Tomes & Tea #1
I have been a longtime fan of Karen Rose Smith’s Daisy’s Tea Garden Mystery series. I cannot really express how thrilled I was to hear Karen Rose Smith was starting a spin-off series focusing on Daisy Swanson’s daughter Jazzi. Murder Marks the Page follows Jazzi to New York State’s Belltower Landing where she opened Tomes & Tea with her college friend Dawn. Belltower Landing is a resort town and flourishes during the summer months with tourists and boating activities aplenty. As a brand new business, Tomes & Tea faces the challenges of the first year, not being sure what their fiscal outcome will be, or if they’ll even be able to stay afloat once the tourists depart at the end of summer.
Jazzi isn’t one to throw in the towel, however, and brainstorms all kinds of possible ways to boost their sales, save the store, and keep Dawn with her. She has already built herself a little book community thanks to the store’s book club. The varied minds there are more than happy to toss around store-saving ideas. While working on saving the store, however, Jazzi meets a new friend. A woman named Brie is thinking of connecting with her biological father, and, as a fellow adoptee, Jazzi is a big advocate for helping fellow adoptees get answers. Be it just wanting their medical history, or the big question of ‘why did you give me up’, there are a lot of questions adoptees face that sometimes need a little encouragement from a friend. Even better when it’s someone who gets exactly where they are coming from as they have gone through it themselves.
Jazzi is supportive of her friends and community, a dedicated shop owner, and an animal lover extraordinaire. However, she thought the last thing she’d do is add ‘amateur detective’ to her titles. She is perfectly happy leaving that particular one to her mother. Unfortunately, when Brie goes from looking for love on dating apps and turns up dead, Jazzi has next to no choice, especially with a distraught adoptive mother desperate for answers, and a lot of frustration with the local police. Jazzi can’t stand the thought of Brie’s murder going unsolved. While she wants to stay out of it, she also feels that the least she can do is investigate those Brie had been seeing prior to her death. Detective Milford isn’t exactly pleased with Jazzi’s involvement, as she keeps popping up with a new suspect or a new lead that he either had not found, or gotten a chance to follow up on yet. Neither is Jazzi, to be fair. She keeps reminding herself to stay out of it, to focus on Tomes & Tea. However, it seems that there must be some kind of curse on the Swanson family that draws them into any murder wherever they might live. Jazzi finds herself constantly in Detective Milford’s path as she comes across interesting bits of information on people, and even some physical evidence to try and help get the case solved.
I suggest Murder Marks the Page for long time fans of Karen Rose Smith as well as for new readers. Jazzi’s Tomes & Tea shop is a delightful setting and it faces many modern problems and solutions in order to stay afloat. She is a determined but kind woman who is trying to make her own mark in a new town, alongside her best friend Dawn. While she does not want to earn herself a reputation like her mother’s, she won’t let that stop her from doing what is right and from helping those around her. I was delighted to read Jazzi’s adventure, and can’t wait to read more of what she will do as well as continue to read her mother’s Tea Garden series. – Carla Schantz