12/01/2025
Mint Tea and Murder is out!!
https://a.co/d/6qnMEcG
A little background on this book- a behind the scenes peek.
When I was 16, my dad took a job at a university in Rabat, Morocco and our family moved from Minnesota to Morocco. I was about as happy as a cat in a car wash.
My parents were incredible, although it took me about a decade to realize it. In St. Paul, they ordered a minivan through a mail order catalogue and had it delivered to a dock in Amsterdam. We flew from Minnesota to Amsterdam and took a taxi to the dock where a guy was sitting on a pier, waiting with the van's keys. We tossed our luggage in the back, loaded all 6 kids into the van, (yep, 6!) and drove south for two weeks from the Netherlands, through Europe, across the Straights of Gibraltar, to Morocco. We stayed in whatever places we could find, bought bread and cheese and juice from local shops and ate them picnic-style in lovely locations, and dealt with car sickness and a lost teddy bear. It was quite the adventure! I spent that whole trip being angry about the move, certain it was my parents' attempt to ruin my life, and trying hard not to be impressed with the Eiffel Tower, the Alps, or the Pyrenees. (It was hard- because let's be honest, they were all really cool!)
We lived in Morocco for two years- my junior and senior years of high school. We lived in a large white house on a dirt road. Our house had stone and tile floors, lattice woodwork on the windows, and a very loud donkey next door. Every morning a shepherd boy took his flocks up our street in the morning, and every evening they went back past our house in the evening, kicking up dust in the sunset light. It was beautiful.
I attended a tiny American school. There were 18 kids in my graduating class- from the US, Morocco, Turkey, Syria, the Philippines, Iraq, and South Africa. I got over my cat-in-the-car-wash attitude and fell in love with Morocco- the people, the flowers, the scenery, the horses, the mosques, the food (!!!), the climate, the diversity of the landscape, and the international community. (Did I mention the food?!) It turned out to be the perfect place to live as a teen.
Now, many years later, I'm writing cozy mysteries about Emma and Daniel's travels, and I realized I HAD to include Morocco. But where to begin? How could I do justice to this tiny, beautiful country that has so impacted my life? I put it off, writing first about Paris, then about Venice, and finally, now, about Morocco.
The people's names in the book are largely- and loosely- taken from the names of people I knew in Morocco. Dresia is, to this day, an incredible cook, although she now lives in Paris. There are many men in Morocco named Mohammed, including my Dad's best friend who recently passed away. And Khadija was a young girl who sometimes helped our maid, Mina, clean our house.
This book is dedicated to my parents, for their insight and wisdom in moving us to a tiny north African country where there were (at the time) no fast food restaurants, no "fashionable" clothes (by American standards), very few American friends, and a whole beautiful country to explore. Morocco changed my life in more ways than I can count. Thank you, Mom and Dad, for dragging me there, kicking and screaming, and helping me learn to love it.
And for you, my dear reader friend, I hope this book whets your appetite for Morocco. If you can travel there in person, please do. (And let me know!) And if you can travel there from your living room as you read Mint Tea and Murder, I hope you enjoy the journey. My book does not do it justice, but it's an attempt to share something I love very much, with you.
Until next time,
lots of love,
Penelope 🩷🧡💛 🇲🇦
This thrilling new book in the beloved and bestselling will leave readers craving Moroccan delicacies and booking the next flight to Marrakesh.
