Tea? Coffee? Murder! - Mannequins and Mischief

Winter has Earlsraven firmly in its grip, but Nathalie and Louise are so busy they barely notice the cold - until a body is discovered beneath the ice of a frozen lake. The shock quickly fades when the supposed corpse turns out to be nothing more than a shop mannequin. But when another mannequin is found in the woodland of Hunter’s Grove, the discovery no longer seems like a harmless prank. Then the bartender of the Black Feather recalls a similar case from his childhood in Sheffield, where mannequins were found in a lake until eventually a real body surfaced. Now Nathalie and Louise fear the worst. Because the next body pulled from the water might not be made of plastic ...

About the series: Cottages, English roses and rolling hills: that’s Earlsraven. In the middle of it all: the "Black Feather”. Not only does young Nathalie Ames unexpectedly inherit this cosy inn from her aunt, she also falls heir to her aunt’s secret double life! She solved criminal cases together with her cook Louise, a former agent of the British Crown. And while Nathalie is still trying to warm up to the quirky villagers, she discovers that sleuthing runs in the family.

Ellen Barksdale was born in the English seaside resort of Brighton, where her parents ran a small boarding house. From childhood she was a bookworm, and from a young age was interested in crime novels. Her first experience of crime fiction was with the Maigret novels by Georges Simenon. After years of reading crime fiction, she recently decided to take up writing herself. "Tea? Coffee? Murder!” is her first mystery series. The author lives near Swansea with her partner Ian and their three mongrels Billy, Bobby and Libby.