Flowers of Evil (Hani’s Daughter Mysteries Book 1) by N.L. Holmes – Review by Julie Johnson
Flowers of Evil by N.L. Holmes
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is a fairly new author to me, I’ve read one other book that she’s written, but she is becoming a favorite! N.L. Holmes writes stories with Egyptian backgrounds, not something I’m accustomed to reading about but thought I would give this a try. I’m glad I did!
Neferet and Bener-ib are two women healers. In their time and custom, this was virtually unheard of. However, they are pretty talented and have served their king prior to branching out on their own. Business is slow until a man is brought to their doorstep who was mortally wounded and there was nothing that they could do to save him. All they know is that his dying word was “rabbet”. Neferet, not one to step down from a challenge is now also putting on an investigator hat along with her healer hat to find the person who took this man’s life.
Along the way, the ladies learn that their competition is spreading bad omens about them and trying to steer people away from their healing practice. Neferet and Bener-ib come up with ways to spur business to their side of the aisle. This shows their perserverance and it will pay off. I’m looking forward to more books in this series.
There is a fairly extensive glossary of terms and a directory of people in the beginning of this book. I found that super helpful as I’m not well versed in Egyptian history and there are some historically named characters in here. Also words like “sunet” (healer) are defined. This gave me a much better appreciation for the book before I even began reading it.
