#authorguestpost ~ Vanilla Chai and A Vanishing Victim by Victoria Tait @VATaitAuthor @dollycas @blogtour

About Vanilla Chai and A Vanishing Victim

Vanilla Chai and A Vanishing Victim: A British Cozy Murder Mystery with a Female Sleuth (A Waterwheel Cafe Mystery)
Cozy Mystery
3rd in Series
Setting – Cotswold, England
Kanga Press (January 5, 2024)
Number of Pages c. 240
Digital ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0C4V4CCGT

A missing child. A half-baked ransom demand. Can a community cop sift through clues and rescue the tot before teatime?

Sergeant Keya Varma’s culinary dreams come true as she joyfully opens her own café. And attending her sister’s wedding is the cherry on the cake. But her excitement sinks like a souffle when a customer’s little boy disappears.

Shaken as well as stirred into action, the part-time police officer joins the search, but she’s shattered when even a ransom payment doesn’t bring the rug rat back home.

For Keya, justice is served with a side of scones, but can she save the child before the clotted cream turns sour?

Indulge in the Waterwheel Café cozy mystery series, where Keya Varma mixes crime with coffee and crêpes. If you crave appetising characters, a dash of humour, and a dollop of English charm, you’ll devour Victoria Tait’s delicious tale.

Bake your way into intrigue with Vanilla Chai and a Vanishing Victim today!

About Victoria Tait

Victoria Tait was born and raised in Yorkshire, England. After following her military husband around the world, she drew on her life’s experiences, and a love of Agatha Christie, Father Brown, and Murder She Wrote, to write British based cozy mysteries.

Her determined female sleuths are joined by colourful and quirky teams of helpers, and her settings are vivid and realistic. As you’re compelled to keep turning the pages, you’ll be irresistibly drawn into a world where you’ll experience surprises, humour and sometimes, a tug on your heartstrings.

Do you like tea, mysteries, and books? Then why not join Victoria’s TeaCozy Club for regular news and updates, and download the free prequel to the Dotty Sayers Antique Mysteries series as a gift by visiting VictoriaTait.com

Who doesn’t like tea, cake, and a slice of murder!

Author Links

Website: https://victoriatait.com/

Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/victoria-tait

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/victoriataitauthor/

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/VictoriaTaitAuthor/_saved/

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/20373879.Victoria_Tait

Purchase Links – Books2Read Amazon

Victoria’s Guest Post

Vanilla Chai and A Vanishing Victim – Author Post

Inspiration and Thoughts Behind This Book

I was working my way through all episodes of Castle earlier this year when one in particular struck me, stayed with me, and became the basis of this story.

It involved the kidnapping of a child, the dynamics of the child’s parents and ultimately the reasons behind the abduction, which I won’t share, as I don’t want to give away any spoiler alerts for my book.

I think the episode resonated with me because of the situation with the parents, in particular the mother, and reflected many of the thoughts and struggles I’ve had, and continue to face.

Most girls are lucky in first-world countries to receive an education on a par with boys. Indeed, on a recent tour of Oxford University, we were told that although female students were only admitted in 1920, so just over a century ago, over half the students are now women and the percentage is likely to increase.

But those women will continue to face one of the hardest choices of their lives. To have or not to have children? And if they choose to, do they continue working, or stop to take care of their children, or try to do a combination of both?

There is no right answer, and I think most mothers agonise in some way over the choice they made. I know I do. My situation was compounded by marrying into the military and agreeing to move with my husband.

This has taken me to places I’d never imagined living in, including Inverness in the north of Scotland, Kenya, and Sarajevo in Bosnia and Herzegovina. These have all been fantastic, although at times challenging, experiences.

But it has come at the cost of my financial independence and my reliance on my husband and the military, not only for money for food and supplies but for the roof over my head and the education of our children. In the military, wives of serving personnel, and indeed husbands too, are designated as ‘dependents’.

Whilst much is still expected of us, like traveling to collect our children from boarding school when based abroad, we are not allowed to arrange that travel. During Covid-19, this was particularly trying and stressful.

At one stage, we were not even allowed to call the military services for house repairs. This did change when, during the Afghanistan conflict, our husbands were away more than they were at home.

Women as mothers will have to continue balancing working, financial independence, and their career aspirations, with being the primary caregivers for their children and running the family home.

If they prioritize work, do they miss out on their children growing up and will they regret it in the future? If they choose their children, will they become financially dependent on their husbands, and what happens if they are unhappy, or even abused, in their marriages, or after ten, fifteen, or even twenty years of marriage, their husbands leave them for someone else?

These were the questions and considerations I thought through as I wrote this book and I still haven’t arrived at the perfect answer.

I think it will be easier if the husbands and fathers of the future share the caregiver role and take on an equal burden of the housekeeping duties. And why shouldn’t they? What is it that says a woman has to cook and a man doesn’t?

It is something I am trying to teach my boys, as well as respect for women and to see them as equal partners in a relationship and the workplace, but I have no idea if the stereotypes, expectations, and conventions of society will continue to expect women to ‘do it all’.

I hope you take these points into account as you read Vanilla Chai and a Vanishing Victim and you don’t judge the characters too harshly for their actions.

TOUR PARTICIPANTS

January 8 – Christy’s Cozy Corners – REVIEW, CHARACTER GUEST POST

January 8 – Maureen’s Musings – SPOTLIGHT

January 9 – Mystery, Thrillers, and Suspense – AUTHOR GUEST POST

January 9 – Guatemala Paula Loves to Read -REVIEW

January 10 – Literary Gold – AUTHOR INTERVIEW

January 10 – #BRVL Book Review Virginia Lee – SPOTLIGHT

January 11 – Ascroft, eh? – CHARACTER INTERVIEW

January 11 – Sapphyria’s Book Reviews – SPOTLIGHT

January 12 – Book Club Librarian – REVIEW*

January 13 – Eskimo Princess Book Reviews – RECIPE POST

January 13 – FUONLYKNEW – SPOTLIGHT