Spring is in full swing in lakefront Button Cove, and Jacqueline is embracing her new life—her friends, her new home, the crones down the street, and especially the detective with a hot-Viking vibe. It’s not half bad, considering the fact that she has the bickering literary characters of Mrs. Hudson (Sherlock’s landlady) and the dour, creepy housekeeper Mrs. Danvers from Rebecca “helping” her to run the bookshop, and her nemesis Egala Stone is opening her own store down the block. And then there’s the handsome new undertaker—er, mortician—who’s taken over the town funeral parlor and who has all the women ga-ga over him—including Jacqueline’s friends. Things get a little weird when Detective Massermey’s daughter seeks out help from Jacqueline, but surely she can handle that…right? But when legendary mandrakes mysteriously begin to start growing in her garden, and then a woman is found dead…with puncture wounds on her neck, Jacqueline finds herself caught up in a surreal mashup of the undead, animated book characters and the rest of her messy, messy life…