As soon as Emily Wilson loses her job in marketing, her boyfriend Ben who moved in six months ago promptly leaves her. Fortunately fate steps in and Emily discovers her Great Aunt Lorna, estranged from the rest of her family, has left her a home in the village of Ashton Mead near Swindon, but with one condition – she must take on any pets that Lorna had when she died. Believing it to be a goldfish, Emily is taken aback to be presented with Poppy, a Jack Russell cross Shih Tzu puppy. As Emily sets about cleaning up the house, she falls in love with little Poppy and takes a job at the Sunshine Tea Shoppe, making great friends with the owner Hannah and local chemistry teacher Toby amongst others. She even befriends her initially hostile new neighbour Alice and, putting two and two together from excepts from Lorna’s diary, she starts to imagine something sinister has befallen both her great aunt and the neighbour’s daughter. Is this her vivid imagination working overtime or does Emily have something to fear from her new found friends?
Emily is a very sweet girl but rather dim when it comes to trusting the wrong people, in particular her good looking but incredibly shallow money-grabbing and controlling ex-boyfriend. Thank goodness Poppy is a better judge of character. It’s a real feel-good cosy mystery with a most endearing and star of the show character in the adorable Poppy as Emily learns life is not all about the bright lights of London but more about where the heart is and caring friends live. With an exciting and shocking ending which I didn’t expect, this is very different from this author’s crime stories but I’m sure it will have a universal appeal to animal and cosy story book lovers alike, and I am looking forward to more adventures starting with book 2, Barking Mad, due out in July 2023. 4.5*