Blog Tour and Giveaway- Pekoe Most Poison by Laura Childs

Happy Monday! I am excited to be part of this blog tour. Laura Childs 18th book in the Tea Shop Mystery series was released on March 7th.


Pekoe Most Poison was one of the best ones in the series. I couldn't put it down. Once you start you get so involved in the story you lose track of time and you are at the end. This one is so good it did just that. I am already looking forward to the next one. And don't you all just love the cover!

Series: A Tea Shop Mystery (Book 18)
Hardcover: 320 pages
Publisher: Berkley (March 7, 2017)
Language: English

Synopsis 

In the latest Tea Shop Mystery from New York Times bestselling author Laura Childs, Theodosia Browning attends a “Rat Tea,” where the mice will play…at murder.

When Indigo Tea Shop owner Theodosia Browning is invited by Doreen Briggs, one of Charleston’s most prominent hostesses, to a “Rat Tea,” she is understandably intrigued. As servers dressed in rodent costumes and wearing white gloves offer elegant finger sandwiches and fine teas, Theo learns these parties date back to early twentieth-century Charleston, where the cream of society would sponsor so-called rat teas to promote city rodent control and better public health.

But this party goes from odd to chaotic when a fire starts at one of the tables and Doreen’s entrepreneur husband suddenly goes into convulsions and drops dead. Has his favorite orange pekoe tea been poisoned? Theo smells a rat.

The distraught Doreen soon engages Theo to pursue a discreet inquiry into who might have murdered her husband. As Theo and her tea sommelier review the guest list for suspects, they soon find themselves drawn into a dangerous game of cat and mouse…

INCLUDES RECIPES AND TEA TIME TIPS




About the author:

Laura Childs is the New York Times bestselling author of the Tea Shop Mysteries, Scrapbook Mysteries, and Cackleberry Club Mysteries. In her previous life she was CEO/Creative Director of her own marketing firm and authored several screenplays. She is married to a professor of Chinese art history, loves to travel, rides horses, enjoys fund raising for various non-profits, and has two Chinese Shar-Pei dogs.


Laura specializes in cozy mysteries that have the pace of a thriller (a thrillzy!) Her three series are:


The Tea Shop Mysteries – set in the historic district of Charleston and featuring Theodosia Browning, owner of the Indigo Tea Shop. Theodosia is a savvy entrepreneur, and pet mom to service dog Earl Grey. She’s also an intelligent, focused amateur sleuth who doesn’t rely on coincidences or inept police work to solve crimes. This charming series is highly atmospheric and rife with the history and mystery that is Charleston.

The Scrapbooking Mysteries – a slightly edgier series that take place in New Orleans. The main character, Carmela, owns Memory Mine scrapbooking shop in the French Quarter and is forever getting into trouble with her friend, Ava, who owns the Juju Voodoo shop. New Orleans’ spooky above-ground cemeteries, jazz clubs, bayous, and Mardi Gras madness make their presence known here!

The Cackleberry Club Mysteries – set in Kindred, a fictional town in the Midwest. In a rehabbed Spur station, Suzanne, Toni, and Petra, three semi-desperate, forty-plus women have launched the Cackleberry Club. Eggs are the morning specialty here and this cozy cafe even offers a book nook and yarn shop. Business is good but murder could lead to the cafe’s undoing! This series offers recipes, knitting, cake decorating, and a dash of spirituality.


Laura’s Links:
Webpage – http://www.laurachilds.com/
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/laura.childs.31




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Book Spotlight- A Catered Tea Party by Isis Crawford

Happy Thursday! It's time for a tea party with Isis Crawford's new book A Catered Tea Party (A Mystery With Recipes Series book 12). Releases on August 30th.

Series: A Mystery With Recipes (Book 12)
Hardcover: 304 pages
Publisher: Kensington (August 30, 2016)
Language: English



Quiet Longely, New York, is abuzz with excitement over the opening of a revamped art complex—and catering sisters Bernie and Libby Simmons are helping put on an elaborate tea party for the opening night gala fundraiser. But when the billionaire behind the project drops dead, the Simmons sisters find themselves steeped in a whistling kettle of murder . . .

Everyone in Longely is talking about Blue House, an art complex that will bring the town a theater, an art gallery, and even a restaurant and coffee bar. But they’re less than enthusiastic about Ludvoc “Zeb” Zalinsky, the self-made billionaire who’s funding the complex—and rubbing everyone the wrong way. Bernie and Libby reluctantly agree to cater the Alice in Wonderland themed tea party he’s planned, but it quickly becomes clear that Zeb is madder than the hatter he’ll be dressed as . . .

