Coffee Blog

Mark your calendar!

Writing Sparkle

Welcome to book review six of fifty-three for this year’s virtual coffee shares. I’ve picked books that are related to the theme here at Brewing Coffee, Twisting Words & Breaking Pencils—coffee, books, and puzzles.

Death by Tea
Author Alex Erickson
Published in November 2015
Publisher is Kensington
Available in eBook, Audio, and Mass Market (320 pages)
Amateur Sleuth | Private Investigator Mysteries (Books)| Supernatural Mysteries

Have you ever heard of a book club competition? This is the driving force in book two of the Bookstore Café Mystery. Readers can enjoy Death by Tea without having read book one, but following the development of the characters between the two books is enjoyable. 

You can find my full review on Goodreads: review.

If we were having coffee, I would start by sharing the cover reveal date for my nonfiction book. Mark your calendars for March 6.

If we were having coffee, I would share how last week’s Crockpot dinner of “Pirate Stew” turned out. It was tasty, and we’d try the recipe again, but with a bit of extra sauce. This Sunday, in the Crockpot, we are cooking ham and potatoes. Keeping it nice and simple.

Pirate Stew Ingredients:

  • Ground turkey
  • Onion
  • Long grain rice
  • Diced potatoes
  • Diced celery
  • Canned kidney beans
  • Salt & pepper
  • Chilli powder
  • Worcestershire
  • Tomato sauce
  • water

If we were having coffee, I would share pictures of the jewellery box that I refinished. I’m happy with the result.

Before
After

If we were having coffee, I would share that my older son wrote a short story for a school project. He came to me and asked for help with his title. So, as I was reading his unnamed manuscript, I noted out loud the word “contaminate” was coming to mind, and that I thought we should work with that for his title. I continued reading. He interrupted me a few minutes later and said, “I’m going to call it The Lake of Tainted Secrets.” I like this title a lot and feel proud of how quickly he came up with it; titles have required a lot of practice for me. His story—mystery and horror—was entertaining to read as well.

Well, that’s my coffee news this week. Here is the coffee bean grinder. How was your week?

By Shari Marshall – 2025

17 thoughts on “Mark your calendar!”

    1. Thank you, Joanne. And, yes, Death by Tea is a cute read. I’d recommend it. It is book two, but you could probably read it and be satisfied even if you haven’t read Death by Coffee.

      Happy Saturday.

      Like

  4. My WIP has been sitting idle for over a year, but I did four drafts. The title? “No Working Title”. lol. I often do the title very early, but nothing has come to mind after four drafts! Glad your son was able to get that title with so little prompting.

    I hope you are enjoying your weekend and that you have a wonderful week 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

      1. We do. I often make a throw away working title very early to try to avoid the stress. That working title turns out to be the end title about 75% of the time. With this I can’t even come up with a good working title.

        Liked by 1 person

  5. Congratulations on your book cover! So very exciting! Your simple ham and potatoes meal sounds lovely, there’s nothing quite like comfort food that isn’t complicated 🙂 Hope you’re enjoying a wonderful weekend!

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Hello, Melissa. I don’t think we’ve shared a virtual coffee in a while. How are you?

      Ham and potatoes are totally comfort food; I hadn’t thought about that. It’s perfect for a lazy Sunday plan.

      Happy Saturday.

      Liked by 1 person

  6. Yay for your book cover, your son, and your refinished jewelry boxes! It sounds like you’ve had a great week!

    We went on a soup crawl today! We got to go to 12 local businesses where each one served us some soup. Delicious!

    Liked by 1 person

Comments are closed.