Death by Bubble Tea - By Jennifer Chow

 This book was definitely a slow burner, but in the end, it was a solid murder mystery with a cute little side story about the importance of family. 

Yale Yee is not having a good day, she was laid off from her job and then found out her spoiled cousin Celine was flying in from Hong Kong for an impromptu visit. The icing on the cake? Her dad decides that the girls should work together at the new Night Market in their East Village neighborhood selling snacks from Wing Fat Yale's family Dim Sun restaurant. Yale is 100% sure her say can't get much worse, that is until she literally trips over a body. Now, she and Celine are prime suspects in a murder that could ruin her father's business, that is unless they can find the killer first. 

This book moved at a snail's pace. It took a while to get to the actual murder and then it seemed to take forever to get to anywhere in the investigation and even longer for the murderer to be revealed. But it was mostly worth it because the growing friendship between Yale and Celine was as interesting to read as the rest. Sometimes more so since the two characters are so different. So while normally a slow-moving murder mystery would be a complaint from me I found I didn't much mind it. 

What I did mind was the dialogue. A lot of it was very unnatural, awkwardly, painfully, unnatural. I think part of it was to show that Yale was an awkward person but it extended to other characters like Detective Strauss, some of his lines were either unneeded or just kind of silly. Celine's weren't as bad but they were close. 

In terms of the mystery itself, we have just enough misdirection for it to be a real puzzle. I had mostly figured out who the murderer was about halfway through the book, but since a lot of people had some good motives to take out the victim I was left with just enough doubt that I wasn't 100% sure until Yale confirms it. I also really enjoyed that Chow throws in some seriously obvious clues as to who it was and everyone, Detective Strauss included overlooked them since the murderer had an alibi. 

Overall, I enjoyed it enough that I'll be picking up the next book in the series if only to see how Yale and Celine's lives progress. 

And I'd like to thank Edelweiss and Penguin Random House for the free eArc!