Jordan's Crossing....Just the thought of her family's Mississippi plantation is enough to set China Bayles adrift on a sea of memories. The sweet perfume of magnolia blossoms mixed with the hot, heady smells of the swamp. The house, perched on the banks of the Bloodroot River, a trenchant reminder of the bitterest, bloodiest moments in the country's history. And the secrets. The shameful, stifling secrets that have kept her away for so long....

Bloodroot takes China to a place where her family's legacy of silence is broken at last, and the past finally, unforgettably, speaks the truth.

I loved, loved, loved this one. It combined my passion for herbs/gardening, history, and detectives. What more could a girl want. Very engaging, very well written, lots of plot points to keep you on the edge of your seat. A real page turner! Highly recommended. ( )

China is summoned by her mother to the home of her great-aunt Tullie at Jordan's Crossing, the plantation that had been in her mother's family for generations. Her mother's phone call had not been a simple invitation but a demand. There was a mysterious disappearance of a man only hours after Aunt Tullie had whacked him in the head with her cane. The more questions China asks, the more confusing and detailed the story becomes, until she finds herself discovering answers to secrets long buried by her ancestors. Nothing is as it seems in her mother's family, and some questions are never meant to be answered.

My mother always said you shouldn't shake your family tree too much because a monkey might fall out of it. That is a warning that China should have taken to heart in this tale. This book was completely different from others in this series, different setting, different feel to the characters, but I have to say it was one of the best ones I've read so far. I had the whole thing figured out way before China did and there were several times with I wanted to reach out and shake her and tell her to get back to her room and READ, but I still enjoyed this tale. It gets a 4 from me. ( )

This China Bayles novel is very different from the others in the series. It has a bit of a darker feel to it. China travels with her mother to the Louisiana home of an elderly great-aunt and uncovers the answers to a number of questions about her family's troubled past. A very good read. ( )

Not my favorite, takes place in her deep South home town ( )