Kirkus Review
A missing will, a lot of money, and a dysfunctional family add up to murder. Lily Roberts left her job as a high-powered Manhattan pastry chef to return to Cape Cod and open Tea by the Sea on the grounds of her grandmother's high-end B & B. At an antiques fair she's attending with her best friend, Bernie, and her grandmother Rose to replenish her supply of teacups, Lily also decides at the last minute to purchase a delightful children's tea set in a wicker box. The next morning, a pushy woman shows up demanding to buy not the set but the box. Kimberly Smithfield, who claims it belonged to her family and was sold accidentally, gets so nasty that Lily has to be rescued by Simon, her handsome English gardener. The next morning Kim returns, throws money at Lily, cuts open the lining of the box, and departs with a plain envelope, leaving everything else behind. Soon Kim, who's recently married celebrity chef Wesley Schumann, the ex-boyfriend who drove Lily out of New York with his ferocious temper, is followed by her half sister, Rachel Morrison, a restaurant designer Lily knows from her time in New York. Rachel also wants what was in the box, which turns out to be a handwritten will in which their mother determines whether her residual legatee will be Kim, Rachel, or their brother. Soon after Kim and Wes move into Rose's B & B, Lily stumbles upon Kim's dead body and is forced to investigate before her business is ruined. Shoals of red herrings abound, but Lily and her delightful friends winnow out the big fish. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
