92 books like Death by Darjeeling

By Laura Childs,

Here are 92 books that Death by Darjeeling fans have personally recommended if you like Death by Darjeeling. Shepherd is a community of 11,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Hidden Treasure

Trish Esden Author Of The Art Of The Decoy

From my list on mysteries featuring antique dealers, plus a bonus.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve dealt in antiques my entire life to one degree or another. I'm currently a full time antique dealer, after retiring from owning a florist shop that also sold antiques, books, plants, and giftware. My love for dealing antiques is only matched by my passion for writing, museums, and country living. 

Trish's book list on mysteries featuring antique dealers, plus a bonus

Trish Esden Why did Trish love this book?

Hidden Treasure is the thirteenth novel in the long-running Josie Prescott Antiques Mysteries series.

This novel is a great addition to the series that features not only an antique dealing main character but shows her business growing and transforming. I specifically enjoyed this novel because the mystery is centered on an older woman who has a zest for life despite her age—and I like how Josie encourages and helps her.

The novel’s fast-paced and twisty, including one particularly surprising and fun detail near the end. I highly recommended this series to lovers of cozy as well as traditional mysteries with an antique dealer as the main character. 

By Jane K. Cleland,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Hidden Treasure as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The discovery of a mysterious antique trunk leads to a disappearance—and murder—in the latest in this beloved cozy series set on the rugged New Hampshire coast, Jane K. Cleland's Hidden Treasure.

When antiques expert Josie Prescott finds a mysterious trunk, no one thinks it could lead to murder. Josie, the owner of Prescott’s Antiques & Auctions, and her new husband, Ty, have finally found their dream home, a Victorian beauty on the beach known in the town of Rocky Point as the “Gingerbread House.” It was recently vacated by Maudie Wilson, an aging widow, whose concerned nieces have moved her…


Book cover of There's a Murder Afoot

Angela McRae Author Of Emeralds and Envy

From my list on cozy mysteries to read sipping from a vintage teacup.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a former newspaper reporter turned cozy mystery writer, tea blogger, and cookbook author. If there’s a book with tea in it, count me in. I love the beverage itself, the ritual of teatime, tea parties, collecting tea wares, and growing tea (I grow camellia sinensis at home). Of all the hobbies and passions I’ve had, exploring all things tea is the one that never gets old. And so far, I’ve managed to include at least a bit of tea in every book I’ve written. 


Angela's book list on cozy mysteries to read sipping from a vintage teacup

Angela McRae Why did Angela love this book?

A Sherlock Holmes–themed bookshop located at 222 Baker Street in West London, Massachusetts, with an adjoining tea shop. That’s really all I need to say, isn’t it? But in this particular book in the series, our heroine, Gemma Doyle, heads across the pond to attend a Sherlock Holmes conference, and there were so many cups of tea being brewed that I couldn’t help grinning at how it seems to be the cure for every British ailment. 

By Vicki Delany,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked There's a Murder Afoot as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Just in time for Sherlock Holmes's 166th birthday, the fifth installment in national bestselling author Vicki Delany's Sherlock Holmes Bookshop mystery takes Sherlockania to the max with a Holmes convention and historic 221 Baker Street.

Gemma Doyle and her friends travel to London for a Sherlock Holmes convention--but will Gemma's father take the fall for a felonious forger's fatality?

The 6th of January is Sherlock Holmes's birthday, and lucky for Gemma Doyle, January is also the slowest time of the year at both the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop and Emporium, and Mrs. Hudson's Tea Room. It's a good time for Gemma…


Book cover of No Good Tea Goes Unpunished

Angela McRae Author Of Emeralds and Envy

From my list on cozy mysteries to read sipping from a vintage teacup.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a former newspaper reporter turned cozy mystery writer, tea blogger, and cookbook author. If there’s a book with tea in it, count me in. I love the beverage itself, the ritual of teatime, tea parties, collecting tea wares, and growing tea (I grow camellia sinensis at home). Of all the hobbies and passions I’ve had, exploring all things tea is the one that never gets old. And so far, I’ve managed to include at least a bit of tea in every book I’ve written. 


