"Tide and Punishment" by Bree Baker

Tide and Punishment takes us back to Charm, North Carolina, a coastal town on the Outer Banks, where Everly Swan runs Sun, Sand, and Tea, an iced tea shop, in her historic home. The holidays are rapidly approaching (a theme that especially resonated with me this year with the short span between Thanksgiving and Christmas), and her days are awhirl. She’s got a progressive dinner appetizer course to plan, cookies to bake for half the island, and her delightful—but unmanageable—elderly aunts to keep in line, Fran and Clara. Aunt Fran has recently gotten obsessed with garden gnomes and started painting them for everyone. 

Everly hosts a Christmas party where friends and customers can sample her delicious treats, hopefully tempting them to place orders before Christmas. Mayor Dudley Dunfree is there, being his usual vainglorious self, and Aunt Fran decides to let him and the other guests know that she is planning to run against him for mayor in the next election. But it turns out that the mayor’s re-election won’t be an issue. When guests leave the party, the mayor’s body is discovered on the snow-covered ground—and Aunt Fran is holding a bloody garden gnome nearby.

Detective Grady Hays is soon there to investigate, and he and Everly frequently tangle during the search for the killer—when they’re not busy keeping their feelings for each other in check. Everything sure looks like Fran had means, motive, and opportunity to kill the mayor, but in her heart, Everly knows her aunt couldn’t possibly have committed the crime.

Tea lovers will enjoy reading about a beachside tea shop that keeps twenty different varieties of iced tea on tap, even in December, as well as the occasional hot beverage for those who need warming up. When Baker writes about snickerdoodles, sugar cookies, and peanut butter cups filling the air with the scents of sugar and spice and everything nice, it’s easy to forget about the murder—but someone around town seems intent on framing Fran, and broken garden gnomes have developed an ugly habit of popping up all over town. Whether you’re ready to leave Christmas behind or not, I highly recommend that you prepare to be charmed by the Seaside Café Mysteries by Bree Baker, because I’m certainly looking forward to her next one.

(Book courtesy of NetGalley)