JT Mercer created the A Language of Flowers Cozy Mystery series for a pretty simple reason: sometimes real life is already doing enough.
There are bills to pay, emails to answer, headlines to avoid, appointments to remember, and at least one password you were absolutely certain you’d remember this time. Every now and then, it’s nice to go somewhere else for a while.
That’s where escapism comes in. Escapism is simply giving your mind permission to step away from everyday stress and spend a little time in another world. Not to ignore real life, but to take a break from carrying it around.
For JT Mercer, that world is Millhaven, Vermont—a small town with autumn streets, familiar shops, neighbors who know a little too much about one another, and a flower shop where a bouquet might mean considerably more than, “I was thinking of you.”
The goal of these stories is to make Millhaven feel like a place you can actually visit. You can wander into town, spend some time with Laurel Hartwell, puzzle over a mystery, enjoy a few laughs, and forget about your own to-do list for a couple hundred pages.
There will be secrets. There will be clues. There will almost certainly be someone behaving suspiciously near a perfectly innocent cup of coffee.
But underneath all of it is the idea that reading should sometimes feel like opening a door.
Come on in. Millhaven will still have its problems.
Fortunately, for a little while, none of them are yours.