The 92-year-old semi-official investigator Victoria Trumbull was based on the author's mother, poet Dionis Coffin Riggs, who was almost 99 and still contributing a weekly column to the Vineyard Gazette and visiting a nursing home to "read to the elderly" when she died in 1997. Interspersed among the tours and descriptions of "special places" throughout this beautifully illustrated and entertainingly written travel guide are quotes from the Trumbull novels and examples of the elder Riggs' poetry. A section on island-grown plants presents in vivid color some of the flowers that gave their names to novels in the series.

Order online or print a form to mail from Cynthia Riggs' site, click here. Or call to place your order: (508) 693-9352.