Book Reviews

Book Review: Tea Cups and Carnage by Lynn Cahoon

Media Type: Ebook
Title: Tea Cups and Carnage
Series: A Tourist Trap Mystery #7
Author: Lynn Cahoon
Publisher: Lyrical Underground
Pages: 194
Release Date: June 7, 2016
Source: Netgalley
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Genre: Mystery/Thriller
HDB Rating: 3 Keys to My Heart
Recommended to: Readers who enjoy the series
Add it on: Goodreads | Amazon | BookLikes

The kettle’s about to boil over . . .

The quaint coastal town of South Cove, California, is all abuzz about the opening of a new specialty shop, Tea Hee. But as Coffee, Books, and More owner Jill Gardner is about to find out, there’s nothing cozy about murder . . .
Shop owner Kathi Corbin says she came to South Cove to get away from her estranged family. But is she telling the truth? And did a sinister someone from her past follow her to South Cove? When a woman claiming to be Kathi’s sister starts making waves and a dead body is found in a local motel, Jill must step in to clear Kathi’s name—without getting herself in hot water.

Full disclosure: I haven’t read any other books in this series, which may be why I didn’t enjoy Tea Cups and Carnage very much. South Cove seems like an interesting place to live, small town life mixed with lots of tourism is a recipe for some interesting predicaments. This is supposed to be a standalone book but I felt disconnected from the story and never really invested in the characters.

Jill is the lead character in this book, and while I enjoyed her point of view, there was a lot of mundane details about her life that I felt were unnecessary. I can’t remember exactly how many times cooking dinner and letting the dog out were mentioned but it seemed like over 4x which is a lot for a book under 200 pages. 
The writing was solid and it was an easy book to get through, I just realized by the end of the book that I didn’t really care who had committed the murder. That, to me, means that I never really got invested in the characters. 
I think the book probably is a great addition to an already established series/set of characters but I didn’t enjoy it as a standalone. 









FTC Disclosure: I received a copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review. I was not monetarily compensated for my opinion.