Theodosia and her partner Drayton run a tea shop and have solved a lot of mysteries up to this point. The volume revolves around a skull cup purportedly made out of Blackbeard's skull which is owned by the Heritage Society. It is stolen while on display and a young intern is murdered. The cup also is rumored to contain clues to a buried treasure. Theo continually sticks her nose in and acts like a PI or detective rather than an ordinary citizen and people respond to her questioning that way. Not believable. There are logistic questions that seem improbable (ie the number of things and places one person can be in one day). I have not read the series in order, just 3 entries over time and I find myself feeling blah about looking for any others. ( )

I have read other books in this series, including some later in the series--I've been going back to read the ones I missed along the way.

So here we are at book 12. Theodosia (everytime Delaine says her name I imagine it being Hermione Granger's voice when she instructs Ron Weasley on the correct pronunciation of leviosa!) Anyway, Theodosia is finally in her new house. As usual, the tea shop has quite a few commitments to fulfill as well as Theodosia and Drayton having multiple social gatherings to attend. One does start to wonder how they do it all--especially since Earl Grey is no longer above the tea shop where Haley or Mrs. Dimple could take him out if needed.

The title coincides with the book a bit better than some of the previous ones: scones for the tea room and bones for the skull cup and bone beach.

I wonder why the author decided to take Theodosia's love life away from Parker Scully and to Max (well, if it does go to Max...it certainly seemed like that was the plan). We don't get much clue in this book other than both characters having busy (separate busy in most cases) lives. Parker does make an appearance at the tea shop's tea and cheese tasting--though I think he misses at least one other event he and Theodosia were supposed to do together. Theodosia doesn't seem to put his restaurant's event high in her priority list, however, and I understand Parker's disappointment in that.

The author attempted to have several different suspects who could be the thief: antique dealers, treasure hunters, collectors of pirate antiquities, historians interested in the legend, etc.

I half expected someone else to be the thief than who it was eventually revealed to be.

I was upset when Theodosia ruined Drayton's birthday gift--but then again, I half expected that too but that expectation came closer to the time it happened rather than earlier in the book like the one in my former paragraph did.

I hope that the author tones Delaine down a bit in future books though. She's getting a bit strident in this book. ( )

Delaine and Nadine are getting extremely annoying as characters. If, as a writer, I had those two characters roaming in my head they would be the victims in my next murder mystery. ( )

I can't believe that i am one book away from being all caught up with this series. I am having tons of fun with these characters. ( )

The newest book in the Tea Shop series was a nice little cozy excursion for the brain, but I don't think it was one of the author's best. I had figured out the culprit a few chapters before the end, and I wasn't as impressed with the ending as I have been with other books in the series. ( )