Blackbird Fly

by Philip Eliot | Jul 1, 2026 | Cozy Mystery | 0 comments

A Legacy of Secrets: When Life Takes an Unexpected Turn in FranceAfter her husband’s sudden death, Merle Bennett is left to navigate grief, legal complications, and shocking revelations. As a lawyer with four sisters in the same profession, she thought she was prepared for anything—until she discovered what his will contained.Among the surprises: a mysterious cottage in France that no one knew existed.With her son’s future hanging in the balance, Merle has no choice but to take matters into her own hands. With determination and sisterly support, she decides to travel to southwest France and transform the derelict stone cottage.What awaits her in the picturesque Dordogne village is both enchanting and unsettling—breathtaking landscapes and exquisite wines alongside unpsetting discoveries: an unwelcome squatter, a foreboding wine cellar, hostile locals, and a mysterious deadly accident that raises more questions than answers.Armed with nothing but her legal expertise and meticulous list-making skills, she finds herself solving problems she never asked for in a country where she doesn’t belong. Yet something about this place—and a certain charming local roofer—suggests that perhaps this unexpected detour might be exactly the path forward she needs.• • •“An extraordinary novel filled with family secrets and discoveries of past family members. Finding out who you really are and what you’re made of after the death of a loved one. So many twists and turns to keep you turning the pages till the end. Throw in a foreign country and foreign languages and it has you believing you are there as well. Loved the whole story!”“Once I got to France in this book I was hooked. I’ve binge read through 8 of this series. I’m having to ration myself because I will soon get to the end and it’s so good I don’t want to get there. I want to keep living with Merle, her four sisters and more of her family, and of course the lovely, required, French man. The mysteries are there but it is so much more. I’ve learned a great deal about wine. I’m exploring learning more. Come, enjoy some “me time” with a good read and a drink of your choice. In France, that is wine of course.”• • • • • •PROLOGUEShe didn’t want the summer to end. She wanted it to go on, full of flowers, wine, olives, and — possibility. Yes, possibility, that thing she was so afraid of. Now she hungered for it, she lived for it.She rolled onto her stomach and put the pillow over her head.Was it possible to hide from your own life, from the prescribed steps, the set-in-stone trajectory? Was it possible to, say, change your name and live in France and be a completely different person, one your parents wouldn’t recognize, someone carefree, a nature girl, a bon vivant? Was it possible to forget the people you leave behind, those who nurtured and loved you, those who made you who you were? If you wished, wished, wished hard enough, would your fairy godmother, or an ogre-ish old widow, give you a string of magic pearls that would transform you into somebody who could do such a thing? A woman who could decide absolutely and exactly what would make her happy, right there, on the spot, and then actually do those things, without compromise or regret?She sighed under the pillow. How old do you have to be to stop believing in fairy tales? Because she didn’t think she’d actually reached that age.