Author: Julia Buckley
Series: Hungarian Tea House Mystery #1
Genre: Cozy Mystery, Romance, Contemporary
First published July 30, 2019
Book description: Hanna Keller runs her family's Tea House, serving up scrumptious snacks and tantalizing teas but when a customer keels over from a poisoned cuppa, Hanna and her tea-leaf reading grandma will have to catch a killer in the first of the new cozy mystery series from Julia Buckley.
Hanna Keller and her family run Maggie's Tea House, an establishment heavily influenced by the family's Hungarian descent and specializing in European-style traditional tea service. But truthfully, one of the shop's largest draws is Hanna's eccentric grandmother, who's known for her remarkable ability to read the future in the leaves at the bottom of their customers' cups. Lately, however, her readings have become alarmingly ominous...
Hanna is also an avid teacup collector and especially takes pride in the Anna Weatherley butterfly cup she recently procured. But the exquisite piece of porcelain soon becomes the center of a murder investigation, when it's suspected of delivering poison to one of the guests at their most recent event. Hanna's determined to find the true killer, exonerate her family, their business, and in the process, reclaim her beautiful Budapest Butterfly.
Review:
The idea was very attractive but there was something in the experience as a whole that didn't work for me. I am sure it's a me thing and plenty of people will enjoy this cozy mystery.
This is the first in a series, so it contains a stand-alone mystery that allows you to read it as one book, that is a positive point in my opinion. It starts following the Keller family, especially Hana.
The Keller family is proud to run Maggie's Tea House, where they offer a traditional European-style tea service that reflects a Hungarian heritage. Hana and the other ladies in her family work together to make sure that every customer receives the best possible experience, and even offer tea readings to help the guests gain insight into their lives. Hana and her mother are not true believers on the art of leaf reading, they take it as superstition and tradition but not a real supernatural ability. Everything gets turned upside down, when they find a woman has died while on their tea service.
The police obviously gets involved and Hana is invested in figuring out what really happened. She does not want to allow this to drag on, otherwise, their family business would get negatively affected. Who would want to go to a tea house where a patron was poisoned?
As the story progresses, we get a paranormal tea reading and insight based on Hungarian folktales. While I did enjoy the murder mystery, I felt that it wasn't as quirky or engaging as I wanted but I'm still drawn to the storyline. It's a promising start to a mystery series.
This challenge was used for:
Buzzwordathon
Comments