Book Blurb Friday: pink flower photo

Each week, Lisa Ricard Claro hosts Book Blurb Friday at her blog Writing in the Buff. Lisa posts a photo (this week by the terrifically talented Tammy Goodsell) to inspire writer-bloggers to think of a novel with this photo as the book cover. Then, we are asked to write a "blurb" to sell the book, using no more than 150 words.

Here is my submission of 144 words:

Author Wickie Peidya has outdone herself by enlisting the characteristics of a widespread and many-named plant from the family Apocynaceae in her newest novel, Primarily Plumeria, an apocalyptic mystery of major proportions.

The plumeria problem begins as far south as Brazil, spreads through South America, Central America, the Caribbean and Mexico, and then throughout the world’s tropical areas.

Will amateur detective Fran Giapani be able to stop the spread of rumors about ghosts, vampires and demons, egg yolks, sphinx moths, deaths and funerals, in time for medico-botanical science to find a cure for the plague?

Aided by a French botanist, an Italian marquess, Hindu and Buddhist monks and several Tongan lei-makers, Fran uses the power of the internet to spread the truth about the plant.

Will people learn in time that the only thing they have to fear is fear itself?

144 words