This was such a cute cozy mystery!! I loved the setting, I loved the premise (a new-to-town gardener working to set up a community garden and the small town drama that follows), and I loved the characters!

I thought it was fun that the characters are all tied to each other in some way, even though some hadn’t seen each other in years. It very much resembles the reality of growing up in a small town and then moving away—only to occasionally return and pick right back up where you left off years before.

I thought this was a perfect spring/summer read.

"The Gardener's Plot” by Deborah J. Benoit set in the Berkshires. What a great start to a new series! A woman helps set up a community garden in the Berkshires, only to find a body in one of the plots on opening day.

I rather enjoyed this story and getting to know Maggie and Sally. One thing I liked is you didn’t have to be a gardener to enjoy it and you might even learn something.

The mystery is interesting and well plotted, and had plenty of twists to keep engaged right to the very end. I kept guessing and second-guessing myself but I was right on who the killer was.

I highly recommend this book to all my cozy lover friends. I can’t wait for book two!
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I requested and received an Advanced Readers Copy from Minotaur Books and NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Thank you #netgalley and the publisher for the #AdvanceReviewCopy

Genre: Cozy Mystery
Release Date: November 2025

Maggie has always loved gardening, so when she signs up to assist her friend in a community garden project in her old hometown, she’s delighted. Things are looking up for Maggie despite her annoying cousin who insists on taking advantage of her, constantly nagging her; Maggie is determined to hold him off from his threats. When she discovers a dead body in one of the garden plots and the friend responsible for the project goes missing, the town detectives turn to Maggie with questions she can’t answer and suspicions Maggie can’t fathom.

Overall, I enjoyed this, but I struggled through the first 1/4 (22%) to be exact. I was pretty much ready to abandon this when, suddenly, it clicked at the 25% mark, and I’m glad I pushed through the beginning as the rest of the story flowed effortlessly and entertainingly.

The small town feel was cozy and welcoming, and I also didn’t solve the mystery, and I usually do, so that was a bonus, too.

Overall I give this one 4 stars
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Special thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free, electronic ARC of this novel received in exchange for an honest review.
Expected publication date: Nov. 5, 2024
Maggie Walker has returned to the town she spent a lot of her childhood in, after inheriting her grandmother’s home after her passing. Delighted to live among the memories and to be back in the town she loves with the people who know her best, Maggie decides to help community member, Violet Bloom, set up a community garden. Finally, the day of the garden’s reveal is upon her, and everyone is lined up to begin tilling their plot- until Maggie uncovers a dead body. Although the police are investigating, Maggie is desperate to know how a man’s dead body wound up in the community garden her and Violet spent so much time working on. Speaking of- Violet has been missing for days and no one has heard from her. Has something happened? Could this small town have yet another murder on its hands?
Deborah J. Benoit’s debut, “The Gardener’s Plot”, is a murder-mystery with a floral twist. Focused on the creation of the town’s community garden, amateur sleuth Maggie uproots more than weeds, which leads to an intriguing who-dunnit that kept me guessing.
For those who lack green thumbs (like me) Benoit ensures that “Plot” does not drown the reader in the specificity of planting and growing. Although there are a few sections that provide knowledge and some helpful tidbits, the plot focuses on the murder and the subsequent investigation. There are a lot of characters in this novel, mostly all of the members of the community (including many small business owners) and its’ garden aficionados, so there are lots of options to choose from when it comes to solving the case, if you can keep them all straight.
I enjoyed Maggie as a protagonist, as she was likable and relatable. Benoit managed to write an entire novel without describing the physical characteristics of any of the characters, although I’m not sure if it was intentional or not. This required a bit of an adjustment on my part, as I was so unfamiliar with this style, but I do have to give props to Benoit for not giving Maggie any romantic interests in this novel. It was nice to see a female protagonist without men being thrown at her feet, which was also something I’m not used to (but this was definitely a positive aspect!)
“Plot” wrapped up nicely, so it’s hard to say if more Maggie Walker stories will follow. I enjoyed Benoit’s writing style, for the most part, and was invested enough in Maggie to read more from her, if that’s where Benoit wants to go with this. Otherwise, I was extremely satisfied with the ending and was not left wanting.