Angela's book list on cozy mysteries to read sipping from a vintage teacup

Angela McRae Why did Angela love this book?

In her Seaside Café Mysteries, Bree Baker has conjured a thoroughly modern tea shop with Surf, Sand, and Tea, a business located in an old Victorian home on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Everly Swan (fun name!) has lots of varieties of iced tea on offer, and two elderly aunts bring some well-plotted family history into the mix. This series gives a modern-day spin to the tearoom enterprise, and this seven-book series ended far too soon for my taste.

By Bree Baker,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked No Good Tea Goes Unpunished as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In the second book of the popular Seaside Café Mysteries, No Good Tea Goes Unpunished, Everly Swan caters a high-profile beach wedding where the groom doesn't make it to the altar before the wedding bells ring.

Hitting All the sweet-tea spots, this series is:

A delightful Tea Shop and Café Culinary Mystery

The ideal cozy beach read

Perfect for fans of Laura Childs and Kate Carlisle

Catering her childhood friend's beachfront wedding was a dream come true for Sun, Sand and Tea Shop and Café owner Everly Swan—and the hundreds of guests in attendance would be great exposure for her…


Book cover of A Scone To Die For

K.E. O'Connor Author Of Cream Caramel and Murder

From my list on involving muffins and murder.

Why am I passionate about this?

My degree in archaeology taught me life is a giant puzzle. People leave behind fragments, giving hints but never definitive answers. My deductive skills when piecing together broken pottery or looking at renderings of hominid skulls to determine how they lived, evolved my desire to write mysteries. One of the many things I love about cozy mysteries is that everything looks peaceful on the outside, but like real life, you barely need to scratch the surface before you discover dark deeds and secrets. And who doesn’t enjoy that?

K.E.'s book list on involving muffins and murder

K.E. O'Connor Why did K.E. love this book?

The characters make this book fabulous – the Old Biddies are a hoot with their less than subtle comments and snooping. And Gemma’s tea room is divine, set against a charming Oxford backdrop. And there’s a delightful, plump, adorable cat. Muesli is a fluffy angel with a naughty side.

Funny, clever, and the scenes in the café will have you craving a slice of dessert to go with your murder.

By H.Y. Hanna,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked A Scone To Die For as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

“They say you have to make sacrifices to follow your dreams. I just didn’t expect the sacrifices to involve an American tourist and a killer scone.” ~ Gemma ditches her high-flying job and returns to Oxford to pursue her dream of opening a traditional English tearoom. It means giving up her savings, moving back with her parents and coping with her bossy, matchmaking mother, but she’s sure it will all be worth it. In fact, business is already booming… that is, until she opens up shop and finds an American tourist murdered by one of her signature scones!

Now Gemma…


Book cover of Perfect

Pankaj Giri Author Of The Fragile Thread of Hope

From my list on contemporary fiction that bring tears to your eyes.

Why am I passionate about this?

As an Indian writer of contemporary fiction revolving around family, relationships, emotions, and hope, I am constantly on the lookout for similar novels to take inspiration from them and learn how to build beautiful, well-etched characters and portray heart-wrenching emotions. I love books that make me cry as they give me a fulfillment like nothing else. I love characters that are likable and make me feel a strong connection with them. And I like to write similar characters in my books as well. The readers of my novel The Fragile Thread of Hope have corroborated the same. I live in Gangtok, a hill station in northeast India.

Pankaj's book list on contemporary fiction that bring tears to your eyes

Pankaj Giri Why did Pankaj love this book?

Based in Darjeeling, my maternal home, Perfect is the story of a fatherless young man Gideon as he wrestles with self-doubt and a dark past as he makes his way into adulthood. It is a beautiful coming-of-age story narrating his special bond with an enigmatic girl Lakisha and his complicated relationship with his father. Highly underrated, extremely moving, and filled with doses of inspiration, this story from the gorgeous hills of Darjeeling will remain with me for a long time.

By Eunice Nirja,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Perfect as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

There are people who strike the right chords in our lives and make our hearts sing.' Living has been all about hiding away and pretentions for Gideon who has always preferred being alone. However when he joins college he comes across people of all sorts and he begins to realise that life may be a sum total of little miracles after all. As he matures and begins to open up he discovers that he is not far from the healing he has always been in search of.


