
Type of romance: m/f

Blurb:
A murder at the flower shop.
An uncle suspected by the cops.
Savanna and her sisters are on the case.

Savanna Shepherd, a former art authenticator turned grade school art teacher, is delighted when her Uncle Max and Uncle Freddie move to Carson. Uncle Max takes a job at Libby’s Blooms, where Savanna teaches a still life painting class for adults. But one morning, Uncle Max finds a dead body in the rooftop greenhouse…and even worse, it looks like an inside job.

Savanna and her sisters—Skylar, a lawyer, and Sydney, the owner of a pet shop and grooming salon—dig in to find the real murderer. With their connections to the community and Savanna’s keen eye for details, they uncover longstanding resentments and horticultural clues. Meanwhile, Savanna’s dating local doctor Aidan Gallager, but she worries it’ll cause a scandal, since his daughter is in her class. As Savanna’s investigation leads her into thorny situations, the killer may be arranging another murder: her own.

My Review

I really like this series and was excited to start book 3 in this series. Still Life and Death follows the Shepherd Sisters as they solve the mystery of who killed the florist Libby. This time there are even a few scenes from Sydney’s point of view, which worked well here. The mystery kept me guessing and the characters and setting had that perfect cozy vibe.

The mystery in this one felt a bit sad with how Libby was a good friend of Sydney. It was a well written mystery. I liked seeing the mystery play out and it kept me guessing. There are plenty of suspects and I couldn’t quite decide who made the most sense as the killer. I like how it really feels there is progress in the mystery with new bits and pieces coming to light and how instrumental Savannah and her sisters are in figuring out some of that information. I also like how Savannah and her sisters are usually quite smart in how they go about investigating. I wasn’t too surprised about who the killer was, but I hadn’t settled on one suspect either as multiple suspects seemed possible.

I really like the cozy vibe of this series, it’s so fun to read about Savannah and her two sisters. There are also two uncles and their daughter who are introduced in this book, they were a fun addition and one of them works at the flower shop so that helps with some snooping. I like seeing all three sisters and how they are doing and how their lives are progressing. The whole family is close and I like seeing how much they all care about one another. I also appreciate how some side characters from previous books make appearances like Yvonne from book 2 and Caroline from book 1.

To summarize: Another great read in this series! I really like this series, the mysteries are well written and the cozy vibe is well done. This mystery kept me guessing till the end with multiple possible suspects. I like how Savannah and her sisters get involved in investigating and how they go about it. They really are instrumental in solving the case. I really like reading about Savannah and her sisters, seeing how their lives progress and how they interact with each other and the rest of the characters. I like the cozy vibe of this series. I just heard the author is writing 2 more books in this series and I can’t wait for those!