The night of the benefit arrives and Westchester’s finest show up in droves, having paid $500 apiece to attend Zeb’s meticulously-orchestrated tea party. But just when it seems the production is going according to plan, Zeb lifts an electric tea kettle, clutches his chest, and falls to the floor in fittingly dramatic fashion. The kettle shorted out and his pacemaker malfunctioned—but it doesn’t take long for police to decide that this seemingly random accident was actually cold-blooded murder . . .

As Bernie and Libby set out to find the culprit, they realize Zeb might have had more enemies than money. With so many possible culprits to sort through, only one thing is clear: Zeb was poured a steaming cup of revenge—and a second serving may be on the menu…

Includes Original Recipes for You to Try!

DELICIOUS PRAISE FOR ISIS CRAWFORD AND HER MOUTH-WATERING MYSTERIES!



About the Author:


I was born in Egypt to parents who were in the diplomatic corps. When I was five my family returned to the states where my mother opened a restaurant and my father became a university professor. After I graduated from college, I ran a catering service and wrote a number of travel related article for a variety of magazines. Then I got married, had twin boys, acquired a golden retriever puppy, a two hundred gallon fish tank, three ferrets, and started another catering service that specialized in deserts. I’m now living in Hastings-on-the-Hudson, still baking and trying to maintain order in my ever expanding household.


That’s the official blurb on the back flap of my dust jacket and it’s partially true, at least the part about owning a catering business and having a small zoo is, but the truth is that Isis Crawford is my pen name. Before I became Isis Crawford (named incidentally for my cat) I was Barbara Block and still am. Like Isis, I ran a catering business, which also specialized in desserts. Unlike Isis, I co-owned a pizza shop as well. I have sons too – only I have three of them and instead of living in Hastings-On-Hudson I live in Upstate New York having relocated from New York City.


Find out more about Isis Crawford and her books at her website: 

http://isiscrawford.com/

First in a Series- Her Royal Spyness by Rhys Bowen

Take a trip to London and spend time with royals in this weeks First in Series. Her Royal Spyness by Rhys Bowen is the first in the Royal Spyness Mystery Series. Released on July 1. 2008, you will be drawn in from the start. And Check out the covers for this series. Aren't they great.

Series: A Royal Spyness Mystery (Book 1)
Mass Market Paperback: 336 pages
Publisher: Berkley; Reprint edition (July 1, 2008)
Language: English



INTRODUCING A FEISTY NEW HEROINE,  who's thirty-fourth in line for the throne and flat broke.

From the Agatha Award-winning author of the Molly Murphy and Constable Evan Evans mysteries!

Lady Victoria Georgiana Charlotte Eugenie, 34th in line for the throne, is flat broke. She bolted Scotland, her greedy brother, and her fish-faced betrothed for London. The place where she'll experience freedom, learn life lessons aplenty, do a bit of spying for HRH, oh, and find a dead Frenchman in her tub. Now her new job is to clear her long family name.

Rhys Bowen's books have been nominated for every major mystery award and she has won thirteen of them to date. She currently writes two historical mystery series, each very different in tone. The Molly Murphy mysteries feature an Irish immigrant woman in turn-of-the-century New York City. These books are multi-layered, complex stories with a strong sense of time and place and have won many awards including Agatha and Anthony. There are 16 book so far in this series plus three Kindle stories, The Amersham Rubies, Through the Window and The Face in the Mirror--a great way to introduce new readers to Molly's spunky personality.

Then there is Lady Georgie, Rhys's latest,and very popular, heroine. She's 35th in line to the throne of England, but she's flat broke and struggling to survive in the Great Depression. These books are lighter and funnier than Molly's adventures. They poke gentle fun at the British class system--about which Rhys knows a lot, having married into an upper class family rather like Georgie's, with cousins with silly nicknames,family ghosts and stately homes. The ninth book in the series, Malice at the Palace was published August 2015 and the previous book, Queen of Hearts, just won the Agatha award for best historical mystery. The series received the Readers Choice Award for favorite mystery series and Rhys was nominated for career achievement.

