Murder Spills the Tea (Tea by the Sea Mysteries #3) by Vicki Delany #bookreview #mystery

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Title: Murder Spills the Tea

Author:  Vicki Delany

Publisher: Kensington Cozies

Publication Date: July 26, 2022

Page Count:  305

My rating: 4 stars

About the book:

Lily Roberts pores over the clues in a piping hot new case when a confrontational celebrity chef is murdered at her Cape Cod tearoom during the filming of a popular baking show in the latest Tea by the Sea mystery from national bestselling author Vicki Delany . . .
 
The country’s hottest TV cooking show is coming to Cape Cod. And against her better judgment, Lily Roberts is entering America Bakes! with her charming tearoom, Tea by the Sea! Filming is already proving disruptive, closing the tearoom during Lily’s busiest season. But tensions really bubble over when infamous bad-boy chef and celebrity judge, Tommy Greene, loses his temper with Lily’s staff, resulting in an on-camera blowout with Cheryl Wainwright. Just as Lily thinks the competition can’t get more bitter, Tommy is found dead in Tea by the Sea’s kitchen . . . murdered with Cheryl’s rolling pin.
 
Suspicion immediately falls on Cheryl, but the temperamental star has racked up plenty of culinary clashes in the past, both on- and off-screen. And nearly anyone associated with Tommy or the show could be the killer: be it one of Lily’s fierce competitors, a member of the beleaguered film crew, or even one of Tommy’s fellow judges—struggling cookbook maven, Claudia D’Angelo or beauty contest winner, Scarlet McIntosh. Now, while she’s baking up a storm for the show, Lily must also whip up an impromptu investigation . . . before the murderer rolls someone else away.

Murder Spills the Tea by Vicki Delany is the third book in the cozy Tea by the Sea Mysteries series. As with most cozy mysteries each book of this series will contain a new mystery that will fully solved so this could be read as a standalone or in any order if choosing to do so. Of course there will be character development that carries over from book to book for those that read the series from the beginning.

Some days Lily Roberts doesn’t know what keeps her busier, running her own business, Tea by the Sea, a traditional English tearoom, or keeping up with her feisty grandmother. Thankfully for Lily her tearoom is right by her grandmother Rose’s bed and breakfast so most days she can do both and now has even solved a murder or two in between.

Now this time around Lily really has her hands full as she has decided to enter a cooking contest held by America Bakes, tv’s hottest cooking show. What better way to get attention for the tea room, right? Wrong! Things take a huge turn for the worst when the infamous bad-boy chef and celebrity judge, Tommy Greene, ends up murdered in Lily’s kitchen at Tea by the Sea leaving her searching for yet another murderer.

I have actually follow the Tea by the Sea Mysteries series from the beginning with this one having a lot of what I enjoy in a cozy mystery. There’s of course some quirky characters and a whole lot of laughs that come with those along with a decent mystery in every new addition to the series with this third installment not being an exception. Book three left me wanting nothing more than to return to the sea yet again in the future.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

Find this book online:

Goodreads  /  Amazon

About the author:

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 forty 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 Year Round Christmas books for Crooked Lane, the Tea by the Sea mysteries for Kensington, the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop series for Crooked Lane Books, 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. Her work has been nominated for the Derringer, the Bony Blithe, the Ontario Library Association Golden Oak, and the Arthur Ellis Awards.

Vicki is the recipient of the 2019 Derrick Murdoch Award for contributions to Canadian crime writing. She lives in Prince Edward County, Ontario.