Closely Harbored Secrets

Closely Harbored Secrets is the fifth Seaside Café Mystery by Bree Baker, set in the fictional island town of Charm, North Carolina.

Everly Swan runs Sun, Sand, and Tea, an iced tea shop on the water. When her great-aunts ask her to close early to help with their annual haunted historic walking tour, she expects a night of good-natured spooks. Instead one of the actors playing a ghost is found dead, and the murder turns out to be tangled in a two-hundred-year-old secret that runs straight through Everly's own family tree.

The mystery is a cozy in the full sense: no gore, an amateur sleuth who cannot leave it alone, a small town where everyone is related to everyone, and recipes for the tea she serves. Baker writes each entry to stand on its own, though the running relationships and the town's history reward reading in order.