Rhys was born in Bath, England but spent time during her childhood with relatives in Wales. Those childhood experiences colored her first mystery series, about Constable Evans in the mountains of Snowdonia. 10 books including the Edgar nominee Evan's Gate. She has lived in Austria, Germany and Australia, but has called California her home for many years. She now escapes to a condo in Arizona during those cold California winters. When she's not writing she loves to travel, sing, hike, paint and play the Celtic harp.

Visit Rhys Bowen at:

http://rhysbowen.com/

Blog tour and Giveaway - Come Bitter Poison by Monica Knightley

I am excited to be part of this blog tour. Come Bitter Poison (The Stratford Upon Avondale Mysteries) by Monica Knightley. One lucky reader will receive an e-copy of this book. Leave a comment and email below for the chance to win.

File Size: 1920 KB
Print Length: 177 pages
Publisher: Monica Knightley (April 8, 2016)
Publication Date: April 8, 2016
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC



Synopsis
Sexy film star. Long-held secrets. Murder by poison.
When international stage and film star Miles Elliot comes to Stratford Upon Avondale to play Macbeth, Maggie O’Flynn is thrilled. He’s been her actor crush for years. But when Miles ends up at the center of a murder investigation Maggie finds herself slipping back into the role of amateur sleuth. Before long many of her friends become suspects in not just one murder, but two. Maggie must discover who’s poisoning people associated with the Shakespeare Festival before one of her friends gets slapped with a murder charge. And she must do so while dodging paparazzi that are stalking her due to a supposed love affair she’s having with Miles Elliot.

With a bit of Shakespeare, copious amounts of tea, and a faux-English setting to rival anything the real England has to offer, COME, BITTER POISON is the second book in THE STRATFORD UPON AVONDALE mystery series. Though part of a series, COME, BITTER POISON can be read and enjoyed as a standalone. Lovers of cozy mysteries will find a cozy home in Stratford Upon Avondale.

Book two starts off strong and keeps moving to the end. The characters are delight fun and well developed. With a great story line this whodunit will not disappoint, You will be captivated until the end.

Guest Post:
Hi! I’m Maggie O’Flynn, ex-nun-in-training, current tea room owner and steamy romance writer. I recently moved to this charming little village, Stratford Upon Avondale, which is renowned for its Shakespeare Festival. The place looks like it was lifted lock, stock, and barrel straight out of Tudor or maybe Victorian England, despite the 5,000 miles and several hundred years that separate the two places. I’ll admit I was running away from my past when I landed here but as it turns out it was a good choice.

A good choice for a lot of reasons. Warm and welcoming inhabitants, new dear friends, a kind, considerate, intelligent almost-boyfriend, and a couple of murders. No, I’m not sick or into weird stuff, but I’ve discovered over the past few months that I have an aptitude for solving murders. Who would have thought? Certainly not the local homicide detective. No love lost there.

When I moved here I assumed I’d be seeing my share of murder and treachery, but I figured it would be on the stages of the festival. Sadly, there are people, even here in this little piece of heaven, that find themselves feeling such overwhelming emotions they end up committing the worst of all crimes to quell those emotions. Okay, that was the former Sister Margaret Rose O’Flynn speaking, but it is a truth. Perhaps there is something about my nun-in-training past that lends itself to my ability to uncover murderers. Or perhaps it’s my inability to keep my nose out of other people’s business. That’s what Sister Mary Josephine would say, and did say on many occasions.

But if Sister Mary Josephine thought I was nosey, she would have had apoplexy if she’d met Gina Mattucci. Gina is my best friend and the Watson to my Sherlock. She is a five-foot-two-inch spitfire whose loud, gravelly voice usually announces her presence long before she enters a room. From New Jersey and proud of it, she’s brash and carries a grudge that the West Coast has never heard of some monstrosity called ‘Disco Fries.’ Google it. They’re hideous.

One little added bonus of moving here has been the inspiration this romance writer has found here. There is no dearth of gorgeous men in Stratford. It is a theater town, after all. And word is that my long-time actor crush is about to arrive in town to play Macbeth. Tall, handsome, British—Miles Elliot is many a woman’s dream. Something tells me he may inspire some steamy scenes in my next book.

So Stratford Upon Avondale is home now. I no longer feel like I was running away from my life when I decided to come here, but instead I was running to the life I was supposed to live. Now if I can just convince Nate Larimer, the aforementioned ‘almost-boyfriend’ that I’m not a nun and that he doesn’t need to be intimidated by my steamy romance writing, life here would be perfect.

