Following her colleague Ben up to Castlerigg Stone Circle, Detective Morgan Brookes is shocked at what she finds. A young woman has been killed, left on display at the top of the hill with a crown of roses on her head. As the team race to get the popular tourist spot cordoned off, Morgan hears the heartbroken sobs of the woman who found the body, as she identifies the victim as her best friend Cora Dalton.

Morgan can already see that Cora didn’t struggle when her throat was cut. There’s no blood on the beautiful white gown she was wearing, which means that Cora knew her killer. But everyone, including her boyfriend Jay, has an alibi. As a local shopkeeper, Cora was a huge part of the community, and her neighbours are devastated to lose such a sweet soul.

Then Morgan’s team discover that a local photographer had arranged to meet Cora, and it’s clear from his messages that he chose her elegant white dress. Could their photoshoot have taken a sinister turn?

But when another body is found at another stone circle, wearing an identical flower crown, while the photographer is in custody, Morgan loses the only lead she has. Tracking down the florist who made the crown, Morgan pores over their records and realises the killer purchased three circles of roses…

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Paperback | 42 Chapters | 254 Pages | 3 Hours

It was while I was putting Book 9 on my bookshelf that I realised I don’t have paperback copies of books 4, 7, & 8. This infuriated me to no end because I know I’ve read them. And then I realised that Book 11 is out and Book 12 will be out later this year and I hadn’t realised. So, now my amazon basket is waiting patiently to be purchased.

Anyway, I read this mostly on a Wednesday evening and I did manage to convince myself to go to sleep and read the last 10 chapters on Thursday. The sun has been out, there’s been a slight breeze and the birds are singing, which, to me, is the perfect time to read.

This 10th Morgan Brookes story gives us more ritualistic killings steeped in the world of modern witches without any dark academia vibes or actual witchcraft taking place. The plot itself is chaotic and the bizarre and surreal nature of it is brought up by various characters through the book. It would almost be comedic if there were no murders.

With the physical trauma that Morgan experienced in book 9, I had anticipated that she would be involved in a slower plot here. It wasn’t. But I do applaud Phifer in he r creative endeavour not to have this book become a ‘filler’ for the series.

There are a lot of potential suspects in this book and while this serviced the plot spectacularly, I did feel like my head was constantly on a swivel unable to breathe.

Generally when I read crime or crime thrillers, I go by the rule that whichever new secondary character was mentioned the least is probably the killer but I apparently was ignoring my own rule while reading this. I worked out who it was 1 page before it was revealed, which doesn’t count as everyone else had been ruled out by then!

I would argue that neither Morgan or Ben were the main focus of this book. At least they’re relationship wasn’t and neither were their actions towards each other. The very bizarre and chaotic plot was the star here. Almost like a TV Christmas Special.

My mind keeps coming back to how many sheep were in this book. Considering how many sheep are generally NOT featured in this series shows the plot absurdity and my shocked response of having them featured…twice!

Book 9 filled me with adrenaline and was quite fast paced. Book 10 was slower but it had am ore interesting plots.