A dollop of mystery, a soupçon of romance, mixed well with intrigue and lavender: a recipe for a Provence adventureNow on the dark side of 40, Elise Bennett is ripe for a midlife crisis. She went into the law because her four older sisters are all attorneys but she hates her job. The sisters have all found love. Elise broke up with a boyfriend she couldn’t marry. Nothing seems to work out for her. work out for her.
How can she be happy? The constant pressure from her family to be a successful lawyer is crushing. Her ex is driving her nuts. She decides to escape to France where she books herself an exotic vacation. A farm stay in Provence at a lavender farm sounds ideal for thrashing out her future.
Unfortunately all the other guests at the picturesque family farm are twenty-year-old college students. And the work is menial and dull. There is Conor who drives the family tractor but even he rejects Elise. She feels like the world has turned on her. So when she meets a suave Frenchman at a village festival she falls for his charms.
Only after Elise runs off to the man’s house near Aix-en-Provence does she begin to wonder who Ari is– and where he is. Thus begins a tangle of suspicion and mystery that Elise, along with her sister Merle and her policeman/partner, Pascal, must unravel.
Intrigue, adventure, murder, and romance: all is not all sunshine and flowers in the south of France. But for Elise’s sake, will there at least be time for a summer fling?
Catch up with all the Bennett Sisters in this bestselling mystery series!
more
Elise, the youngest of the five Bennett sisters at 42, has come to a crossroads in her life and books a 10-day farm stay in Provence to work, clear her mind, and develop a new plan. She hates being a lawyer, has quit her job at the law firm, broken up with her boyfriend, Scott, and once older sister, Merle, drops her off at the lavender farm, goes incommunicado with all her family and friends.
However, rather than finding a place to contemplate the future and regroup, she finds herself living and working with a group of students 20 or more years younger than herself and an unknown crisis simmering beneath the calm surface of life at the farm. With minimal French language skills at her disposal, she soon finds herself socially-isolated and feeling very much alone.
There are a couple of bright spots in the works, though. One other worker who appears to be about her age is an Englishman named Conor. Good looking and helpful, he is somewhat friendly and helps get a bat out of her room on her first night at the farm. He turns out to be related to the owners of the farm. Then, she encounters Ari, a local man that immediately shows his interest and admiration. But there seems to be some bad blood between Ari and Conor that causes Elise to be completely ostracized at the farm.
Deciding she’s had enough of the drama, Elise accepts Ari’s offer to spend the rest of her holiday at his home near Aix-en-Provence – no strings attached. In fact, there are so few strings attached that after getting settled in at his place and having dinner with each other the first night, Ari takes off telling Elise and his housekeeper that he’ll return soon. But days pass, and there is no further sign of the man until Conor shows up on the doorstep looking for Elise, and they discover his body in his car in the garage where he apparently has been the entire time.
Meanwhile, Merle Bennett, back home in Malcouziac in the Dordogne, is getting ready for company. Her niece, Willow, is expected soon, as is her son, Tristan: both on holiday before school starts up again in the states. She is also helping her boyfriend, Pascal, locate suitable living quarters near his new headquarters for the government’s wine fraud division in Bordeaux. She is thrilled when she comes across a nice townhouse in a lovely neighborhood that the elderly owner is willing to let at a price within their budget, and she and Pascal begin to settle in.
But when she returns to their home in Malcouziac to welcome Tristan and Willow, she is surprised to discover two additional guests: Elise’s ex-boyfriend, Scott, and his younger cousin, Teague. To add to the confusion, when Merle returns to the lavender farm on the appointed day to pick her sister up from her farm stay, Elise is nowhere to be found, and no one knows where she’s gone!
Lost in Lavender is the latest installment in the charming Bennett Sisters Mystery series by Lise McClendon. This story focuses on the youngest of the sisters and features the lovely countryside of Provence. However, with all the driving that Merle and Pascal do, readers get a glimpse of many other regions of France as well.
The story is a wonderful one of renewal and self-awareness as Elise struggles to break free of choices she made in the past and move on with a life she chooses for herself. And it is a struggle. There were a couple of times I wanted to shake her and tell her to snap out of it, shake out of her self-pity and let someone know where she was and how she was doing. Everyone but everyone was worried about the woman, and she knew it. However, she does finally come around and sets out on the road to love and a better future.
I recommend LOST IN LAVENDER to readers that have enjoyed this series in the past. However, it makes for an excellent standalone book for those that want a romance mystery/romance set in the lovely French countryside.
I voluntarily reviewed this after receiving an Advanced Review Copy from the author.
Elise seeks her own happiness.
