STEEPED IN SECRETS

Opening a tea shop brings surprises welcome and unwelcome for a recent divorcée.

Elliott’s first page amounts almost to a parody of a shopkeeper cozy. Having shed her faithless husband, Brad, Shayleigh Myers gazes at the quaint Victorian houses lining the main street of picturesque Bray Harbor, California, “finding it hard to believe she was actually back in the small town she thought she had left behind forever.” But this series opener has a twist. Instead of a coffee shop, bakery, or candle outlet with a preciously punning name, the emporium Shay inherits from Bridget Early, a woman she barely knew, is Crystals & CuriosiTEAS, specializing in herbs, teas, and objects of the occult. In life, Bridget read tea leaves and was rumored to possess special healing powers that Shay’s beginning to believe she may share. So instead of selling the shop, as the pushy realtor presses her to do, she refurbishes the dusty old place with the help of Tassi, the niece of her old friend Joanne, who owns Cuppa-Jo, Main Street’s coffee shop. Since every cozy needs a murder, Shay’s renovations are soon halted by the discovery of a corpse on her roof. Her obligatory romantic interest is Liam Madigan, owner of the pub next door to CuriosiTEAS. If all this sounds pretty formulaic, the discovery of an amulet with mystical powers, a box of mysterious old photos, and the lingering presence of Spirit, a mongrel with uncanny intuition, take Shay along a road less traveled.

A promising series debut.