This is book number 1 in the Seaside Café Mysteries series.
Discover: A cozy mystery set in a seaside North Carolina town features iced tea, a slow-brewing romance and murder.
After dropping out of culinary school and getting her heart broken by a cowboy, Everly Swan has returned to Charm, her quaint seaside hometown in North Carolina. Things are looking up: she's just opened her dream iced tea shop and cafe in a gorgeous Victorian house that's also her new home. But when a cranky local councilman is found dead on the boardwalk with one of Everly's signature tea jars next to him and poison in his system, she must battle a wave of suspicion from the townspeople. An anonymous vandal begins targeting Everly's shop, and she becomes even more determined to clear her name and find the killer. Bree Baker brews up a cozy mystery as sweet and Southern as Everly's tea in her debut, Live and Let Chai.
Baker fills her town with (mostly) appealing characters, including the owners of Charm's other small businesses: the bookstore, the ice cream shop, the general store. Everly's quirky beekeeper aunts, Fran and Clara, offer more local color and emotional support, while an unnervingly handsome, new-in-town detective provides expert crime analysis and a bit of romantic interest. In classic amateur sleuth fashion, Everly follows every lead with more tenacity than discretion, throwing a wrench or two into the police investigation, but also turning up some useful information. While Everly's cooking skills far outpace her sleuthing abilities, this is an enjoyable setup for Baker's series, best enjoyed with a sweating glass of sweet tea. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams
— Shelf AwarenessFIRST BOOK IN A NEW BEACHSIDE COZY MYSTERY SERIES!
When a body turns up on the boardwalk outside Everly Swan's iced tea shop and café, she becomes the number one suspect in a murder case. Can she bag the culprit, prove her innocence, and dish up the real killer before it's too late?
Hitting All the sweet-tea spots, this series is:
A delightful Tea Shop and Café Culinary Mystery
The ideal cozy beach read
Perfect for fans of Laura Childs and Kate Carlisle
Life hasn't been so sweet for Everly Swan over the past couple of years, but now she's back in her seaside hometown of Charm, North Carolina. The proud new owner of Sun, Sand, and Tea—a café right on the beach—Everly thinks that things are finally starting to look up. Until a grouchy customer turns up dead on the boardwalk with a jar of one of her specialty teas lying right next to him! When an autopsy reports poison in his system, things don't look good for Everly or her tea shop.
As the townspeople of Charm, formerly so welcoming and homey, turn their back on Everly, she fights to dig up clues about who could have had it in for the former town councilman. With the maddeningly handsome Detective Grady Hays discouraging her from uncovering leads and a series of anonymous attacks on Everly and her tea shop, it will take everything she's got to keep this murder mystery from boiling over.
INCLUDES DELICIOUS FOOD AND DRINK RECIPES
Bree Baker is a Midwestern writer obsessed with small-town hijinks, sweet tea, and the sea. She’s been telling stories to her friends, family, and strangers for as long as she can remember, and more often than not, those stories feature a warm ocean breeze and a recipe she’s sure to ruin. Now she’s working on those fancy cooking skills and dreaming up adventures for the Seaside Café mysteries. Bree is a member of Sisters in Crime, International Thriller Writers, and the Romance Writers of America. Visit her online at breebaker.com.
