The Darling Dahlias and the Poinsettia Puzzle

The Darling Dahlias have been among my favorites and this current book keeps them at the top of my list. In The Darling Dahlias and the Poinsettia Puzzle by Susan Wittig Albert, the residents of Darling, Alabama, are competing in a Christmas jigsaw puzzle contest.

As usual there is much going on: Earlynne Biddle and Mildred Kilgore are planning to open a bakery. The only problem is neither of them knows how to bake bread. They can bake all sorts of pastries and sweets, but not bread. They both discover their inability to bake two days before the bakery is set to open.
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Now the residents of Darling can buy Wonder Bread, but it's days old and even though it comes in evenly sliced loafs, fresh bread is still better. Earlynne and Mildred are surprised by the generosity of their neighbors.

Liz Lacy is still working part-time for attorney Benton Moseley

when she receives a strange phone call. Someone is trying to find a little girl about three years old who disappeared at birth. The caller threatens legal action if the little girl is not surrendered. Liz thinks this little girl sounds like Cupcake, daughter of Violet Sims and Myra May Mosswell, but she wants to wait until she talks to Mr. Moseley before she does anything.

There are other surprises for the residents of Darling as they prepare for the Puzzle Challenge and Liz gets the biggest surprise of all.

Another delightful treat about the people of Darling showing how they manage their lives in a positive manner despite the ups and downs of life in the 1930s.

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