Tea, Tiramisu, and Tough Guys

The Cape Bay Cafe series is what it is - cozy, quiet, pleasant. Francesca, our amateur detective/cafe owner/ heroine is a sweet and polite and honestly a little over the top in her internal monologues. And some...maybe a lot of what she does is eye-roll worthy. But she's never in your face. And I appreciate that the mystery itself isn't full of padding and misdirections just to add another 50 or 60 pages. I could have done without all the “how to make tea” padding (as a tea drinker, it was ridiculous the amount of babbling Fran did concerning black tea. Just steep it for 3 minutes already. Yet she never mentioned herbals or matcha or chai). I also could have done without the attempted but never quite got all the angles connected love triangle.

Not as good as the first one, but not bad either.

Earl Grey... sigh Earl Grey is flavored tea. It's not ordinary black tea. It has bergamot oil in it. Now, if you put only a little of that thing in the tea, it enhances the flavor of tea, but most Earl Grey teas have too much of the thing in them, and it has an artificial flavor to it. I refuse to drink Earl Grey nowadays as it tastes like someone has poured a flask of perfume into my teacup.
I also didn't know iced tea isn't necessarily sweetened.

Oh, and the “how DARE you suspect me?!?!” reaction. I can't stand it. How DARE you assume you are somehow above everyone else? How DARE you get offended by being treated as a human being? How DARE you assume criminals are somehow recognizable just by looks?

And the damned argument about whether Todd was guilty or not. All Matt wanted was Franny to admit he COULD have been guilty. That she didn't KNOW he wasn't. I think her behavior was really bitchy and I resent that.

I like how Matt and Franny's relationship evolves. :-) Makes me happy :-)