Typecasting

Today, Fatality in F, the fourth book in the Gethsemane Brown Mysteries, goes on sale. A momentous occasion! Four books makes #gethsemanebrown an official series instead of a trilogy. This time out, Gethsemane has to save Frankie from charges he murdered his rival in a rose-growing competition and from a stalker—who may be out to recreate a decades-old murder case.

I learned flowers were big business while writing Fatality in F. Did you know flower industry revenue totals more than $34 billion? Or that $1.9 billion is spent on flowers for Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day? I learned about roses, in particular. 30-35% of cut flowers sold in a year are roses. The oldest record of a rose is from China 7,000 years ago. 200 million roses are given on Valentine’s Day.

Two of my favorite research resources were the David Austin catalog and American Rose, the American Rose Society’s magazine. I not only learned about rose competitions, the history of roses, and rose growing tips, I learned about the different types and names of roses. In Fatality in F, Frankie’s prize rose, an Old Rose, is named ‘Sandra Sechrest’ after a reader who won a naming opportunity in an auction. He also named a rambler for Gethsemane, ‘Fearless Brown’.

For a chance to win a signed copy of Fatality in F, test your knowledge of rose varieties. Leave a comment naming one rose in each of the following categories:

English Shrub Rose

Old Rose

Shrub Rose

Hybrid Tea Rose

Floribunda Rose

I’ll choose one winner from the correct answers and announce them on this post tomorrow, Wednesday, 2/27. US winner, only.

Buy Fatality in F at:

Amazon: amzn.to/2EpERvJ

Barnes and Noble: bit.ly/2rvIeZC

iTunes: apple.co/2CtfohL

Kobo: bit.ly/2APlKrQ