When Lark agreed to run a writers' workshop, she didn't bargain for murder. Lark Dodge has been dragooned into helping Bianca Fiedler, heir of Hollywood stars turned organic farmer, run a workshop for science writers, a.k.a. journalists. When one of the farm managers is found dead and covered with ice cubes in a bin used to store broccoli, it would be prudent to cancel the workshop, but Bianca insists it's too late, and Bianca tends to get her way. While it seems likely that one of the farm's quirky inhabitants must be guilty, Lark and her husband Jay find themselves trapped in a hunt for the killer.

Simonson is one of the best of the current Regency novelists. Here her heroine, Emily, having lost both husband and baby daughter, offers to take in other children to raise with her own son, Matt. Captain Richard Falk deposits his infant son and young daughter with her before returning to fight Napoleon. Emily falls in love with his children and, during their correspondence, with him. However, Falk, illegitimate son of a duchess, is in danger from his mother's family, who see him as a threat to the dukedom. With a little help from friends, all ends well. The characters are well drawn and appealing, and if the plot seems a bit preposterous, the reader is having too much fun to worry about it.Marylaine Block, St. Ambrose Coll. Lib., Davenport, Ia.

When Lark agreed to run a writers' workshop, she didn't bargain for murder.Lark Dodge has been dragooned into helping Bianca Fiedler, heir of Hollywood stars turned organic farmer, run a workshop for science writers, a.k.a. journalists. When one of the farm managers is found dead and covered with ice cubes in a bin used to store broccoli, it would be prudent to cancel the workshop, but Bianca insists it's too late, and Bianca tends to get her way. While it seems likely that one of the farm's quirky inhabitants must be guilty, Lark and her husband Jay find themselves trapped in a hunt for the killer.