The Tea Shoppe Mysteries

by Darlene Franklin, Cynthia Hickey, Linda Baten Johnson

A tea shoppe along the coast of Maine is connected to a year’s worth of mysterious deaths.

Starting one winter day, Georgina finds the mayor poisoned by a plate of petit fours. That spring, Evie’s favorite customer and recipe tester is killed. While out delivering scones for her summer job, Ashley discovers a crime scene to practice her student training in forensics. Against a backdrop of vibrant fall foliage, Ladessa discovers a corpse at table number four.

How can one small shoppe’s employees be connected to so many deaths, and will the business ever recover?
 

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Christian Fiction, Cozy, Cozy Mystery

448 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2021

About the author

Award-winning author and speaker Darlene Franklin lives in cowboy country—Oklahoma and loves writing about the American West. Oklahoma also has the benefit of being the home to her son, his wife, and their four beautiful children. Darlene loves music, needlework, reading and reality tv. Talia, a Lynx point Siamese cat, proudly claims Darlene as her person. Darlene is the author of seventeen contracted books and novellas, as well as several hundred short pieces. Two of her books have finaled in ACFW’s Book of the Year (now the Carol award) contest: her novella, Dressed in Scarlet, and her cozy mystery, A String of Murders.

Reviews

[Melmo2610 · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun collection of cozy mysteries, all connected by a Tea Shoppe in Maine. My favorite story in the collection was the 3rd story: Scones To Die For. Quick easy read/listen and enjoyable book.

[Cheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

These stories were just ok, not really engaging.

[Kay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Georgina left her home in San Antonio to run her 70-year-old grandmother’s shop, The Tea by the Sea on the coast of Maine. These four stories are all set in the small town of Seaside. There is a lot of local color throughout the stories, which adds a folksy vibe throughout.

Petit Fours to Die For by Teresa Ives Lilly is a sweet cozy mystery with a love interest. I give it 4 stars.

Buns to Die For by Darlene Franklin is quite a complex mystery. Although, I had figured out who was guilty of murder, the final details were surprising. I give it 4 stars.

Scones to Die For by Cynthia Hickey is the third cozy mystery. It is more complex and is somewhat of a rom-com. I found it very entertaining. I give it 4 stars.

Crumpets to Die For by Linda Baten Johnson is the final story. I read several pages. There are so many different characters and people mentioned that I couldn’t keep up with them all. I quit reading this story, which perhaps is a good one, but I couldn’t stick with it. Therefore, I am giving the book as a whole 3 stars.

[Bethany · Rating 3 out of 5]

My favorite story was Evie's. I just liked her character the best out of all of them. The other three were alright, but a bit meh. Although I think they did have realistic reactions to being involved in murder mysteries (aside from their abrupt decisions to actually get involved in the ongoing investigations.) If at times I get a bit irked by their behavior. At least I didn't get the feeling they were TSTL heroines I see so often in the cozy mystery genre.
Overall a nice story to curl up with sipping on a nice cup of tea and nibbling on a scone or something.
Recommended? Sure
Buy/Borrow? Borrow

[Liesl · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would have never known this book existed if it wasn’t for my two lovely co-workers who gifted me this book back at the end of November in 2024. I absolutely loved all four of the stories that make up this book. Even though the main character in the last story in this book annoyed me a lot with her personality; I still loved it anyway. All four of these authors are really great story tellers and have a great writing style. Even though you can tell when it was a different author (regardless of the fact that in the book it was obvious when it was a different author), the story still flowed like as if it was just one author telling four different perspectives on different events. I enjoyed this book so much that it was actually hard to put it down despite my college semester had started like 3 weeks ago. But even if you hate this book by the end I do want everyone to at least read it once or at least give it a fair chance.

[Ryan Hoffman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this fun Christian cozy mystery collection. It was fun to read.

[Robert Conder · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easy and quick read. It has four mysteries around a tea shop. They are each good and you do not want to put it down.

[Savannah Owens · Rating 4 out of 5]

These four books were fun easy reads. The last one was probably my favorite, but they all had a basic charm for mysteries in a small town.

[Jo-jean Keller · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good combination of murder, chaos and love!

[Dani Jenkins · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not poorly written, but very dull overall. I suppose if you're into minimal stake mysteries with Christianity as an afterthought that they try to make a main point by the end, then this is your book.

[Margaret · Rating 5 out of 5]

4 great stories with a bit of Romance thrown in. All mysteries surrounding the local tea shoppe. They also include some a search for God in these stories. Really enjoyed.

[Sally · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading this at bedtime. I liked all the stories for a good "who done it"!

[Mary Dunn · Rating 3 out of 5]

most Murder She Wrote types of stories

[Sara Kreps · Rating 3 out of 5]

when i chose this book, i didn't realize it was four short stories due to the presentation on-line. it's hard to rate since there were so many authors and some stories were better than others. my biggest qualm was the pastor in the first story - he was such a gossip with a relative stranger that i kept waiting for him to be revealed as the killer. and ashley in the third one seemed disturbingly lacking in empathy. overall the stories were simple enough, maybe a little too much, and executed well.

[Catherine Decious]

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