In the charming village of Wisteria Point, secrets are kept gently - until one is found beside a body.
Beatrice Holloway knows how to read objects.
Before she became the owner of Holloway's Hearth, the warm-hearted bakery at the centre of Wisteria Point, she spent twenty-two years as an antiques and decorative arts appraiser. She learned that people's possessions often tell the truth long before people do.
So when wealthy donor Reginald Alcott-Marsh is found dead in the village museum, beside the newly donated Weatherstone Portrait and a single pressed violet, Beatrice cannot ignore the details everyone else wants to explain away.
The official answer may be natural causes, but the scene feels carefully unfinished.
Why was Reginald alone in the portrait room during the Harvest Fair?
Why had he been researching old parish records?
What does the mysterious reversionary clause in the donation agreement really mean?
And why would someone leave a pressed violet beside him?
With the help of Captain, her retired police spaniel, and the quiet support of Wisteria Point's most observant villagers, Beatrice begins to follow a trail of old letters, family history, hidden inheritance, and a long-buried truth reaching back nearly a century.
But the closer she comes to the answer, the clearer it becomes that this is not simply a mystery about death.
It is a mystery about belonging.
Warm, atmospheric, and gently suspenseful, Violets at the Wake is a cozy village mystery filled with bakery charm, family secrets, old houses, loyal dogs, and the kind of clue only the right person would notice.
Perfect for readers who enjoy character-led cozy mysteries, English village settings, gentle intrigue, amateur sleuths, and mysteries with heart.
