"Polly" put the kettle on, we'll all have tea and mystery
This 1st-in-series book makes a wonderful debut. This book is fun and fancy-free, enjoyable even with a murder mystery to solve. At first I wasn't quite sure what the mystery was, then decided I'd fallen into Alice's rabbit hole. Amidst all the turmoil going on around them, Leslie Stansfield's characters are definitively fleshed out right from the start, very easy to fall in love with...can romance be far behind? I enjoyed the way the story rolled out from the first minute the teacup flew off the shelf to the decidedly vocal and psychic macaw.
The premise of the story dates back to the late 1800s with a string of unsolved bank robberies. But somehow the past is quickly passing the present! This story spoke to me on many levels including the despondency of the aging population at a time when most would rather be in their own homes, the lives of the people involved through inheritance of money stolen 100 years ago, what happens to it if it's found? The support the two sisters give each other after their mother dies, and what happens to her plans of a teahouse and a B&B now she is gone. Happily the girls do open a Tea Shop complemented with an unusually entertaining and talkative macaw, who introduces himself as Mr. T. soon changed to Mr. Tea.
This book is well-paced, with strange happenings in the Tea Shop; thieves, murder, break-ins, strange hints from Mr. Tea, especially as he greets with "Hello Ladies!" the very dead but lively night visitors only he sees, the Guthrie Sisters. All in all, I think this is going to be a fascinating and enjoyable series, I predict a long run.
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