Book cover of Tea: A History of the Drink That Changed the World

Jane Pettigrew Author Of Jane Pettigrew's World of Tea: Discovering Producing Regions and Their Teas

From my list on tea and tea history.

Why am I passionate about this?

I fell into the world of tea by chance in the 1980s when I gave up a career in higher education to open a 1930s style tearoom in southwest London. I grew up in the 1950s in a typical British family that drank tea throughout the day but little did I know, as I baked endless supplies of scones and cakes for the tearoom at 4 am every day, that I would end up writing books and magazine articles, editing a tea magazine for the UK Tea Council, speaking at world tea conferences, training staff in hotels, travelling to almost every major tea producing country, and eventually working today as Director of Studies at the UK Tea Academy.

Jane's book list on tea and tea history

Jane Pettigrew Why did Jane love this book?

John Griffiths has a talent for bringing history to life so that we are carried along by his storytelling and fluid narrative. We imagine ourselves right there with the characters he describes – the British East India Company and their opium trade with China; the spies and adventurers who brought tales of tea to the west; the merchants who encouraged the trade; and the botanists, politicians, government officials and pioneers planters who risked so much to establish the tea industry in India. Griffiths immerses us is every aspect of the business from its 16th-century beginnings to the famous companies of the 20th century, and along the way, dips into all that lies behind the story of success. Enlightening and fascinating!

By John Griffiths,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Tea as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Tea is a phenomenon that has changed the attitudes of one nation to another, exposed divisions of class and race, ossified social behaviour, shaped the ethics of business, influenced relations between management and labour and led to significant advances in medicine. "Tea" is a comprehensive study of a drink that is imbibed daily by over half the population of the world, looking at the phenomenon as well as the commodity - from 2,500 AD to the present day. Following on from the success of books such as Cod, Tobacco and Salt, "Tea" takes a well-researched and fascinating approach to the…


Book cover of For All the Tea in China: Espionage, Empire, and the Secret Formula for the World's Favourite Drink

Annie Murray Author Of Letter from a Tea Garden

From my list on India under the Raj that are not about princesses.

Why am I passionate about this?

Abi Oliver is a pen name as my real name is Annie Murray—I write under both names. My first book, A New Map of Love, set in the 1960s, featured an older woman who had been born in India. She developed into such a character—a bit of an old trout to be truthful—that I wanted to tell her story. It also tapped into my family’s many connections with India and the fact that I have travelled a lot there. I finally got to travel, with my oldest daughter, and stay in one of the tea gardens in Assam—a wonderful experience.

Annie's book list on India under the Raj that are not about princesses

Annie Murray Why did Annie love this book?

I am a total tea-head, so any book about the history of how we all came to be addicts is a good start. This one is particularly gripping and reads like an adventure novel. Robert Fortune, a Scottish botanist, and industrial spy, was employed by the East India Company in 1848 to be smuggled into China and steal their tea-growing secrets. The book never flags, full of information about the opium wars, the Chelsea Physic garden and how the tea, later found to grow naturally in India, was made into a consumer product garnering enormous profits. As I grew up with a family member who disappeared to work in Assam tea gardens just before I was born, I have always been fascinated by this way of life.

By Sarah Rose,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked For All the Tea in China as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Robert Fortune was a Scottish gardener, botanist, plant hunter - and industrial spy. In 1848, the East India Company engaged him to make a clandestine trip into the interior of China - territory forbidden to foreigners - to steal the closely guarded secrets of tea.

For centuries, China had been the world's sole tea manufacturer. Britain purchased this fuel for its Empire by trading opium to the Chinese - a poisonous relationship Britain fought two destructive wars to sustain. The East India Company had profited lavishly as the middleman, but now it was sinking, having lost its monopoly to trade…


Book cover of Days and Nights in Calcutta

Peggy Payne Author Of Sister India

From my list on sensuous literature of India.

Why am I passionate about this?

