Weird book weekend

That's what I am calling it and sticking to it. The word that came to me over the first book was freaky. I read 'Hothouse Flower and the 9 Plants of Desire' by Margot Berwin. Of course the whole book centers around plants. A newly divorced babe moves into a newly renovated apartment in NY and decides she wants foliage for it. She finds it first, at a outdoor vendor, in the way of a Bird of Paradise plant. Hard to grow, I would have thought. But from there she moves up to a $200 chinese windmill palm tree, imagine it, with a croton thrown in and a mild interest in the plant guy. In amongst this action, she wonders into a laundramat with a dash of rainforest thrown in and meets Armand. He explains the 9 plants of deasire and how they affect your life. While shes proving herself worthy of learning about the 9 plants, the outdoor plant vendor swoops in and steals the 9 plants from the laundramat, because he knows the value of the plants. From there, Lila, the babe, gets drawn into an over the border adventure searching for replacements for the plants and finds a hunk, while trying to evade the outdoor vendor badguy. I say it was a nice, bizaare read. After that one, I went onto another strange book called 'Embrace the Grim Reaper' by Judy Clemens. In this one, the women is a victim of a tragic car accident that took the life of her husband and newborn child. The car company representatives are in a tizzy over it and trying to sweep it under the rug. Casey decides she has had enough and hitchhikes it out of town to get lost. She ends up in a small midwestern town of Clymer, which is dying due to the closing of a appliance factory. She gets drawn into a recent death of an ex employee who supposedly committed suicide but no one thinks she would do it. Through lots of twists and turns she solves the mystery with the help of her co hort - Death. Yes, the Grim Reaper himself is helping her solve the crime. He is a somewhat likeable character that shows up at odd times and offers quips to make her think. I gather this is a series but was a little disturbed by how this book ended. I won't give it away. I would recommend this book as a should read, more for the entertainment value with the Grim Reaper. www.judyclemens.com/