A cup of silence part 1 by Lakshmiram

A Cup of Silence, Part 1 A Quiet Page Cozy Mystery, Book 1 Some hours are meant to stay silent. Murder isn't one of them. Every afternoon at three, Tara Venkat turns the brass bell upside down, and for one hour nobody in her bookshop café says a word. Then, on the first day of the Flower Festival, the town's most respected tea planter sits down in his favorite chair and never turns another page. Everyone says it was his heart. But Tara noticed the sugar in his tea, and he never took sugar. With the only road closed by a landslide, the killer is still in town. Tara teams up with a mysterious botanist, and to keep a matchmaking neighbor off their backs, they agree to a fake relationship. What's inside Part 1: Chapters 1–8 of the story A closed-circle puzzle in a tea-estate hill town A fake relationship that is starting to feel real A secret from Tara's past A cliffhanger ending that leads straight into Part 2 Perfect for readers who love bookshop settings, gentle suspense, slow-burn romance and a good pot of tea.