New tea mystery: "Tempest in a Teapot" by Amanda Cooper

Over the weekend I finished reading an advance copy of a great new tea-themed cozy mystery, "Tempest in a Teapot" by Amanda Cooper, and I'm delighted to have discovered another great mystery series for tea lovers! Now if you're like me, I get rather impatient having to wait a whole year for the new Laura Childs tea shop mystery to appear each year. I was surprised to learn earlier this year that Berkley Prime Crime had another tea-themed cozy series in the works, and I must admit I was a bit wary. Would it be a knock-off of my beloved Laura Childs books? How could someone even attempt another tea-themed cozy series? And just what kind of writer was this Amanda Cooper anyway? I'm delighted to report that the new mystery series is terrific, and yet all it has in common with the tea shop mysteries is, well, tea!

Cooper's immensely likable heroine is Sophie Taylor, a young chef whose Manhattan restaurant has gone under, leading her to regroup in the town of Gracious Grove in upstate New York, site of her grandmother's home and tea room, Auntie Rose's Victorian Tea House. Sophie is soon helping her Nana run the tea room, including preparing for an upcoming bridal shower tea for one of Sophie's old childhood friends.

This tea room, it so happens, has a rival tea room right next door, and the proprietor of that tea room, La Belle Époque, sees Sophie's Nana as an enemy and would very much like to put her out of business. An engagement party tea for Sophie's old childhood friend is held at La Belle Époque, where a poisonous cupcake kills a very important guest. So whodunit? There are loads of suspects with loads of motives, and I was pleasantly surprised to find Cooper includes lots of red herrings to throw us off the murderer's trail. Cooper is particularly gifted at creating distinctive characters and voices, and I'm already attached to quite a few of these new "friends."

I also enjoyed the fact Auntie Rose's Victorian Tea House has a teapot collectors' club, the Silver Spouts, who meet at the tea room for tea and conversation about their teapots. I found myself thinking of my own favorite teapots and which ones I'd bring for show-and-tell if I were allowed to join the group! A yummy-sounding scone recipe is included in the book as well. I greatly enjoyed "Tempest in a Teapot" and wanted to learn more about this "new" author, who it turns out is actually a Canadian writer named Victoria Hamilton, who also writes the Vintage Kitchen Cozy Mysteries. If you'd like to learn more about the Teapot Collector Mystery books, visit the Facebook page for the series here. I don't think you'll be disappointed!