Customer Reviews

Death by Darjeeling

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This book just BLITHERS on and on. The author clearly knows far less about tea and the world of tea shops than she thinks she does - most of the brewing commentary would render you something more fit for the compost bin than the tea table - and the financial situations she creates for the tea related characters are overwhelmingly implausible. I found the book just about impossible to finish because there is nothing about the characters that makes them either plausible or interesting. The "plot" is also rather dismal.
In summary: if you want a good book tea, read one of the fabulous FACTUAL histories of the brew. If you want a good mystery, try Allingham, Christie, Churchill or Dahiem.

What can I say but that I absolutely loved this book. Everything about it just got me so wrapped up in Theo's Indigo Tea Shop and the mystery itself was intriguing in its' own little way I had to read this from cover to cover. Everything about it was just so "cozy". I loved the different descriptions about tea, and being a tea lover myself am now in the look out for new teas to try. Aside from the wonderful tea descriptions and the desserts that went along with it, the mystery was a fun read. Nothing too flashy and sensational. However there were proper moments of suspense and intrigue which kept the reader going and more engrossed to keep reading some more.

I loved the characters in the book. The suspects were believable and each had a motive for murder. I liked Theo and her staff at the tea shop who supported her through her investigation. They were all likable characters (although I found Drayton to be a particular favorite as he was the actual tea connoisseur). As for the real murderer and the solving of the case, I thought I had guessed correctly but I was blindsided and it wasn't who I expected it to be. There were a couple of questions I would like to have answered but I figured they would wait until the next book or two to see what would happen to certain characters I'm curious about. Plot flow was good and interesting. Nothing distracting to take away from the main theme. Theo is a great strong character and her determination to solve this case and save the reputation of her business and friend makes her even more likeable and noble.

Overall a wonderful mystery cozy! this will definitely be a series I will continue reading. I recommend this for cozy mystery lovers and tea aficionados alike.

Only after buying four novels in the series and finding them truly awful did I read the Amazon reader reviews. Note to self: read the reviews first.

This book (along with the others) is poorly written, with clumsy plotting and ridden with cliches. Many other reviewers have pointed out its manifold weaknesses.

The author has borrowed stock characters from many popular cozies, notably the main character, a single woman who has left the rat race for a girly business. She lets the business dominate the story, telling me much more about tea than I ever wanted to know, while stuffing her thin, gorgeous characters with rich pastries.

The best character is the dog.

I really enjoyed DEATH BY DARJEELING by Laura Childs. It is the first of four "tea mystery" series that is set in Charleston.

In this first novel, apparently there are a few facts about Charleston and tea that were not prestinely correct. I didn't notice them and I am sure that Laura Childs has an excellent research team in place now. The point is that her book made me want to go to Charleston and made me quite interested in learning more about teas!

Her characters are great and the plots are very in depth. I hope that more readers will give this series a chance - I really enjoyed it.

A very enjoyable beginning to a series that may have promise, but work needs to be done on the author's style and plot construction. After a satisfying number of red herrings, the true killer came out of left field -- a violation of my cardinal principle in evaluating mysteries: if I can't read the book a second time and find all the clues that pointed to the real killer, the author wasn't playing fair. On this ground, Childs is guilty of mystery writer's crime no. 1: inadequate clues pointing to the villain. The poison was never identified for the reader, so there was no ability to connect it to the perpetrator.

I found the descriptions of Charleston and the intricacies of a Tea Shop fascinating, but I agree that Theodosia Browning, the lead character, seemed more like a woman in her 50s (or from the 50s!) than a current thirtysomething. The supporting characters were well drawn -- I enjoyed them all. Here's hoping for better plotting as the series proceeds.

This series is entertaining in its way, but a little odd. I would have found it slightly less rough going if Theodosia Browning was in her sixties, rather than her thirties, as it's hard to believe she's a fairly young woman, judging from her rather proper and formal behavior and speech. Still, I enjoyed the coziness of the setting, being an avid tea lover. The series grew on me, once I got used to the old-fashioned way it seems to have been written. Was a bit like a time warp, as if it had been written in the 1950s. Worth checking out though, if you love tea and comfort scones and a light mystery.

I love mysteries, lived in Charleston for six years, and am a card carrying member of the Counter-Coffee Tea Revolution, so I was thrilled to discover this book. For about three pages.

I found it boring, badly written, and apparently unedited. (If it were edited, then the editor who allowed the sentence, "Ever the social butterfly and fashion maven, Samantha was fetchingly attired in a flouncy cream-colored silk skirt and pale peach cashmere sweater, generously scooped in front to reveal her matching peach skin and ample endowments," should look for a new vocation.) Ms. Childs is long on description, addicted to adjectives, and frequently includes digressions on tea that rival Melville's on whaling in Moby Dick.

It was useful to learn, however, that I've been oversteeping Darjeeling for years.

A delightful book with interesting characters. I loved the historical information on Charleston which the author captures and paints vividly for the reader. The characters are real, my favorite is Earl Grey, the dog. The book is also infused with tea information that will please the avid tea drinker and inform a novice tea drinker. This book would be a perfect read on a rainy or cold day, curled up with a cup of tea of course! I look forward to reading the rest of the books in the Tea Shop series.

First of all this book is set in Charleston, SC. The author takes great care to overpopulate this book with references to geographic locations in and around Charleston. There are many needless references to street names, suburbs, etc. which to me (as a non-Charlestonian) are just items to blip over. This was done to excess and distracted me from a lot of the story, which I ended up basically skimming through.

The second thing that distracted me was the constant barrage of product placement (although I don't know if authors are actually paid for this kind of stuff the way movie producers are). (Janet Evanovich is guilty of this, too.) The character Drayton uses a Mont Blanc pen. Theodosia drives a Jeep Cherokee, has a Scooby Doo cookie jar, wears Tod loafers (although it's misspelled in the book as Todd), and so forth. None of this is germane to the story line. This therefore is a bit glaring.

Lastly, the author is quite intent on explaining things to her readers. It is highly possible (and perfectly acceptable) that many tea-related things are explained in detail to the reader, since tea is the main focus of the book. I know a lot about tea, but there were still some explanations that I needed. Some on the other hand were a bit tedious. Where the writing really grates, though, is where the author introduces a concept and then proceeds to explain it all to us. Here is an example. Theodosia and Drayton are making spaghetti carbonara, which is a rich creamy-sauced spaghetti. Drayton is worried about the cholesterol content, and Theodosia explains that the wine will help counteract that. "'You mean like the French paradox,' said Drayton. He was making reference to the staple diet in France that consists of bread, rich cheeses, eggs, cream and lots of chocolate desserts. Yet, because of their almost daily consumption of wine, the French have an extremely low incidence of heart disease." Everything in the quote marks is totally dispensable and adds nothing to the story. I suggest that most readers would be able to understand the wine/cream sauce reference without a whole paragraph devoted to explaining it. There are lots of these throughout the book. Distracting and irritating.

That's why I only gave it two stars. The story is entertaining in a typical murder mystery way, and the characters are developed enough that you don't see a clear "bad guy" or "good guy" for most of it - although the characters aren't really people I ended up caring about (perhaps because I skimmed so much). Still, I bought three in this series at once, so I will probably end up reading all three. Perhaps Childs has dropped some of these annoyances in subsequent books.

Death by Darjeeling is a terrific cozy. Quirky characters, lots of mysterious goings-ons, and plenty of tea lore. Charleston locales are lovingly described and the shops and homes in the historic district sound truly spectacular. I stumbled upon this in the bookstore, was drawn in by the cover, and became firmly engaged in the mystery. It's well-written and had just enough red herrings to keep me guessing.