Guest post by Judith Gonda for Murder in the Community Garden

Landscape architect Tory Benning certainly knows the lay of the land, but she still must dig through layers of clues to solve the perplexing murders that keep popping up in her hometown, Santa Sofia, the fictional setting of the Tory Benning mystery series. One of the most vivid and enchanting recurring “characters” in the Tory Benning mystery series, the city of Santa Sofia is the California coastal community home of our intrepid landscape architect and amateur sleuth Tory Benning, where she runs her family’s landscape design and nursery business when she’s not busy solving murder mysteries. 

Santa Sofia is twelve miles north of the city of Santa Barbara, nestled in between the Pacific Ocean to the west and the foothills of the Santa Ynez mountains to the east. Weather-wise, Santa Sofia has a moderate climate. Because it’s on the coast, many days have low clouds in the morning and evening, especially in June when the lingering overcast is referred to locally as June Gloom, and it’s in this month that the third Tory Benning mystery, Murder in the Community Garden, takes place. 

Santa Sofia’s main street, the Avenue, offers award-winning restaurants, trendy boutiques, and art galleries (check out Murder in the Christmas Tree Lot to see how festive the whole town gets for the holidays). In addition to the charming downtown shops and eateries, a big tourist draw is the Hotel Santa Sofia, whose lush gardens and extensive grounds, including its famed Tory Benning designed-and-installed Secret Maze and Hidden Garden (check out the first Tory Benning mystery, Murder in the Secret Maze to find out about all its twists and turns). Situated on the Promenade, the main coastal road, the luxury resort provides its well-heeled travelers amenities such as a spa and the famed Zoe Stella Salon, where Tory’s hair stylist and pal, Philip Shoshani, works. The hotel is also home to Burbujita’s lounge and the highly rated restaurants, El Colibri and Mar Vista, all frequent haunts of Tory and her pals, all with breathtaking views of the beach. 

The neighborhoods of Santa Sofia reflect the best of what living in Santa Barbara County has to offer, coastal properties, sprawling ranch-like settings, and hillside properties with killer views. Tory lives in a Mediterranean-styled bungalow a couple of blocks from the beach. Her aunt and uncle live in exclusive Ryder Ranch, and her late father’s house is in the hills of Sycamore Canyon.

The outlying areas around Santa Sofia vary not only in weather, being hotter and sunnier than the cooler and foggier Santa Sofia proper, but in ambience too. We experience this variation in book three where part of the action occurs at the further inland and higher elevation Jacaranda Gardens, the condominium complex and its adjacent community garden that Tory designed. The surrounding inland ranches with horses, miniature ponies, and yes, even a few ostriches, have a flavor of the Old West. Adjacent blue-collar communities like fictional Gilton, where book-three-featured Wargo’s River Ranch Barbeque Restaurant and Saloon is located, has a Wild West vibe. These ranches coexist with the rolling hills of olive groves and vineyards and their affiliated small but renowned tony wineries such as the Grey Lane Winery in Los Olivos, whose owners, Kenji Grey and Alistair Lane, appear in book three.

Joining Tory in her quest for the truth and justice, as always, are her feisty attorney best friend, Ashley Payne, heartthrob PI Jake Logan, and local police detective, Adrian Ramirez—not to mention her loyal security detail, Iris, her Pomeranian, and her black cat Otis. The landscape architect Tory Benning mystery series brings a whole new meaning to plants and plots. 

Learn more about Judith Gonda at www.judithgonda.com. Want more author news? If so, click here to read more Behind the Story interviews from your favorite authors.

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