Synopsis
Tea, tarot, and trouble.
Abigail Beanblossom’s dream of owning a tea room in her California beach town is about to come true. She’s got the lease, the start-up funds, and the recipes. But Abigail’s out of a tearoom and into hot water when the realtor turns out to be a conman… and then turns up dead.
But not even death puts an end to the conman’s mischief. He rented the same space to a tarot reader, Hyperion Night. Convinced his tarot room is in the cards, Night’s not letting go of the building without a fight. Steamed, Abigail realizes the only way to salvage her tea room is to join forces with the tarot reader, even if he isn’t her cup of tea.
But they must work together, steeping themselves in the murky waters of the sham realtor’s double dealings, in order to unearth the truth – before murder boils over again.
Steeped in Murder is the first book in the Tea and Tarot cozy mystery series. Buy the book to start this hilarious caper today.
Review
This new series is steeped in tea, mystery, and murder.
Things are going well for Abigail when she discovers that the building she has rented for her tea room is not valid. I can’t even imagine her frustration and disappointment, especially when it was doubly rented to a tarot card reader with quite an unusual name, Hyperion Night. While their relationship gets off to a rocky start, I was happy to see a friendship develop even though Hyperion is a bit eccentric. Perhaps it goes with reading tarot cards?
Abigail does have her grandfather that is behind her tearoom, along with Tomas, a retired lawyer that uses his skills to assist Abigail in a few situations. There is a hunky new neighbor, Brik, that could be a potential love interest for Abigail. The police detective on the case is a Texan that happens to be a germaphobe. A few situations with him gave me a chuckle.
There is a wide variety of characters in this book and trying to decipher who might have had cause to murder the fake real estate agent took some doing. While I suspected several of the characters, the reality wasn’t too far from my grasp. While I had my suspicions about this character, the why surprised me.
I enjoyed reading this first in the series and expect it will be a fun series to follow. There is much more to learn about the various characters and the addition of Peking the pet duck was genius because it made for some cute scenes especially when Hyperion’s cat because the duck’s best bud.
We give this 4 paws up and have the 2nd book to read and see where things develop from there.
About the Author
Kirsten Weiss has never met a dessert she didn’t like, and her guilty pleasures are watching Ghost Whisperer re-runs and drinking red wine. The latter gives her heartburn, but she drinks it anyway.
Now based in Colorado Springs, CO, she writes genre-blending cozy mystery, supernatural and steampunk suspense, mixing her experiences and imagination to create vivid worlds of fun and enchantment.
If you like funny cozy mysteries, check out her Pie Town, Tea and Tarot, Paranormal Museum and Wits’ End books. If you’re looking for some magic with your mystery, give the Witches of Doyle, Riga Hayworth, and Rocky Bridges books a try. And if you like steampunk, the Sensibility Grey series might be for you.
Kirsten sends out original short stories of mystery and magic to her mailing list. If you’d like to get them delivered straight to your inbox, make sure to sign up for her newsletter
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