Tea with Jam & Dread

Cape Cod tearoom owner Lily Roberts leaves New England for old England to attend a party for an aristocratic centenarian-but what goes on there is anything but noble . . .
Long ago, Lily's grandmother Rose worked as a kitchen maid at Thornecroft Castle, and now Elizabeth, dowager countess of Frockmorton, is celebrating her one hundredth birthday. Rose still has fond feelings for her onetime employer, so a group trip to Yorkshire is planned. It's also an opportunity for Lily to visit her boyfriend, who's currently working in England-and to indulge in some British tea.
Much has changed, however, and the ancestral home is now a luxury hotel, which will be closed for a week to accommodate the big bash, much to the chagrin of Elizabeth's grandson, Julien-leading Lily to overhear an argument among the younger generation about the fate of the family fortune. Little do they know that Elizabeth plans to sell the famous Frockmorton Sapphires out of the family for the first time in centuries . . .
The icing on the cake comes when the jewels suddenly vanish-and things really go nuts when a party guest dies from an allergic reaction to almonds that someone smuggled into Lily's coronation chicken sandwiches. Now she'll have to scour the property to find out who would commit murder in such a manor . . .

Vicki Delany is one of Canada's most prolific and varied crime writers and a national bestseller in the US. She is currently writing four cozy mystery series: The Tea by the Sea mysteries, the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop series, the Year Round Christmas mysteries, and as Eva Gates, the Lighthouse Library series. A past president of the Crime Writers of Canada and a co-organizer of Women Killing it, a crime writing festival, her work has been nominated for the Derringer, the Bony Blithe, the Ontario Library Association Golden Oak, and the Arthur Ellis Awards. She is the recipient of the 2019 Derrick Murdoch Award for contributions to Canadian crime writing. Vicki lives and writes in bucolic Prince Edward County, Ontario and can be found online at VickiDelany.com.