Finally rid of a beau who is not marriage material, she is nearly ready to chuck her job with her current law firm
Conor might bring dome new ideas on several fronts
An odd kidnapping case has lethal collateral damage and unexpected twists
The iconic fields of lavender are fodder for the dreams of more than one Bennett sister
Charming series with strong sister connections and conflicts, quirky criminal types, and an interesting array of characters connected to law and justice
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
Thanks to author Lise McClendon and BookSprout for a digital advanced reader copy of this book. All comments and opinions are my own.
This was an engaging mystery set in the French countryside. Even though it’s number 13 in the Bennett Sisters mystery series, you can easily read this as a standalone and thoroughly enjoy it. The characters are likable (except for the bad guys, of course), the food and drink made me hungry, and I could almost smell the lavender while reading.
Elise Bennett (the youngest of the five Bennett sisters) comes to Provence to take a break while she makes some difficult life decisions. After several uncomfortable days of hard work in the heat of summer on a picturesque lavender farm, she breezily leaves with a suave and aggressive Frenchman she just met at a local fete. He takes her to his well-appointed home in Aix-en-Provence, then he disappears. Who is he? and where is he? are the first of several mysteries that will be solved by Elise’s sister Merle and Pascal, her policeman/partner.
The author takes us to delightful French villages and delicious little bistros, while several of Merle’s other relatives and friends arrive to stay at her charmingly renovated French home. There are entertaining side plots, and some romance (does Elise finally meet the right man?), before the mysteries are expertly solved.
This book was a great way to visit France during this travel-restricted year. I was as thoroughly captivated by this novel as I was when reading the first one in this series. I’m looking forward to seeking out the earlier mysteries and spending more time with the Bennett sisters.
Elise takes a get-away to a lavender farm in Provence. She meets some fellow residents who are not pleasant to her. In town she meets Ari, who is charming and mysterious. With his disappearance, Merle and Pascal help Elise figure out what is really going on. I enjoyed reading the twists in Lost in Lavender and I especially loved the descriptions of the settings.
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
I love Merle and Pascal in France. I do wish Elise had not been such a trying character. After her misadventures in a previous book I would have thought she might have made better choices this time. I was glad to see Tristan again, however briefly, and look forward to more adventures in France.
As usual, Ms. McClendon has written a fabulously entertaining story! Set mostly in the French countryside, this book is filled to the brim with romance, intrigue and a shocking murder mystery. Take a break from the doldrums of life, dive into the excitement and really get ‘lost in lavender’! Loved it!
Lost in Lavender is yet another good addition to Lisa McClendon’s Bennett Sisters Mysteries series. Even though this is part of a series, I believe readers can get by reading each one as a stand alone. But I would recommend to read all them. It is always great to catch up with the Bennett Sisters and seeing what else they wind up getting themselves into. I enjoyed the setting, the mystery, and the suspense. I found the whole story fun, entertaining and one that I could not put down until I had the whole book read in one sitting. From start to finish, it was pure delightful.
I am giving Lost in Lavender four and a half stars. I recommend this one for readers who enjoy suspenseful mysteries with several charming characters.
I received Lost in Lavender from the publisher. This review is one hundred percent my own honest opinion.
Another delightful French adventure for Merle and Pascal. Elise in the central sister in this mystery. I love the descriptions of Provence and the fields of lavender. I could almost smell it! I am happy the Elise has found some happiness finally. I love reading these stories, they provide such a picturesque escape! Lise McClendon is a wonderful storyteller!
Sometimes the best way to sort things out is to take a break, be away from all that you are used to and think things over. That´s exactly what this story is about besides containing drama, crime and love. It´s a delight to read about the charm, smell and beauty of the Provence lavender farms, the wording used by the author is so strong that you can “see” the lavender in its splendor being harvested under the sun. Simply beautiful! Looking forward to reading the next book in this series.
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
This is another entry in the fantastic Bennett Sisters series by Lise McClendon. Lost in Lavender centers on the youngest Bennett sister, Elise. In an attempt to relieve her dissatisfaction with her job as a lawyer and her insipid boyfriend, Elise decides that a working vacation at a lavender farm in Provence just might do the trick. However, once there, Elise realizes all the other guests are foreign students half her age and the work is harder than she thought. In order to find some entertainment Elise accompanies the students to a village lavender fair. Then, the mystery begins. Elise disappears with a mysterious, shady Frenchman.
With the opening scene, the author so immerses you in the French countryside and the smell of lavender, that you wish you were there. Throw in a couple of murders, bats, screams in the night, young relatives, who eloped, angry parents, mobsters and smugglers, a house too small and overflowing with guests and you get a highly entertaining read. I have read over half a dozen of the books in the series and eagerly await every release. My only complaint with this book is, I wish we saw more of the handsome Pascal and his Blackbird, Merle. Will they ever marry? “sigh”