I wake up at the crack of dawn to a big orange lump of fur snoozing lazily with his face pressed right against mine on the pillow. I’ve never been what you might call a morning person, and the presence of a fluffy space-heater almost convinces me to stay in bed. But with everything going on right now, I know the best thing for me is to go for a run to clear my head.
Here’s the thing they don’t tell you about starting over fresh after a divorce: sometimes your husband gets to keep everything. The house, everything in it, and all your friends, because they were all his friends first.
So suddenly I’m in my mid-thirties and moving into an old Victorian mansion that belonged to my beloved – and recently deceased – aunt, and I may have no idea what I’m doing with my life, but I’ve got her business to run, and her chubby orange cat to take care of. Things could be a lot worse, I mean, my days revolve around selling books and making delicious tea blends from scratch. Not a real hardship. Even the cat is pretty cute. And keeps the bed warm.
I don my running gear and whip my hair back into a ponytail. Bob, the cat, has realized I’m awake and thinks this would be a great time to pester me for his breakfast, meowing loudly as he winds his way between my feet.
“Not a chance, buddy. You know you don’t get food until six-thirty. Otherwise you’ll be convinced you’re dying before I even get home.” I needed to be at the bakery for seven to give myself time to grab our daily pastry order and still have enough time to get my own morning cookies baking before the shop opened at eight.
Not that most people are terribly particular about things happening right on time. Raven Creek has turned out to be the ideal place to start anew. It’s the kind of place where everyone already knows my name, and they’re being so lovely and welcoming. All except batty old Dierdre Miller, the town busybody. My Aunt Eudora specifically warned me about her in her final letter to me, and now she seems a little too interested in buying Eudora’s house, no matter what it costs. There’s something very suspicious about her and her enthusiasm to snatch up my crumbly old mansion. I still can’t believe the way she almost followed me home the other day.
I take to the street, the stark chill of autumn hanging in the hair, but the sky nice and clear. Perfect weather for running. As I jog, I remind myself that Dierdre aside, there are good distractions in town as well, like my former childhood friend Ricky – no, he’s Rich now – who just so happens to be living right over my bookstore. And who grew up to be pretty darned handsome, too. Who could have seen that coming when we were twelve?
As I continue running, I barely hear the music coming through my headphones, a familiar running soundtrack that’s more about the beat than the actual songs. Turning around the corner I think about last night. The police had called to tell me there’s a dead body in the alley behind my shop, evidently killed while in the process of breaking in. And what’s worse: I recognized him. He was with irritating old Dierdre Miller just earlier that same day.
So, now I need to figure out what he wanted from my shop, and what Dierdre might have had to do with his death. And if that wasn’t enough to deal with, there’s the whole thing that happened at dinner with Rich.
That thing where I stopped time.
I had always thought the town rumors about my aunt being a witch were due to her being an older single woman who lived alone and liked to make healing teas, but that was until I started to notice something magical happening. . . to me.
I sigh and double back, returning in the direction of home. There’s a cat to feed, and Danishes waiting to be picked up. Figuring out if Dierdre is a murderer and learning what the heck is going on with my sudden abilities is just going to have to wait.
As I got through the door Bob greeted me with a dramatic yowl, announcing his imminent starvation.
“I know, buddy, I know.” I kicked off my shoes and headed towards the kitchen, a stripy orange shadow following behind.
Steeped to Death, A Witches’ Brew Mystery #1
Genre: Cozy
Release: September 2022
Purchase Link
For fans of Laura Childs and Amanda Flowers, it’s teatime in Raven Creek—but a murder at the The Earl’s Study sets the stage for an intoxicating brew of small-town chicanery with a hint of the supernatural.
Phoebe Winchester’s beloved aunt Eudora has a taste for adventure—and a knack for making magical tea. It’s even rumored that she just might be a witch. So when Eudora passes away and leaves everything to her niece—her Victorian mansion, her bookshop/tea store, The Earl’s Study, and one very chubby orange cat named Bob—Phoebe gets more than she bargained for. And she knows she’s in deep when a dead man is found on the shop’s back step, apparently killed while trying to break in.
Two suspects immediately emerge among the townspeople of Raven Creek, Washington. There’s village busybody Dierdre Miller, who seems desperate to buy Eudora’s house, and handsome PI Rich, one of Phoebe’s childhood friends—but how well does she really know him after all these years apart?
Phoebe knows she should leave it to the professionals, but as she starts to dig into the underbelly of Raven Creek, she begins to uncover the truth about Eudora. What’s more, her aunt might not have been the only witch in the family, as Phoebe soon discovers she has unique and unexpected gifts of her own.
Now, it’s just a matter of putting her newfound power to the test and cast a spell that could catch a killer.
Meet the author
Gretchen Rue lives in the Canadian prairies, which affords her ample time to read during six months of winter. She plays cat mom to four mostly indifferent fur children, and plant mom to roughly 100 very demanding flora. When she isn’t sipping tea and working on her next novel, she enjoys swimming, hiking, and watching baseball.
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