Agony of the Leaves by Laura Child (Tea Shop #13)

Agony of the Leaves by Laura Childs


My rating: 2 of 5 stars


From Goodreads: The opening of the aquarium is a major Charleston event, and Theodosia has been hired to cater tea, scones, and sandwiches for the private party to honor dignitaries and big buck donors. Things are going swimmingly, until Theodosia escapes the party for a momentary rest, only to discover the body of a man entangled in a net, drowned in one of the aquarium's state-of-the-art tanks.


To make matters worse, the victim is Theodosia's former boyfriend Parker Scully. The EMTs on the scene think Parker's drowning was an accident, but when Theodosia notices what look like defense wounds on his hands, she realizes that someone wanted Parker dead. The local police aren't keen on hearing her theory-especially because of her ties to the victim-so Theodosia knows that if she wants Parker's killer brought to justice, she'll have to jump into the deep end and start her own investigation...

Every now and then again I enjoy just turning the brain off and reading some fluff mystery. The Tea Shop books usually fit that requirement perfectly. However, this time I had problems with aspects of the book that in the past I can usually accept with a cuppa tea and a munchie. At first I thought this might be because I've been reading a lot of police procedurals lately...but it wasn't the amateur sleuthing that pushed my buttons. It was the managment of the Tea Shop and characters themselves.

For those of you not familiar with this series, the premise of the books are: we have Theodosia as store owner, Drayton as Master Tea blender, Haley as cook extraordinaire. These three people run a full fledged Tea Restaurant and Store. The back kitchen is described as "cozy". We have locals, tourists, and groups dropping in for full tea and meals. There is NO way one person can make the types of meals in the size of the kitchen described and feed the volume of people coming through that store. ON TOP of catered events, retail work, event planning and - in the case of Haley - going to school full time. The menus, while fabulous, were again, implausible given the size of the kitchen and only having one person doing all prep and cooking.

So, three people basically run a full fledged restaurant. If the author had kept the cooking to baked goods, and maybe simple wrap sandwiches or basic tea sandwiches, that I could probably swallow. You start to get into lobster bisque...you lost me. It has become so unrealistic as to become implausible and thus, I'm bounced out of the story.

Additionally, this book had so many loose ends floating at the end it felt frayed like a pair of knatty jeans. The mystery was lost in all the events the Tea Shop was catering. We had the Aquariums donor recognition benefit, Aunt Libby's fundraiser, the Coffee and Tea Expo, a fully catered impromptu Japanese Tea Ceremony, a photographic scavenger hunt, and I think I'm missing one or two.

The simple southern charm that drew me to these books was lost in a plethora of over the top recipes, unrealistic event planning and unbelievable restaurant management.





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