Sweet Tea Revenge by Laura Childs (#14)

Sweet Tea Revenge by Laura Childs

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



 Jacket Blurb:  Theodosia Browning’s dear friend, Delaine Dish, has asked her to be a bridesmaid for her wedding. But when the big day arrives, everything seems to be going wrong. First, a massive storm is brewing over Charleston. A bad omen? Second, Delaine’s maid of honor is late for the ceremony. And finally, the groom not only has cold feet—his whole body is cold. A murderer has crashed the wedding.

As Theodosia comforts a devastated Delaine, she needs to sort out the suspects on the groom’s side from the suspects on the bride’s side. One thing soon becomes apparent—revenge won’t be the only dish served cold at this wedding. And if Theodosia doesn’t watch her step, a cold-blooded killer may have a rude reception in store for her…

After my "falling out" with Agony of the Leaves (#13), it was with great reluctance and hesitation that I read Sweet Tea Revenge.  And unlike the rest of the series, I decided to get this from the library.

It was a dark and stormy afternoon, the lightening cracked overhead, the rafters shook from the thunder. Theodosia, our heroine with hair prone to frizzies in humid weather and owner of the Indigo Tea Shop, has been roped into maid of honor for Delaine Dish's whirlwind, shotgun wedding at the rundown and slightly haunted Ravencrest B&;B.  The guests are assembled in the drawing room, the bridesmaids are in the hallway, the bride is ravishing in white, the groom...is no where to be found.  Until Theo finds him gasp!...DEAD! 

While Sweet Tea Revenge did not leave me wanting to hurl the book across the room in utter disgust as I did with Agony of the Leaves, it certainly didn't leave me wanting to read more.  We have a totally insensitive photographer, a detective so cliched as to be ridiculous, a bi-polar bride,  a Tea Shop run by three people, one of which seems to spend most of her time running out during the height of the lunch hour to interview people in an investigation she was told to stay out of (of course).  But you can't trust the police to do their work after all...

I muttered about this in my previous review: one person simply cannot run a full service kitchen and  single handedly cater events for hundreds of people, while going to school.  For the type and amount of food coming out of that "cozy" kitchen, this is completely unrealistic.

The authors portrayal of Detective Tidwell and the police is still insulting.  The ATF agent hitting on Theo during a very busy lunch hour during an active investigation was incongruous given the circumstances (busy lunch, just met, investigation, not a romance).

Theo herself has been turned into a frizzy headed ditz, who seems to spend more time running around in a panic, than logically working her way through events. At least in this episode, she learned to call 911. 

With an overly robust cast of characters the southern charm of Charleston, the Low Country and the Indigo Tea Shop, was lost to whirlwind events and loose ends.


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