Why I Wrote The Deadly Tea by Rachel Dacus
At age twelve I wrote my first novel. After reading too many Nancy Drew books, I felt confident I could write a mystery, and I knew it was my destiny to be a novelist. The Prisoner of the Locked Room – all 100 pages! – featured not one girl detective, but two, twin girls. But after that, I never wrote another mystery until I got the idea for The Deadly Tea, my eighth novel.
It began by my wanting to explore one of my favorite characters from The Invisibles, Book 1. Saffron Greene Shelley was arguably the most self-conflicted character in that first story of the Greene sisters. Where Elinor was confidently judgmental and buttoned-up, Saffron was vulnerable, messy, and daring, and she spoke to invisibles, recently departed spirits looking for a way forward.
Her most notable spirit was that of 19th century English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, who was stuck in a house Saffron and Elinor inherited in Italy. Saffron wound up meeting and marrying his descendant, Michael Shelley, and they moved to London where they had two children.
Saffron has a gift of empathy and insight and is psychic in a very specific way, a counselor for souls having difficulty knowing what comes next in the adventure of living, which continues. I’ve lost a number of family members and friends, and so grief has been my companion at times, and I consoled myself by thinking about how I believe life is continuous, with lifetime after lifetime of experience of love and how to be the love we seek.
Once I had the idea that Saffron might have to help a spirit who has been murdered and wants justice, I knew I had a story to tell, with characters who had growth challenges. Saffron’s arc of self-discovery had spanned the self-absorption of a confused young woman who tends to leave wreckage behind, to her becoming a self-aware and giving mother of young children and the center of an extended family. Balancing all that with her psychic gift enables Saffron to aid souls having difficulties in their afterlife.
Saffron, who has no particular skills for it, is asked to solve the murder of her newest invisible. He won’t move forward until she figures out who killed him. It was an irresistible combination, my most intriguing character.
People often ask me about what makes a cozy mystery, as apart from crime fiction and other forms? Violence and explicit content occur offstage in these stories, keeping the focus on puzzle-solving and the characters and their interactions. The amateur detective is often reluctant to investigate, and the story is told with a light or humorous tone.
At first glance, the words “cozy” and “mystery” sound like a contradiction. What can be cozy about a mysterious event? Spooky, chill-inducing, scary—those are words I would associate with murder mysteries, until I began reading the kind that often featured women sleuths and cats, dogs, and knitting. Stories that put the cozy in the chilling.
When is a mysterious murder ever easy to read about? Authors inspired by the likes of Agatha Christie have evolved a new art of mystery storytelling, a way of setting the deadly deeds in gentle circumstances, suburbs, bookstores, seashores, pleasant inns, so that you can read the book and still sleep well.
Authors like Ellery Adams and Richard Osman have made main characters compelling, quirky, and relatable. No more Hercule Poirot exoticism, no more genius-level sleuthing via “the little gray cells.” Now we have solving murders and women who knit chasing serial killers.
In cozies, something sinister does lurk beneath the quotidian, but great emphasis is on the ordinary surface of life, and the daily comforts that get us through the day. The main character may pursue other interesting activities besides solving murders, such as costuming amateur theatricals or running a bakery.
Christie was the master of hiding evil beneath a genteel surface, and of course her Miss Marple series invented the amateur sleuth. But these days, cozy mysteries take a much more benign approach, less sinister in their view of human nature. The murderer is an anomaly. Cozy settings like a florist shop or café for the amateur sleuths figuring out murders as a sideline are a booming business.
What’s different about my cozy mystery? One big difference is that the victim doesn’t usually steer the investigation into his own murder. I enjoyed combining my series The Invisibles and the psychic character Saffron Greene with the idea of solving a mystery.
Once I decided that the troublesome spirit of the murder victim would be a featured character, I was off to the races! The story was fun to write, though puzzles and setting up the suspense for the reader isn’t easy. But I enjoyed it so much I’m contemplating a new cozy mystery story taking these characters forward.
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Rachel Dacus is the author of eight novels and five poetry collections. Her most recent novel, The Deadly Tea, was published in 2026. Her poetry and prose has appeared widely in print and online, including in Boulevard, Gargoyle, Prairie Schooner, and Image: Art, Faith, and Mystery. She lives and writes in the San Francisco Bay Area. More on her website www.racheldacus.net.
THE DEADLY TEA
Most amateur sleuths don’t have the advantage of talking to the murder victim for clues. Saffron’s invisible spirits come for counseling, but this one has revenge on his mind.
In the charming heart of London’s Notting Hill, a young mother juggles her lively toddlers, running her animal welfare foundation, and counseling recently deceased spirits—the invisibles. A happy, normal life that’s upended when Saffron’s newest spirit insists she solve the mystery of his untimely death. Lucas Troy claims he was killed at his aunt’s tea party and demands Saffron find out the culprit and ensure he gets justice. But her job as a psychic counselor isn’t solving mysteries, but to help invisibles adjust to their situation and while they’re in the invisible waiting room plan for their future lives. She tries to explain the facts of the afterlife and get Lucas moving in the right direction, but he stubbornly refuses to go forward until she agrees to interview the people at the tea party where he died.
She reluctantly agrees, but makes him promise he’ll move on, no matter what she finds out. As she calls on members of the tea party and gets closer to a possible killer, Saffron and her family find themselves in mortal danger. Saffron has no wish to join Lucas in The Room Over There.
Settle in for a lighthearted mystery set in the charming neighborhood of Notting Hill, with a supernatural adventure and lots of bread baking between clues. Perfect for fans of Richard Osman and Naomi Kuttner.
“Interesting characters, intriguing mystery.”
The Deadly Tea is available in ebook and paperback on Amazon. https://bit.ly/4oqdXqU
Category: On Writing
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