Time to serve some tea! Cheers!

About The Author –
Monica Knightley began creating compelling characters and stories at the age of three, when she had a plethora of imaginary friends, all with complete backstories. Today any characters that come knocking on the door of her imagination find themselves in one of her mysteries, young adult novels, or paranormal romances.

When not fueling her reading addiction or writing her next book, Monica loves to travel with her husband—especially to England. A bit of England seems to make its way into most of her books. Must haves include a perfectly steeped cup of tea, and a good, bold red wine. She lives in Portland, Oregon where the frequent rainy weather is perfect for curling up with a good book and a cup of tea.

Author Links: Website: http://www.monicaknightley.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/monicaknightleyauthor/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/monicaknightley


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What's New? The Diva Serves High Tea by Krista Davis

What's New? The next book in the Domestic Diva Mystery Series is releasing on June 7th. The Diva Serves High Tea by Krista Davis is book 10 in the series. Do you have a favorite book in this series? Leave a comment and email below and one lucky reader will receive a copy of The Diva Serves High Tea.Good Luck everyone!

Series: A Domestic Diva Mystery (Book 10)
Mass Market Paperback: 304 pages
Publisher: Berkley (June 7, 2016)
Language: English



The New York Times bestselling author of The Diva Steals a Chocolate Kiss serves up a new mystery steeped in murder...

When The Parlour opens up in town, domestic diva Sophie Winston finally has a place to satisfy her cravings for all things tea and crumpet related. And the shop serves as the perfect place for the ladies of the town to gather and gossip, especially since it’s conveniently located right across the street from the new antique store run by the handsome and charming Warren Smith.

But speculation around Warren really boils over when he’s found dead—a victim of poisoning after attending a literacy fundraiser at The Parlour the night before. What Sophie learns about the man leaves a bitter taste in her mouth, and she’ll have to strain out a killer from a strange brew of suspects...


Includes delicious recipes and entertaining tips!



About the Author

Krista Davis is the New York Times bestselling author of the Domestic Diva Mysteries, including The Diva Steals a Chocolate Kiss, The Diva Wraps It Up, and The Diva Frosts a Cupcake. Several of her books have been nominated for the Agatha Award. She also writes the Paws and Claws Mysteries featuring Holly Miller and her Jack Russell terrier, Trixie, who has a nose for trouble. Krista lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia with two cats and a brood of dogs. Her friends and family complain about being guinea pigs for her recipes, but she notices that they keep coming back for more.

Book Spotlight and giveaway- Devonshire Scream by Laura Childs

I am so thrilled to spotlight this book today. Devonshire Scream by Laura Childs was released on March 1st. This is book 17 in the Tea Shop mystery series. Laura is giving one lucky reader a copy of her book. All you need to do to enter is leave a comment and email below and tell us what your favorite tea is.

Series: A Tea Shop Mystery (Book 17)
Hardcover: 320 pages
Publisher: Berkley (March 1, 2016)
Language: English


The New York Times bestselling author of Ming Tea Murder serves up heists, homicides, and herbal blends in the latest in the Tea Shop mysteries.

Catering a high-class trunk show at Heart's Desire Jewelry is a shining achievement for Theodosia and the Indigo Tea Shop. After all, a slew of jewelers, museum curators, and private collectors will be there to showcase their wares and sip some of Theo's best blends. But just as Theo settles in to enjoy the fruits of her labor, the party is crashed by a gang of masked muggers who steal the precious gems and jewels on display. The thieves disappear almost as quickly as they arrived, leaving shattered glass, scattered gemstones, and a dead body in their wake.

Although the last thing Theo wants is to get involved, she can't help but intercede when her dear friend Brooke, aunt of the victim and owner of Heart's Desire, begs for help in figuring out who committed the brutal burglary. Though the FBI believes this daring "smash and grab" is the work of an international gang of jewel thieves, Theo is convinced that the felon is someone much closer to home...

INCLUDES RECIPES AND TEA TIME TIPS!



About the Author

Laura Childs is the New York Times bestselling author of the Tea Shop Mysteries, Scrapbooking Mysteries, and Cackleberry Club Mysteries. In her previous life she was CEO of her own marketing firm, authored several screenplays, and produced a reality TV show. She is married to Dr. Bob, a professor of Chinese art history, enjoys travel, and has two Shar-Peis.


http://www.laurachilds.com/