Bernadette Murphy.
Remember the name. You’ll be hearing it again.
Or maybe Bernie Murphy would be better, Bernadette is a mite formal. Or how about the gender-neutral B.R. Murphy? Maybe a pen name: I thought of Louise Penny, but I think that’s taken.
Then again, it’s increasingly looking as though no matter what name I put on my novel, you will not read it. Or anything else by me. And my name will sink into oblivion.
This writing gig isn’t turning out to be as easy as I thought it would. Maybe I didn’t realize how much work is involved in creating 80 – 100,000 words. Not just words but meaningful, emotional, thought-provoking, inspiring, life-affirming words, not to mention words of action and suspense and danger, even love and friendship. All of them historically accurate to boot.
I wrote two short stories that were published in highly recognized literary magazines. You know the sort of magazine – the ones that have more people submitting stories than paid subscribers. My stories were very well received, praised even. I was nominated for a couple of prestigious awards, not that I won, but it was an honor to be nominated. Right? Right?
And so, with dreams of becoming a best-selling novelist, I quit my job, cashed in my savings, rented out my Manhattan apartment, and moved to Cape Cod in search of the peace, quiet, and serenity I needed to complete my opus.
Ha.
I thought it would be nice to get a place near my closest friend, Lily Roberts, who recently moved to the Cape to open her own tearoom and help out at her grandmother’s B&B. But somehow life near Lily and Rose has been anything but peaceful, quiet, or serene.
Things happen at Tea by the Sea or at Victoria-on-Sea and Lily and Rose just have to get involved. Okay, to be fair, I bear some responsibility for Lily getting involved. She’d rather just leave it all up to the police and bake her scones.
So the book isn’t getting finished in the time I allotted, which admittedly might have something to do with the fact that I have so many great ideas it’s hard to concentrate on one. My money is running out. I might have to find a – gasp – job. I’m a forensic accountant by profession, not a lot of demand for that in North Augusta, Massachusetts. I will modestly admit I’m a mighty good computer hacker, and there’s never a demand for that. Not legally anyway.
However, those skills can come in handy on occasion, when I need to help Rose and Lily solve mysteries that happen around them. (Okay, me encouraging Lily to solve…). For example, there’s something mighty shady about that supposed ghost- hunting bunch that are staying in the B&B right now. For one thing, they seem almost comically inept. They are, in fact, in the wrong house.
Victoria-on-Sea isn’t haunted. At least, not according to local lore. Although you never can be quite sure.
BUBBLE, BUBBLE, TEA AND TROUBLE
Series: A Tea by the Sea Mystery, Book 7
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Release: July 2026
Format: Print, Digital, Audio
Purchase Link
When Cape Cod tearoom owner Lily Roberts finds a group conducting a séance in her grandmother’s Victorian B&B, she has no idea the trouble that’s about to be conjured up . . .
When Lily stumbles across five middle-aged women gathered in a dark corner of the tearoom for a “book club,” she firmly reminds them that the inn’s no-smoking policy also applies to their oddly ritualistic candles. As they head outside, Lily overhears them chalking their bad luck up to the absence of their leader, Katya. Whatever they’re doing, it certainly isn’t reading—and their cover is starting to sound like weak tea . . .
While they enjoy Lily’s homemade banana bread the next morning, they make their intentions clear—grilling Lily about any past paranormal activity in the cliffside mansion. Their attempts to contact spirits have been falling flat, it seems, and the mysterious Katya is catching the heat. Levelheaded Lily thinks the real reason is that there’s no such thing as ghosts.
But Lily’s pal Bernie has found another explanation: the half-baked spirit-seekers have the wrong house. The haunted reputation belongs to the place next door—where Lily’s gardener boyfriend is currently staying. But before they can inform the luckless ladies, the missing medium shows up—dead on the rocks at the bottom of the cliff. Now, Lily has two jobs: serving afternoon tea, and solving a murder before someone else gets sent to the great beyond . . .
About the author
Vicki Delany is one of Canada’s most prolific and varied crime writers and a national bestseller in the U.S. She has written more than sixty books: clever cozies to Gothic thrillers to gritty police procedurals, to historical fiction and novellas for adult literacy. She is currently writing the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop series, the Year-Round Christmas mysteries, the Tea by the Sea books, and the Lighthouse Library series (as Eva Gates).
She is a past chair of the Crime Writers of Canada and co-founder and organizer of the Women Killing It Crime Writing Festival. She is the recipient of the 2019 Derrick Murdoch Award for contributions to Canadian crime writing, and will be the Cozy Guest of Honor at Bouchercon in Calgary in 2026. Vicki lives in Prince Edward County, Ontario.