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WORK TITLE: Live and Let Chai
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://breebaker.com/
CITY:
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COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY: American
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Female.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer.
MEMBER:Sisters in Crime, International Thriller Writers, Romance Writers of America.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Bree Baker is a novelist living in the American Midwest. She is “obsessed with small town high jinks, sweet tea and the sea,” commented a writer on Baker’s website. She is active in the writers’ organizations Sisters in Crime, International Thriller Writers, and Romance Writers of America.
Baker’s first novel is Live and Let Chai, a cozy mystery set in the beachside community of Charm on the barrier island where protagonist Everly Swan grew up. Everly left the island to follow her boyfriend, a rodeo cowboy. When he gets injured, however, he refuses to support her when she decides she wants to go to cooking school. In response, Everly leaves him and goes back home to Charm. There, she opens Sun, Sand, and Tea, a tea shop and cafe on the beach.
At first, things go well for her at her new business. She quickly earns a good reputation and distinguishes herself and her tea shop with the unique canning jars she uses as serving glasses. The shop is situated in a historic home that Everly bought with the intention to use the income from her business to cover the mortgage on the building.
Everly’s situation gets complicated when an elderly local councilman, Benedict Paine, opposes what she is doing with the tea shop. The obstinate and hidebound Paine doesn’t want any changes to occur in Charm, and he isn’t shy about letting Everly know that he does not appreciate her presence in town or her business. Despite his vocal objections, she ignores him and continues to run her shop, offering food and drink to the island’s visitors.
When Paine is found dead on the boardwalk near her shop, one of her shop’s distinctive glasses beside him, suspicion immediately centers on Everly. The old man was poisoned, and the town’s newest homicide detective, Grady Hays, thinks she may be the culprit. Even worse, the island’s gossipers spread the false accusation and whisper that the murder may have been in response to Paine’s objections and to the shop’s rumored financial difficulties.
Although many of Charm’s residents are against her, Everly’s aunts and many old friends stand beside her as she works to find out who actually killed Benedict Paine and why. In the process, she uncovers a potential conspiracy with a local builder who wants to covert some of Charm’s classic homes into B&Bs. At the same time, a spark of romantic interest ignites between Everly and Hays.
A Kirkus Reviews writer called Live and Let Chai a “charming cozy debut with characters as sweet as the titular tea, a mystery with numerous attractive byways, and a budding romance waiting to be explored.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, June 1, 2018, review of Live and Let Chai.
ONLINE
Bree Baker website, http://www.breebaker.com (October 16, 2018).
Escape with Dolly Cas, https://www.escapewithdollycas.com/ (July 26, 2018), review of Live and Let Chai.
Bree Baker
Bree Baker is a Midwestern writer, obsessed with small town high jinks, sweet tea and the sea. She's been telling stories to her family, friends and strangers for as long as she can remember, and more often than not, those stories feature a warm ocean breeze and recipe she's sure to ruin. Now, she's working on those fancy cooking skills and dreaming up adventures for the Seaside Cafe mysteries. Her debut title, Live & Let Chai releases from Sourcebooks in July 2018. Bree is a member of Sisters in Crime, International Thriller Writers and the Romance Writers of America. She is represented by Jill Marsal of Marsal Lyon Literary Agency.
Baker, Bree: LIVE AND LET CHAI
Kirkus Reviews. (June 1, 2018):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Baker, Bree LIVE AND LET CHAI Sourcebooks Landmark (Adult Fiction) $7.99 7, 10 ISBN: 978-1-4926-6475-8
Forever tied to Charm Island, a native daughter returns to fulfill a dream.
Everly Swan left the quiet barrier island she called home to follow her cowboy on the rodeo circuit. After he's injured, he refuses to support her enrollment in cooking school, so she drops out and returns alone to Charm, where she opens Sun, Sand, and Tea in a beachfront house she purchased because it was zoned for the shop that would pay her mortgage. Her major problem is Benedict Paine, a town councilman who's opposed to any changes in Charm and who's therefore harassed her from the get-go. When Everly finds him dead with a glass of her tea next to him, Detective Grady Hays, the new homicide investigator in town, suspects that she killed him. Paine was poisoned, and the rumor mill, abetted by a local blogger, paints Everly's fledgling business as being in dire straits. Fortunately, the aunts who raised her stand behind her, together with some of her old friends, who pitch in to help her find the real killer--much to the dismay of Hays, a widower with a young child who's attracted to Everly in spite of his professional objections to her interference. Paine was a troublemaker who certainly wasn't universally beloved, and Everly finds an especially promising suspect in a bullying builder who wants to turn some of Charm's lovely old homes into B&Bs, a plan Paine would have fought to the death. When someone smashes up Everly's shop just before a party she's planned, the damage only makes her more determined to solve the crimes with a little help from her friends.