3🌟

Thank you netgalley for the arc! A cozy mystery that fell a little flat in certain parts. Some of the story seemed to drag more than I wanted it to and I found myself struggling to pick it up. The characters were not likeable, and for a cozy mystery I tend to like the stories with more depth, or likeability (one of the two). Loved the cozy mystery vibes, some fun plot twists, I wish I connected with the characters more.

Maggie Walker is back in her hometown after a failed marriage. She has purchased her grandmother's house and is eager to build her new life. As a master gardener, she's eager to restore her grandmother's gardens. She has also been encouraged to volunteer with the new community garden that is just opening by new friend Violet Bloom.

However, on opening day, Violet is a no-show. Worst of all, Maggie finds a boot buried in one of the newly prepared plots and there is a body attached to it. Carl Henderson is a local real estate developer with a shady reputation. Maggie knows him because he has been pressuring her to sell her grandmother's house.

The police want to talk to her, and they want to talk to Violet who seems to have disappeared. Maggie and her next-door neighbor and childhood friend decide to look into the case despite the police strongly discouraging their help.

I enjoyed this mystery. I liked that Maggie was very upset by her discoveries which seems much more realistic than many cozy mysteries. I also liked that Maggie wasn't going to be deterred from finding out what has happened to her new friend.

Maggie returns to the Berkshires where she grew up after inheriting a house there. Doing what she loves she helps Violet set up and organize the new community gardens but on opening morning Violet doesn't show up. Turning over one of the new plots a body is found. Can Maggie and her neighbor solve the murder and find the missing woman? A great read for readers of cozy mysteries. Good plot and characters and an enjoyable read.
Thanks to #NetGalley#TheGardenersPlot#StMartinsPress for the EARC

While I love a good cozy mystery and a good police procedural, I feel like this cross could have had better execution. It felt a bit…clunky? The plot didn’t move as well as it could have, there were a few too many characters and they weren’t as fleshed out as well as they could have been… Overall, it was just ok.

Sigh... where do I even start? Please hear me when I say I wanted so badly to love this one, cozy murder mystery meets police procedural? Sign me up! Except... execution REALLY matters and the execution on this one falls completely flat.
First, the writing is extremely awkward and the dialogue doesn't flow at all. I respect that this is an ARC, and perhaps there is additional editing planned before publication, but, my reading notes are full of the phrase "please edit more" quite literally everywhere.
This one also took me FOREVER to get through because the first half completely failed to grab my attention. I wish Violet's character had been developed more before her disappearance. She wasn't really written about and I therefore didn't connect with her or feel invested when she went missing.
There are plenty more issues I could present, but the final one (and perhaps my biggest complaint) was our narrator throughout this story. Annoying and really dumb are the first two words that come to mind. Usually, with a book written by a woman, I expect a female character to be better developed and overall smarter then this character.
Overall, I felt like this book was poorly edited, the characters insufficiently developed, and the whole thing, including the ending, was pretty much a flop. Perhaps this just wasn't my cup of tea.

As always, thank you for letting me read :)
This review is now posted on my GoodReads account

Master gardener Maggie has moved back to the Berkshires after her Gramma's passing and is thrilled to be second in command of the new community garden in her small hometown. The excitement of the garden's opening day turns to horror when a body is discovered in one of the plots and the garden's director, Violet, goes missing. Worried about her friend, Maggie and her next-door neighbor/BFF Sally dig around town in hopes of finding Violet alive and well. The Gardener's Plot is a really successful cozy mystery with a cast small town characters that if you've ever lived in a small town you definitely relate to their behavior. Between the quick pacing and the shout-out to Murder, She Wrote it was a solid read.

Such a fun read. I've been telling so many people about it. I can't wait until more of the people I know have time to read it.

3.5 stars

I enjoyed this story overall. I was curious and excited to get to the big reveal, and I managed to put some, but not many, of the pieces together. However, I didn't feel any emotional connection to the characters. Some of them seemed catty and petty without real explanation, which made them unlikable and seemingly irrelevant. Nonetheless, I can see myself continuing the series with the next book and reserving my overall judgment until then.

This book is being voluntarily reviewed after receiving a free copy courtesy of NetGalley, the Publisher, and Deborah J. Benoit.

