Crystal Gardens

Crystal Gardens is a romantic suspense novel by Jayne Ann Krentz, published in 2012 and set in a country village where the local garden is considerably more than a garden.

Evangeline Ames moves into a country cottage hoping to recover after an experience that left her badly shaken, and the property comes with a garden that is charged with psychic energy and far more interesting than she expected. Her quiet recuperation is interrupted when a would-be assassin finds her, and she is rescued by the garden's owner, Lucas Sebastian, a man with his own reasons for taking an interest in the estate. He hires her professional skills as an investigator to establish what is buried beneath the grounds, and the two of them discover that they are pursuing the same enemy for different reasons, which makes them useful to each other and dangerous to each other at the same time.

Krentz writes suspense with a paranormal element and builds the romance on competence rather than coincidence, so the treasure hunt and the growing attachment move forward together rather than taking turns.