A Fatal Twist of Lemon
(Wisteria Tearoom Mysteries #1)
By Patrice Greenwood (2012)

When Ellen Rosings’s Victorian tearoom opens, the President of the Santa Fe Preservation Trust is murdered.

Enter Detective Tony Aragon: attractive and unsympathetic, with a chip on his shoulder that goes beyond the murder investigation.

Is the murderer one of her honored guests, or the ghost rumored to haunt the building?

Will Ellen solve the mystery, is she Miss Marple ?

Well, no she is not much of a detective. That’s left to the police and the possible love interest, Detective Aragon. Told in first person, Ellen moves through the collection of possible suspects, dispensing food and advice. It’s well written prose that keeps you there, despite what’s happening (or not).

In the end she gets tangled up in the discovery of the murderer, but she doesn’t have much agency and infrequently moves the story forward.

So a nice cup of tea of a read.