#BookBeginnings & #Friday56 & A Little Ramble -- Death by Tea by Alex Erickson

I totally dropped by the ball last week and forgot to actually blog my Book Beginnings & Friday 56 post (although I did Instagram it), but this week my head is screwed on slightly tighter it seems!

As always, Friday56 (share a blurb from the 56th page or 56% mark) is hosted at Freda's Voice & Book Beginnings (share the first few sentences & your thoughts) is at Rose City Reader.

I just finished the soon-to-be-released Death By Tea by Alex Erickson thanks to NetGalley. It's the second book in the Bookstore Cafe Mystery series and I rambled about the first one back in May. Of course, because I read an advanced copy there may be some textual changes with the final release ... but I hope that these two bits at least stay the same!

Knowing from the first book that Krissy has a tendency to get into trouble, I had to wonder from the get go what in the samheck she had gotten herself into. After all, it's a cozy mystery and she's the "star" so that means trouble has to be around the corner if not right in her face waiting for her to stick her nose into it.

And she does.

Severely.

In a nutshell: The bookstore cafe that she runs with her best friend is doing well enough that they've been able to hire a couple of employees to help out and are getting ready to host the annual book club competition (do such things REALLY exist???). One of the members from the competing team is found dead in the store and Krissy is at the top of the suspect list. Of course she didn't do it and she sets out to prove it -- much to the dismay of just about everybody.

One of the things that I enjoy about this series is that people call Krissy out on the fact that she isn't really a detective and doesn't really have any business sticking that aforementioned nose into things. She gets in way over her head and reads way too much into things sometimes and rarely seems to think things through before she acts or speaks. So many cozy series have heroines that also have no business detecting and, yet, it's rare that anyone seems to notice. Having her so real and fallible and dimwitted at times is a nice change of pace from the same ol' same ol' cozy routine. I still haven't decided if I actually like Krissy, but I do enjoy the secondary characters and how they interact with her and her shenanigans.

The mystery angle was pretty predictable for me as far as whodunnit, but that happens and it isn't necessarily a negative. The next book in the series isn't coming out until next October (Death By Pumpkin Spice!!!) but I'm already looking forward to it ... if only to see if someone finally slaps some sense into her.