About thirty years ago, I spent three months on an Indo-American Fellowship in Varanasi taking notes on daily life in this holy city where my novel Sister India is set. That winter felt like a separate life within my life, a bonus. Because all there was so new to me, and it was unmediated by cars, television, or computers, I felt while I was there so much more in touch with the physical world, what in any given moment I could see, hear, smell…. It was the way I had felt as a child, knowing close-up particular trees and shrubs, the pattern of cracks in a sidewalk.

Peggy's book list on sensuous literature of India

Peggy Payne Why did Peggy love this book?

Days and Nights in Calcutta is a fascinating dual view of the same time and place by a husband and wife, both highly esteemed writers. The couple has returned to her family home in the famously complex and crowded Indian city and this is the account-in-two-voices of their year there. His feels full of wonder and surprise; it has a sunlit quality. Hers feels full of intensity and concern; it is tightly wrought. The book shows me not just India, a place I love to see and feel, but the importance of everyone’s story and view.

By Clark Blaise, Bharati Mukherjee,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Days and Nights in Calcutta as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Book by Blaise, Clark, Mukherjee, Bharati


Book cover of Masque

Christina Baehr Author Of Wormwood Abbey

From my list on gaslamp heroines with tea and adventures.

Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up surrounded by a library of dusty vintage novels, so perhaps it wasn’t that surprising that I went on to write my own gaslamp fantasy influenced by English folklore and Victorian heroines. I love historical novels that provoke wonder, and magical novels that are rich with history, and (blame it on being an only child?) most of all I love a female protagonist I’d want to have tea with.

Christina's book list on gaslamp heroines with tea and adventures

Christina Baehr Why did Christina love this book?

Isabella Farrah is one of the funniest, most exasperating leading ladies in literature. I was surprised and delighted by this loose retelling of Beauty and the Beast with murder, cake, pretty dresses, magic, intrigue, and Isabella’s hilarious brand of ladylike mayhem.

I would probably choke on my cake laughing if I ever had tea with Isabella (and maybe she’d slip something into my tea), but it would be worth it.

By W.R. Gingell,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Masque as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"...an inventive and funny mystery with a dynamic lead, which will make you want to pick up the next book in the series." Self-Publishing Review, 4½ Stars Beauty met the Beast and there was . . . Bloody murder? It’s the Annual Ambassadorial Ball in Glause, and Lady Isabella Farrah, the daughter of New Civet’s Ambassador, is feeling pleasantly scintillated. In the library is Lord Pecus, a charming gentleman whose double mask hides a beastly face, and who has decided that Isabella is the very person to break the Pecus curse. In the ball-room is young Lord Topher, who is…


Book cover of The Book of Tea

Kevin Nute Author Of This Here Now: Japanese Building and the Architecture of the Individual

From my list on Japanese aesthetics.

Why am I passionate about this?

I've spent the last three decades thinking about Japanese aesthetics, and in particular if and how they can be meaningfully used beyond Japan. I'm the author of several books on the subject: Frank Lloyd Wright and Japan, Place Time and Being in Japanese Architecture, This Here Now: Japanese Building and the Architecture of the Individual, and most recently, The Constructed Other: Japanese Architecture in the Western Mind. I teach about Asian Pacific architecture at the University of Hawai'i, Mānoa.

Kevin's book list on Japanese aesthetics

Kevin Nute Why did Kevin love this book?

Okakura links Taoist and Zen philosophy to the tangible world by way of the aesthetics of tea, which are actually the aesthetics of life itself.  The title of this slim volume is disarmingly understated, then. It is the most approachable book on aesthetics I know.

By Kakuzo Okakura,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Book of Tea as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Now available in a gorgeous hardcover slipcase edition, this "object d'art" will be sure to add grace and elegance to tea shelves, coffee tables and bookshelves. A keepsake enjoyed by tea lovers for over a hundred years, The Book of Tea Classic Edition will enhance your enjoyment and understanding of the seemingly simple act of making and drinking tea.

In 1906 in turn-of-the-century Boston, a small, esoteric book about tea was written with the intention of being read aloud in the famous salon of Isabella Gardner, Boston's most notorious socialite. It was authored by Okakura Kakuzo, a Japanese philosopher, art…


5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in tea, India, and World War 1?

Tea 42 books
India 473 books
World War 1 924 books