My name is Everly Swan, and I’m the proud owner of Sun, Sand & Tea, a seaside iced tea shop and café on the shores of my hometown, Charm, North Carolina. Charm is part of the barrier islands that most folks know as the Outer Banks. To me, the area has always been home. I spend my days in jean shorts and flip flops, making and serving up recipes from my family’s many cookbooks, often with a personal flair. The recipes are old, some are from the previous century, and some are from the century before that. My family has a long and somewhat strange legacy here, but I’m proud to be part of it.

I run my iced tea shop from the first floor of my historic Victorian home on a hill above the sea. My great aunts think the home is haunted, but the scariest things I’ve seen around here are the fluffy white cat and stout-bodied seagull who seemed to have come with the house. My aunts believe in a lot of odd things like family curses and ghosts. I try not to think about the latter, and I refuse to believe our family is cursed, in love or otherwise, mostly because who wants to be cursed?

I start my days early and watch the sunrise over the Atlantic from my deck. Lou, the chubby gray and white seagull, likes to join me. After that, I hit the boardwalk for a trip into town. It’s a routine I started to work off the added dress sizes I gained in culinary school, plus my fitness bracelet shames me if I don’t. Either way, the walking only makes me hungry, so I stop for a snack at the general store most days, then I visit my aunts. My great aunts, Clara and Fran, own Blessed Bee, where they sell organic products made with dried flowers and herbs from their gardens and honey from their hives. Swan women have been making soaps, balms and potions like those for centuries, and my great aunts are the latest to carry on the tradition.

From there, I say hello to Amelia who runs Charming Reads, the bookshop next door to Blessed Bee. Amelia and I have been friends since childhood, and I think she’s the bee’s knees. She also maintains a set of Little Libraries scattered around the island. I’m a regular borrower.

Back at Sun, Sand & Tea, I open for lunch and serve up the best darn sweet tea and treats this side of the Mississippi and maybe a little farther. Occasionally, I help our handsome local detective solve a murder or two, though he prefers to call it “obstruction.” One day he’ll see. My connections to this island and community are priceless and he needs them. Until then, I’ll keep looking into things on my own and serving up my fabulous lemon cake to smooth things over when he finds out.

You can read more about Everly in Tide & Punishment, the third book in the “Seaside Café” mystery series, coming September 24, 2019.

No one dreams of a killer Christmas. . .

It’s Christmastime in Charm, North Carolina, and while Everly Swan would prefer to focus on decorating her iced tea shop for its first holiday season, Great-Aunt Fran has decided to run for mayor against her long-time nemesis. But when the other candidate turns up dead just before the first scheduled debate, all eyes turn to Fran as the suspect with the most obvious motive.

Everly knows her sweet, elderly Aunt Fran couldn’t have murdered anyone, but as she struggles to find the real killer, it begins to seem like this may be the last merry Christmas her family may ever have.

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About the author
Bree Baker is a Midwestern writer, obsessed with small town high jinks, sweet tea and the sea. She’s been telling stories to her family, friends and strangers for as long as she can remember, and more often than not, those stories feature a warm ocean breeze and recipe she’s sure to ruin. Now, she’s working on those fancy cooking skills and dreaming up adventures for the Seaside Cafe mysteries. Her debut title, Live & Let Chai releases from Sourcebooks in July 2018. Bree is a member of Sisters in Crime, International Thriller Writers and the Romance Writers of America. She is represented by Jill Marsal of Marsal Lyon Literary Agency.

To learn more about Bree, visit her website at breebaker.com.

All comments are welcomed.