Murder Spills the Tea by Vicki Delany

Item: Murder Spills the Tea
Rating: 5
Author: karenbaron

Posted July 18, 2023 by karenbaron in #BookishRecipe, Mystery, Review, Series / 0 Comments

Murder Spills the Tea

by Vicki Delany

Series: Tea by the Sea Mysteries #3
Series Rating:

Published by Kensington on July 26, 2022
Setting: Cape Cod, Massachusetts
Genres: Cozy Culinary Mystery
Pages: 288
Format: ebook, Hardcover, Kindle, Paperback
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Get Your Copy at: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, Nook
Also in this series: Tea & Treachery , Murder in a Teacup, Steeped in Malice

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 blowup 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 Lily’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 has Lily dealing with film crews at Tea-by-the-Sea and being on the camera.

Did Cheryl kill Tommy? Or was it someone else?

Lily Roberts and Tea-by-the-Sea were selected to be shown on America Bakes! a reality TV show where it’s a baking competition between a bunch of places that all operate under the same preference so that it’s easy to judge which is better. So, this time, it’s all about bakeries in the northeast. Lily didn’t enter the competition, though that was her grandmother and best friend’s doing. At the time, she doesn’t seem to mind until Lily has to deal with them, and now she isn’t happy. Through this experience, Lily has decided that competing like this isn’t for her, especially when it ends up with a murder victim in her kitchen.

I do feel bad for Lily having to find the dead body of Tommy in her kitchen and that she is dancing around her feelings for Simon. Ms. Delany did everything perfectly with all the characters, as I felt like I was there while they were filming the segments and everything else.

The Mystery

Lily walks into her tea shop and to the kitchen when she finds Tommy Greene dead with her rolling pin. She had a hectic day of filming the day before, and she forgot to lock the back door. Lily agrees to investigate this mystery with her grandma, Rose, and best friend, Bernie, to ensure the police arrest the correct person. As her waitress, Cheryl couldn’t have done it. I have to say that all of Ms. Delany’s red herrings looked good for it until you started to look into them. I had a feeling of who did it, and I was right along with the motive. I love it when I get it right.

Five Stars

I am giving five stars to Murder Spills the Tea by Vicki Delany and recommend it to anyone who loves a good cozy culinary mystery. Ms. Delany gets me going on some of these red herrings that she pulls out. I love how she tries to make all of her mysteries different in this series while not so different that it won’t work.

The recipes in the back of this book are Herbed Cucumber Sandwiches, Coconut Lime Cake, and Coffee Cake.

Tea by the Sea Mysteries

Thank you for dropping by! I hope you enjoyed this review of Murder Spills the Tea by Vicki Delany.

Until the next time,

Happy Reading!

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 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, the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop series, the Year Round Christmas mysteries and, as Eva Gates, the Lighthouse Library series.