This is a new series that combines two no fail cozy settings, a tea room with its fragarent brews, yummy scones, sandwiches and pastries and a Cape Cod sea side setting. To this recipe add zest with a testy, sharp tongued grandmother Rose; humor with a slightly wacky exuberant wanna be novelist friend Bernie and ground it with the steady workaholic granddaugher Lily who owns and cooks for the tea room conveniently located in a stone cottage on the adjacent grounds of her grandmother’s roomy Victorian B&B. To spice things up add a hunky English gardener and a mysterious dark haired son of the nearly bankrupt neighbor who is trying to sell his house to a developer with a very iffy reputation.
If you enjoy this type of cozy this is a perfectly baked confection with plenty of charm, fun dialog, a lively supporting cast of locals and a plausible plot featuring a developer, Jack Frost, who butts heads with the indomitable Rose. Rose does not want a resort built on her neighbor’s tear down adjacent lot and gets into a public argument with the developer and the town’s councilman who is spear heading rezoning of the lot to accommodate a commercial property and golf course, and the neighbor who is in desperate need of funds and very anxious to sell at a sky high price. It’s pretty predictable what happens next, the greedy developer is found dead in an accident; he has fallen from Rose’s property through a faulty gate to the beach below, was it an accident or was it deliberate? Either way Rose and Lily are in the spotlight as the town’s police investigator, Detective Williams tries to pin the accident or homicide on Rose who has motive and opportunity and means (her cane!).
The mystery slowly draws Lily along as her friend Bernie together with the spunky Rose investigate and do research into the town’s flighty mayor rumored to be having an affair with Jack Frost, Jack’s strangely distant wife who is very wealthy and very cynical, the aged resident who was cheated out of a fair price for her house and is now relegated to a drab and depressing assisted living facility, the mysterious son who appears at odd times and is casually interested in what’s going on but somehow distant, the woman seen fleeing into the B&B grounds on the day of the accident are some of the possible suspects. The lazy chief detective can’t be bothered to investigate other suspects which motivates Rose, Lily and Bernie to try even harder but they cannot seem to get anywhere until the culprit loses it and strikes out forcing the resolution and solution to the mystery.
What ties the story together is the calm presence of Lily who holds all the whirling elements together as she steadily goes about baking for her tea room and making breakfast like clockwork at the B&B each morning. She does not rush to conclusions, get into arguments or over-react. Since I love to bake I understand the steadying influence of measuring and mixing and waiting for the end product to be ready. This consistency provides a steady reassuring rhythm to the narration that with the affection Rose and Lily have for each other, with their opposing natures and their similarities physically and emotionally; the grandmother and grand daughter two determined women who just want to run their own businesses and enjoy life in the beautiful setting they live in.
I rate this mystery 3 Earl Grey cup of teas and 3 raisin scones using elements from the book!
Plot: **
Characters: ***
Setting: ***
Romance: **
Humor: **
Social themes: **
