In Hot Water: A Misty Bay Tea Room Mystery

by Kate Kingsbury

In bestselling author Kate Kingsbury's Misty Bay Tea Room series debut, the proprietress of a British-style tea shop must draw on her love for mystery novels to sleuth a murder.

Vivian Wainwright is living her dream. The middle-aged widow owns the Misty Bay Tearoom, a quaint, English-accented shop on the Oregon coast. But on the eve of the tearoom's second anniversary, the dream turns nightmarish when a man falls to his death from a hotel balcony.

The body belongs to Dean Ramsey, ex-husband of Vivian's assistant, Jenna. Detective Tony Messina quickly zeroes in on Jenna as prime suspect, since she was seen leaving the hotel shortly before the body was found.

Vivian and her other assistant, Gracie, set out to help clear Jenna's name, using their wit and a bit of criminology know-how Vivian picked up from her late attorney husband. Detective Messina is on board, but he's starting to develop feelings for his number one suspect. Puzzling questions persist--chief among them, whose clothes was Dean wearing when he landed on the rocky shore?

To complicate matters, Vivian's friend, pet shop owner Hal Douglass, seems to know some secrets about the hotel that could add a long list of names to the suspect list...including Hal's own. Vivian must work quickly because if she can't, Jenna faces a murder rap...or worse.

• ISBN10: 1643857703
• ISBN13: 9781643857701
• Publish Date: 12 October 2021
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Crooked Lane Books
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 304
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9781643857701

Reviews

[annieb123]

Originally posted on my blog: Nonstop Reader.

In Hot Water is the series debut for Kate Kingsbury's cozy tea-room mystery. Released 12th Oct. 2021 by Crooked Lane Books, it's 304 pages and is available in hardcover, audio, and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately; it makes it so easy to find information with the search function.

The author is experienced, with several ongoing cozy series, In Hot Water is a promising start to a new small town storefront cozy, this time set in a tea shop. Protagonist Vivian is a widow in small town touristy Misty Bay, when her friend's ex-husband falls to his death wearing a pink negligee. Local police seem determined to put Vivian's friend Jenna in the frame for the murder. The secondary characters are sometimes a bit two dimensional and I felt that some were simply written in to provide plot points and move the scene along.

The plot resolution was a little more linear than I'm used to, but all in all the denouement was okay and well written. The language is fairly clean (PG rated) and there's no on-page blood or gore. I would recommend it to fans of amateur sleuth small town cozies. There were a few plot twists which challenged my suspension of disbelief, but all in all, it's an engaging and fun book. The second book in the series is due out

Three and a half stars.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.