Reviewed: February 8th, 2024
Released: February 7th, 2024
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Format: ebook ARC
A hunted witch hiding in an Agatha Christie-esque novel, a series of eccentric characters, a host of clues and red-herrings, and… MURDER!
A talented spell-weaving witch on the run is forced to find magical refuge in a mystery novel, playing the role of Emily Crookshanks, amateur sleuth and professional flirt.
Waking up with no idea who or where she is, Emily finds herself in the quaint 1920s English countryside village of Little Pucklewick, uncomfortably sharing tea and cakes with the not so Reverend Wilson-Smallsey, the village’s rather pompous womanising vicar.
After a series of shocking murders, Emily hooks up with the village doctor, a rather dashing ex-RAF fighter pilot known to his chums as ‘Ceddars’. Working together, they uncover clues and interrogate suspects.
Add an inept inspector, various pompous ladies from the regular vicarage get-togethers, a dashing explorer recently returned from the Orient, his very attractive career-minded secretary, and a whole host of motives and clues, including a series of nasty accusatory posters, and Emily finds herself in the middle of a most confusing and frustrating mystery.
But more than the murders, Emily suffers from terrifying visions of attack and desperate escape. And just what are wands and spell-weavery, and the smartphones and hi-def televisions she occasionally glimpses in her mind?
Despite everything, Emily knows that to survive, she must solve the mystery and, to do that, she must keep going to The End.
Helen’s Thoughts: 4/5
A very different twist on a cosy mystery, with a desperate witch taking over the body of an amateur sleuth in a story book, trying to escape from some mysterious monster. The witch becomes Emily Crookshanks, and her attempt to solve the murder in Little Pucklewick seems to protect her from whatever is chasing her.
And so we spend a couple of days in the 1920’s English countryside trying to figure out who had the motive to kill a growing number of people. The mix of the witch and Emily gives us a rather abrasive woman who tramples over everyone in the village, and we don’t really get to know either one of them. I must admit I didn’t warm to Emily, nor her sidekick, Ceddars. I know it’s the 1920’s, and women had their place and so had to be that bit more beligerent, but the repeated colloquialism’s did get annoying. The after-effects of the Great War are well done, village life expertly captured, along with the local busy bodies.
There are plenty of clues, possibilities and suspects to keep you scratching your head until the final denouement, Poirot-style. If you love the 1920 era, English village life and cosy mysteries, then you’ll enjoy this book.
Purchase Tea, Cake MURDER! via Amazon
Link to book on Amazon UK: eBook | Paperback
Link to book on Amazon US: eBook | Paperback
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If you enjoy fantasy books then you will love my epic fantasy Sentinal series or the Paranormal Romantic Fantasy SoulMist series. As a new threat against Remargaren is discovered, only one man can wake the ancient guards who can protect them, only he doesn’t know how. Start the adventure and stay for the journey. Sign up to my newsletter and download a free novella called Sentinals Stirring and get notified when my next books are published.
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