The Final Words of Ian O'Shelley

Tea? Coffee? Murder! 2

By: Ellen Barksdale

Narrated by: Jessica Whittaker

"Goodbye, cruel world." The famous writer Ian O'Shelley is found dead in his cottage in Earlsraven with a suicide note beside him. Nathalie Ames is a big fan of the author and starts to look into the case more closely. She discovers that O'Shelley was a man with many secrets. Was it really suicide? Or was the likeable bestselling author murdered? But while Nathalie is investigating O'Shelley's past, her private life is breaking down - all because of her move to Earlsraven.

About the series: There was nothing in the will about this...

Cottages, English roses and rolling hills: that's Earlsraven. In the middle of it all: the "Black Feather". Not only does young Nathalie Ames unexpectedly inherit this cosy inn from her aunt, she also falls heir to her aunt's secret double life! She solved criminal cases together with her cook Louise, a former agent of the British Crown. And while Nathalie is still trying to warm up to the quirky villagers, she discovers that sleuthing runs in the family.

About the author: Ellen Barksdale was born in the English seaside resort of Brighton, where her parents ran a small boarding house. From childhood she was a bookworm, and from a young age was interested in crime novels. Her first experience of crime fiction was with the Maigret novels by Georges Simenon. After years of reading crime fiction, she recently decided to take up writing herself. Tea? Coffee? Murder! is her first mystery series. The author lives near Swansea with her partner Ian and their three mongrels Billy, Bobby and Libby.

©2023 Bastei Lübbe AG (P)2023 Lübbe Audio, Bastei Lübbe AG

Fun Short

I enjoyed book 2 and look forward to many more adventures of Nathalie and Louise! I like how the reader portrays the story and characters, a fun light cozy mystery with likable characters.

Great reader

Loved this second installment—it kept me guessing until the end. Although the series is a bit formulaic, the characters are interesting enough and the reader is very good to capture your imagination. The reader is so pleasant to listen to that I am going to search to see what else she has narrated.

Nathalie & Glen

Halfway through the audiobook and getting bored.

I thought that this series was going to at be like the Cherringham mysteries, where the focus is on solving a crime in a rather interesting community of friends, families, and "neighbors." The first Tea? Coffee? Murder! was sort of like that. In this second installment, a lot of the story is about Nathalie's family and the doubts Nathalie is having about her relationship with Glen.

It's just not holding my interest.

Fortunately, the audiobook is short, and I hope It will get back to being a detective mystery soon. I'm struggling to get through Nathalie's wonderful relationship with her parents and the less than wonderfulness of Glen.

Cute & light but so implausible!

I love cozy mysteries and this one had promise but the premise: Aunt dies and leaves pub to niece-that’s plausible- but then archived, personal info on neighbors and villagers accumulated by said Aunt, is found stored in the pub and was used to solve crimes by the Aunt and the cook, who happens to have deep connections and influence. It just is hard to get past the cumbersome implausibility of it for me. I mean it doesn’t need the ridiculous backstory.