Roses Are Red, Now You're Dead - An Amateur Sleuth English Village Whodunit #944663

She promised to tell the truth. She never got the chance.
One year after solving the Valentine's Day murder that rocked Hartwell-on-the-Moor, Eleanor Blackwood has settled into village life. The Thorn & Rose Bookshop thrives, the Murder Club meets weekly, and the past seems finally at rest. But as February arrives and red roses fill every window, Ellie cannot shake the feeling that the real secrets remain buried.
Rose Pemberton knows those secrets. The elderly florist was Lily Valentine's closest friend, the last person to see her happy before that fateful night in 1999. For twenty-five years, Rose has kept silent. Now, haunted by guilt and declining health, she reaches out to Ellie. She has evidence—photographs from the Valentine's party that could expose the true killer. She wants to talk.
The meeting never happens.
Rose is found dead in her flower shop, drowned in a vat of rose water, surrounded by hundreds of blood-red blooms. The police call it an accident. The Murder Club knows better. Someone silenced Rose before she could speak—someone desperate enough to kill again to protect a quarter-century-old conspiracy.
As Ellie and her unlikely team of amateur sleuths dig deeper, they uncover layers of deception that reach into the highest echelons of Hartwell society. The Ashworth family closes ranks. Old alliances fracture under pressure. And Malcolm Greaves finally reveals the real reason he came to this village—a secret that connects to a missing podcaster who got too close to the truth.
But the most devastating discovery belongs to Juno Thorne. Among Rose's hidden possessions lies evidence that rewrites everything Juno believed about her own identity. The pink-haired outsider may not be an outsider at all. She may be the key to everything—and the next target on a killer's list.
With Valentine's Day approaching and the body count rising, the Murder Club must untangle a web of old money, older grudges, and a photograph that someone will kill to destroy. The truth about Lily Valentine's final hours is finally within reach. But exposing it may cost Ellie everyone she has grown to love.
In this gripping second installment of the Valentine's Day Murder Club series, loyalties are tested, identities shattered, and the cozy village of Hartwell reveals darker depths than anyone imagined.
Some flowers are meant for funerals.