A charming cozy debut with characters as sweet as the titular tea, a mystery with numerous attractive byways, and a budding romance waiting to be explored.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Baker, Bree: LIVE AND LET CHAI." Kirkus Reviews, 1 June 2018. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A540723456/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=d1788293. Accessed 30 Sept. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A540723456
#Review / #Giveaway – Live and Let Chai (Seaside Café Mysteries) by Bree Baker @sbkslandmark
2018 Reviews, Craving For Cozies, Cruisin Thru Cozies, Giveaways, Read The Printed Word Challenge, You Read How Many Books Challenge
Jul
26
2018
Live and Let Chai (Seaside Café Mysteries)
Cozy Mystery
1st in Series
Setting – North Carolina
Sourcebooks Landmark (July 10, 2018)
Mass Market Paperback: 352 pages
ISBN-10: 1492664758
ISBN-13: 978-1492664758
Kindle ASIN: B07CP2VVGS
The first book in a delightful new beachside cozy mystery series!
Trouble is brewing in Everly’s new café. Can she bag the culprit?
Life hasn’t been so sweet for Everly Swan over the past couple of years, but now that she is back in her seaside hometown and the proud owner of a little iced tea shop and café right on the beach, things are finally starting to look up—until a curmudgeonly customer turns up dead on the boardwalk. With one of her hallmark glass tea jars lying right next to him and an autopsy that reports poison in his system, it doesn’t look good for Everly or her brand new business.
As the townspeople of Charm, formerly so welcoming and homey, turn their back on Everly, she fights to dig up clues about who could have had it in for the former town councilman. With a maddeningly handsome detective discouraging her from uncovering leads and a series of anonymous attacks on Everly and her business, it will take everything she’s got to keep this mystery from boiling over.
Dollycas’s Thoughts
Welcome to Charm. Everly Swan has just opened her iced tea shop and café in a historic home on the beach, but not everyone is happy about it. Benedict Paine is being a royal pain. He is using his position as councilman to try to close Everly down. When he is found dead on the boardwalk with one of the canning jars she serves her tea in close by, she quickly becomes the prime suspect. Why would she do that? Sabotage her new business over a grumpy old man? Unfortunately, the town of Charm is no longer charming. Thanks to a certain detective Everly has lost all her customers and the formerly charming residents believe she actually killed Paine. Everly is teed off and knows the only way to save her business is to find the killer herself, no matter how much trouble she gets into with that certain detective. But that also puts her in the killer’s crosshairs.
This new series is off to a delightful start!
Bree Baker has created realistic and engaging characters. Everly has come home to Charm and opened Sand, Sun, and Tea. Her aunts own the Blessed Bee honey shop not far from Everly’s. There is a superstition that the woman in the family are cursed when it comes to love. Enter one hunky detective, who is new in town and seems to set Everly’s heart aflutter, that is when he is NOT announcing to everyone she is a murderer or lecturing her NOT to get involved in his case. Our amateur sleuth does get in a little over her head and enough to make the real killer nervous. I really enjoyed her relationship with her aunts. They are an amazing support system. They are there to help her in any way she needs and their confidence in her success shines through.
There are a couple of mysteries to solve. Of course, the murder of the councilman, but there was also someone vandalizing the cute little box libraries along the beach. It gets me pretty upset when people destroy books. Okay, back to the main mystery, the murder. Knowing Everly didn’t do it I zeroed in on two suspects right away. There were many clues telling me I was correct in my thinking and it wasn’t long before I narrowed down the suspects to one. I love it when I am right!
The setting, a beach, sand, sun, iced tea, a bookstore, little libraries, was a wonderful escape. I would give almost anything for a beach vacation. And this book is a wonderful book to read while lounging on the beach or by the pool. Ms. Baker’s words will take you there too if you are sitting on your deck with no water around or in your comfy chair inside your house like I was.
This was a very entertaining read. My interest has been piqued, I want to get to know these characters better and am very interested in where the author is going to take them.
Your Escape With A Good Book Travel Agent
Bree Baker is a Midwestern writer, obsessed with small-town high jinks, sweet tea, and the sea. She’s been telling stories to her family, friends, and strangers for as long as she can remember, and more often than not, those stories feature a warm ocean breeze and a recipe she’s sure to ruin. Now, she’s working on those fancy cooking skills and dreaming up adventures for the Seaside Cafe mysteries. Her debut title, Live & Let Chai releases from Sourcebooks in July 2018. Bree is a member of Sisters in Crime, International Thriller Writers and the Romance Writers of America. She is represented by Jill Marsal of Marsal Lyon Literary Agency.