Blog Tour & Review: Tea & Primroses by Tess Thompson

 

Title: Tea & Primroses    

Author: Tess Thompson    

Series: Legley Bay, #2     

Published: February 2014, Booktrope

Format: ARC e-book, 250 pages   

Source: CLP Blog Tours  

Nothing is as it seemed in calm, quaint Legley Bay.

Famous
novelist Constance Mansfield lived a seemingly straightforward – if
private – and somewhat predictable life. Friends, beloved daughter
Sutton, a beautiful home, and all the success an author could wish for. A
perfect life….but was it?

When a hit and run accident suddenly
takes her mother’s life, Sutton finds hidden secrets with her
heartbreak. Emotional walls she assumed Constance had built to protect
her privacy may have been to protect something – or someone – else
entirely. Family and friends return home for support, including her own
lost-love, Declan. He’s the first thing she craves to help her cope with
her loss and the questions she’s left with, but he’s also the last
person she wants to see. Will he be able to put down roots at last?

Can
the loss of true love be the making of a life, or is it destined to be
the undoing of everything? When money, power and love combine across
time, anything is possible.

My thoughts: This is the first book I’ve read by Tess Thompson, but it certainly won’t be the last. And while it’s the second in her Legley Bay series, I had no problems feeling as if I was missing anything by jumping in with this one.

Right from the first page, I was hooked on this story. I loved the characters and then the story just pulled me in. I’m always a sucker for the book-within-a-book theme and loved how Tess uses this to propel the story forward. While there is a mystery that needs to be solved – who killed Sutton’s mother – once Sutton and Declan find Constance’s manuscript and start reading it, the murder falls to the wayside and you become swept up in that story. 

Along the way, there are clues as to who might have killed Constance and while I had my suspicions early on, it in no way detracted from the overall enjoyment of this book. In fact, solving the murder is really a small part of this book. It’s really about finding out what’s in that manuscript that kept me glued to the pages of this book. There are major secrets revealed and at times, it becomes quite an emotional read. Plus, you get wrapped up in wondering whether Sutton and Declan will end up together or not???

I really enjoyed this book and the characters. I will definitely be going back and reading the first book in this series, Caramel and Magnolias, and hope that there will be more books set in Legley Bay…I would love to visit these characters again!

Books in this series:

1. Caramel and Magnolias
2. Tea and Primroses

About the author: Tess Thompson is a novelist and playwright with a BFA in Drama
from the University of Southern California. In 2011 she released her first
novel, Riversong, which subsequently
became a best seller.

 

Like her main character in the River Valley collection, Tess is
from a small town in Oregon. She currently lives in a suburb of Seattle, Washington
with her two young daughters, Emerson and Ella, and their puppy Patches. She is
inspired daily by the view of the Cascade Mountains from her home office
window.

Tess is working on her next novel and regularly
blogs about her journey as a mother, author and friend at www.tesswrites.com.

Authors Links: 

Website   |   Twitter   |   Facebook  |   Goodreads

Tea & Primroses by Tess Thompson is on tour with CLP Blog Tours. Be sure to check out the other tour stops to read more reviews, excerpts and guest posts by Tess Thompson.