The peace and tranquility of the Misty Bay Tearoom is rocked by murder and a long-buried secret hidden in a most unlikely place in bestselling author Kate Kingsbury’s second charming book for fans of Cleo Coyle and Laura Childs.

It seemed like a simple case: the murder of Lewis Trenton, a beachcomber who lived alone in a cabin in the Oregon hills. But the newspaper article piques the interest of Vivian Wainwright, owner of the British-style Misty Bay Tearoom. The photo accompanying the article shows Lewis’s cluttered living room, and on the shelf is a replica of Big Ben. Vivian is sure she sold the clock a week before in her shop. Who could have given the replica to Lewis?

Unable to keep from doing a bit of sleuthing, Vivian hunts down the replica in a local thrift shop, noticing that the base is missing, rendering it worthless, but just as Vivian is about to throw it in the trash, a sparkle catches her eye. It’s a diamond, hidden away in a crevice in the clock. Vivian takes the diamond to Detective Tony Messina, who identifies it as part of a jewellery heist in Portland a month earlier. Portland police think Lewis was the fence who sold the jewels, and that he was killed after double-crossing the thieves—but Messina doesn’t believe the story.

What was the true motive behind Lewis’s murder? How did he come upon the diamond? And what secrets can the clock tell—before the killer strikes again?

Thanks to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for letting me read this book prior to its publication. My opinion is 100% honest, unbiased, and my own.

This was a quick cozy read and I enjoyed it reading it. However, it became repetitive in parts and there were a few details that I didn’t like. For example, I know there is a bit of romance in a cozy mystery, but in this case there was too much. I didn’t care about the love life of the protagonist’s assistants, really. When I choose to read a book like this, I want to get into the mystery and I don’t want to get distracted with the secondary plots. Another issue was when Vivian started misplacing stuff in her house; I won’t say much since I can reveal spoilers without noticing, but I will just say that I didn’t like the leading us to think it was something serious when in reality it was a very silly reason. I felt the topic had been banalized a bit and that rubbed me in the wrong way.

And now I have a silly complaint. At the beginning of the book it says there are recipes included. Well, I didn’t find any! I told you it was a silly complaint, but I do like recipes.

Overall, a correct cozy mystery with a good resolution, and a nice read to be enjoyed with a nice cup of tea.

So, for all of that, I give this book… 3 TEA CUPS!