Tea & Treachery (Tea by the Sea Mysteries) by Vicki Delany
About Tea & Treachery
In this charming new cozy mystery series from nationally bestselling author, Vicki Delany, a New York City expat-turned-Cape Cod tea shop owner must solve the murder of a local real estate developer to help her feisty grandmother out of a jam ...
As the proud proprietor and head pastry chef of Tea by the Sea, a traditional English tearoom on the picturesque bluffs of Cape Cod, Lily Roberts has her hands full, often literally. But nothing keeps her busier than steering her sassy grandmother, Rose, away from trouble. Rose operates the grand old Victorian B & B adjacent to Lily’s tea shop ... for now. An aggressive real estate developer, Jack Ford, is pushing hard to rezone nearby land, with an eye toward building a sprawling golf resort, which would drive Rose and Lily out of business.
Tempers are already steaming, but things really get sticky when Ford is found dead at the foot of Rose’s property and the police think she had something to do with his dramatic demise. Lily can’t let her grandmother get burned by a false murder charge. So she starts her own investigation and discovers Ford’s been brewing bad blood all over town, from his jilted lover to his trophy wife to his shady business partners. Now, it’s down to Lily to stir up some clues, sift through the suspects, and uncover the real killer before Rose is left holding the tea bag.
About the Guest Post
Tea by the Sea: The Perfect Place for Afternoon Tea. By Vicki Delany
Tea and Treachery is the first in my new Tea by the Sea mystery series from Kensington Lily Roberts, my protagonist, owns the Tea by the Sea tea room on Cape Cod, adjacent to Victoria-on-Sea B&B, owed by her English grandmother Rose Campbell.
Rose began her working life as a kitchen maid and cook’s assistant at Thornecroft Castle, in Yorkshire. (Think Daisy from Downton Abbey.) At Thornecroft, Rose learned to appreciate a proper afternoon tea in the true Victorian tradition. That love of the ritual, and a sharp eye on tradition, Rose passed down to her granddaughter Lily. Rose’s gift to Lily for her 16th birthday was a set of Royal Doulton Winthrop china.
Lily is a trained pastry chef, who’s baked in Michelin starred restaurants in New York City and at top Manhattan bakeries. But it’s always been her dream to have her own place. And nothing would suit Lily more than a tea room.
When she finally gets her dream, it comes with a catch: she has to help the independently-minded Rose run her B&B. Rose would rather NOT have a B&B and not have strangers tromping through her house, but the only way she can afford the Victorian seaside mansion of her dreams is by taking in paying guests. With Lily’s help.
As well as serving an arrangement of teas in proper china along with scones, delicate sandwiches, and beautiful pastries, it was important to Lily that the tea room itself be a calm, restful place.
Tea by the Sea specializes in traditional afternoon tea. In keeping with the theme of the menu, the restaurant’s decorated as though it were a drawing room in a castle in Scotland or a stately country home in England. Paintings of British pastoral scenes and horses at the hunt are hung on pale peach wallpaper with clusters of pink and green flowers. The wide-planked wooden floors are polished to a high shine; the chairs upholstered in peach and sage green; the tables laid with starched and ironed white cloths and either a single rose in a crystal vase or a lush flower arrangement, depending on what’s currently available in the garden. Several small alcoves, similarly decorated, are tucked into corners, providing space for small parties or intimate gatherings. In the main room, a large antique sideboard, bought at a good price and carefully restored with a lot of elbow grease on my part and advice on Rose’s, exhibits some of the china tea sets we use. The opposite wall has a real fireplace, at this time of year filled with flowers. A small room next to the kitchen displays items for sale — teapots and matching cups and saucers; tea accessories such as infusers and strainers, timers, and tea cozies; several varieties of prettily-packaged tea’ bath salts I make myself from fragrant tea leaves; and locally made jams and preserves. The waitresses wear knee-length black dresses under starched white aprons and small white caps. As I stay strictly in the back, doing the cooking, I usually come to work in jeans and a T-shirt.The cottage that’s now the tearoom is built of stone and wood and is about a hundred years older than the house. When I turned it into my restaurant, I planted climbing vines around the base, hung a swinging sign over the door, and laid a flagstone floor in the yard, which was now dotted with tables and chairs, some of them under pink and blue umbrellas. Masses of terra-cotta pots overflowing with red and white geraniums, purple lobelia, white bacopa, and trailing sweet potato vines lined the stone half wall enclosing the patio. On the branches of an old oak in the center of the garden, I’d hung a multitude of cracked and mismatched teacups from brightly colored ribbons, which had already faded in the sun.
Tea and Treachery by Vicki Delany
Lily knows working and living with Rose is going to be a challenge, but she loves her grandmother and she’s thrilled at moving to Cape Cod and running her own restaurant, exactly the way she wants. But it’s not until a local developer is killed on Rose’s properly, (after Rose threatened to see the end of his plans, over her dead body – or someone else’s) does she realize how much of a challenge her new life is going to be.
About Vicki Delany
Vicki Delany is one of Canada’s most prolific and varied crime writers and a national bestseller in the U.S. She has written more than thirty-five books: clever cozies, to Gothic thrillers, to gritty police procedurals, to historical fiction, and novellas for adult literacy. She is currently writing four cozy mystery series: the Tea by the Sea mysteries for Kensington, the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop series for Crooked Lane Books, the Year Round Christmas mysteries for Penguin Random House, and the Lighthouse Library series (as Eva Gates) for Crooked Lane.
Vicki is a past president of the Crime Writers of Canada, and co-founder and organizer of the Women Killing It Crime Writing Festival. She is the 2019 recipient of the Derrick Murdoch Award for contributions to Canadian crime writing. Vicki lives in Prince Edward County, Ontario.