A very interesting story about growth and well secrets and lies. Feel like so much of what I want to talk about would be a spoiler but this book was so good and I really enjoyed it. I couldn’t put it down.

In The Gardener’s Plot the characters are well developed, realistic and interesting. The gardening theme is perfect. Even though there are murders this book still has an optimistic thread running through it.

I'm not much of a gardener but I love flowers, so decided to give this one a chance. I'm so glad I did. While I have to admit to finding Maggie Walker's questioning style pushy and rather obvious, I liked her. Like many, she's making a new start by going back to known places, ie living in her late grandmother's home, and dealing with both old friends and enemies as well as trying to make new friends. She's a master gardener and has started writing a gardening column for the local paper, so she seems to be on the right track. Even more impressive, she was tapped to help organize the local community garden. She's excited about that...until she discovers a boot in one of the plots. A boot attached to a foot. Uh, oh.

Without giving away the plot, I will say that while it seemed slow in spots, my hunch is we were getting valuable background for future book in a series. At least I hope so. I liked Maggie, pushy and occasionally fractious as she was when confronted by the standard operating procedure of the police. There seems to be a history with local police chief Sam, one that has lead to Sam's wife Catherine being openly hateful to Maggie. And, oh, that detective, Matt Quinn. While grudgingly admitting he's good looking, Maggie seems at odds with him the entire book. Well, almost the entire book. Love the possibilities the ending offers. Like Maggie, Sam and Matt seem to be good people, caught in the middle between their softer side and the bureaucracy of police procedure. Maggie's friend and neighbor, Sally, is there for Maggie, even when she fears it might put her family in danger. And, yes, danger is lurking. Not one but two murders occur. Even worse, Maggie is with Sally when they stumble across the second body thanks to Sally's dog Dreyfus. And that's just the beginning of the action, which also involves snotty encounters with Catherine, cranky garden plot owners, Maggie's annoying pest of a cousin, and a growing fear that this isn't over simply because the bodies have been discovered. Trust me, it isn't.

You don't have to be a gardener to enjoy this one, either. In fact, if you read carefully, you might even pick up a few helpful tidbits. Maggie and Sally, the featured characters, are quite likable and seem to work well together, showing promise as amateur sleuths. Maggie seems to recognize at the end that her probing questions may have help create the danger Sally and she faced at the end, too, so it'll be interesting to see how that balances with her natural curiosity and need to know. Bottom line, I thoroughly enjoyed this one and am looking forward to the next. Thanks #StMartin'sPress - #MinotaurBooks for the early introduction to Maggie and the cast of characters that surround her. And, oh, I definitely liked the role the K9 police dog played at the end. What can I say? I'm a dog person. Grin.

I love cozy mysteries and I was looking forward to reading the debut from this new author. It was a fun read though there were many characters to keep track up. Maggie Walker moves back home into her grandmother's house that she inherits, for a quiet life. She didn't expect to deal with a murder mystery and a missing friend. It was a easy read and loved the gardening focus of the book - right up my alley.

Looking forward to reading more from this author.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.

I have been provided with a review copy of this title from NetGalley for an impartial review. This book was just so easy to get lost in. I completely got lost in the story and I just loved getting to see these new characters come together. I just absolutely love this story and I just didn’t want to put it down. I can’t wait to see what’s next from this author.

The garden was an interesting setting for this cozy mystery. It took me a while to get through this book, which I think is partially due to the pacing and partially to trying to keep track of all the characters. Overall, a decent cozy mystery and I’ll be interested in what this author does next.

This story intrigued me and seemed like the perfect fit to read as we get into fall. Maggie Walker, recently moved back to her hometown and is helping with setting up a community garden. Benoit is a strong writer and it shows in her characters and plot. I felt like I missed some of the character introduction of Maggie, leading to a struggle to connect with the character. This is a cozy, but it did seem to have some darker elements to it that I wouldn't necessarily call cozy. However, I enjoyed the story and would read more of hers in the future!

I liked the idea of a community garden plot shared by several people.
However, the book turned out to be just another gardening cozy mystery with a fairly simple plot. I have read so many of those and was disappointed that the novel did not have a more complex story with more developed or unique characters. Gardeners and readers of this genre will enjoy adding this book to their reading list, however.