THE MILK TART MURDERS, the fourth in Sally Andrew’s much beloved Tannie Maria series, has been shortlisted for the 2023 SA Book Awards in the Adult Fiction category.
The awards aim to recognise bestselling books written and published in South Africa, as voted for by South African booksellers. The titles are selected from a longer list of bestselling South African titles, as measured by Nielsen BookScan South Africa in 2022. The winners for each category will be announced at a virtual ceremony in October 2023, along with an overall winner who received the highest number of bookseller votes. Each category winner will be awarded R5000, while the overall winner gets R20000.
The other shortlisted titles in the adult fiction category are: DOOLHOF by Rudie van Rensburg, MERCY by Jackie Phamotse and THE END by Dudu Busani-Dube. You can read about the other categories here.
In THE MILK TART MURDERS Tannie Maria, Ladismith’s famous crime fighter and agony aunt, once again finds herself in the middle of a murder investigation… but that is not all that troubles her. Newly estranged from her policeman boyfriend, Tannie Maria must wrestle with the complex feelings she has for him and for food…
The Tannie Maria series titles are all bestsellers in South Africa – regularly in the Top 5, with THE MILK TART MURDERS, shooting straight to the top of the combined fiction and non-fiction charts on publication in March 2022. Sally is now working on a Tannie Maria Cookbook, which Penguin SA will publish in April 2024.
TV rights for a 10-part series based on the Tannie Maria books were bought by French-South African Both Worlds Productions, with the support of Edinburgh-based Pirate Productions and with Creative Scotland contributing to funding. The series was selected for the Berlinale ‘Series Markets Selects’ in February 2022, and began broadcast in South Africa on M-Net in March 2022 to brilliant reviews and social media praise. The series has been nominated for three awards at the South African Film and Television Awards and was also shortlisted for a Rose d’Or Award. Acorn TV distribute to the rest of the world. Watch the trailer here.
About Sally Andrew
Sally Andrew divides her time between Muizenberg on the Cape Town coast and a nature reserve near Ladismith in the Klein Karoo, South Africa, where she lives with her artist partner and various wildlife (including a giant eland and a secretive leopard). Sally has published a number of non-fiction books on adult and environmental education.
Her first novel, RECIPES FOR LOVE & MURDER: A Tannie Maria Mystery was a Kirkus Best Book of 2015, A Wall Street Journal Best Mystery Book 2015, The Bookseller Fiction editor’s Choice 2015 and A Good Housekeeping Book of the Month. It was recently adapted for television and is available to stream on Acorn TV in the UK, US, Australia and New Zealand, and Latin America.
Praise for THE MILK TART MURDERS
‘Sally Andrew is baaaack! This time with THE MILK TART MURDERS. Tannie Maria and Henk are at the movies when Oom Frik dies, and it might be murder because the Oom had many sought-after treasures. A second death occurs and there is a clue – a letter addressed to Tannie Maria asking for advice and a milk-tart recipe.’ – Jennifer Platt, Sunday Times, ‘Books To Look Out For This Year’
‘The characters in The Milk Tart Murders will have you laughing out loud at some of their antics. Andrew has a magical way with words, creating characters we are all acquainted with: The grumpy old man, the town flirt, the rule-breakers… this book features them all! But Andrew does more than perfectly capture small town life, she has created a cast of characters who tug at your heart strings with their flaws and troubles... The mystery is compelling and has many twists and turns that will have you hooked from the first page.’ – Carmen Coetsee, The South African
‘For me this was one of those rare, comfortable, easy, stay up after midnight reads that I devoured with a few giggles along the way… Andrew's storytelling, pace and attention to detail are delicious. Every chapter ends with a cliff hanger that had me wanting to finish that elusive “one more chapter”.’ – Karen Watkins
‘Sally Andrew’s unexpected turns of phrase leave one laughing out loud, along with several “didn’t see that coming” plot twists and turns. Her characters are larger than life – some much larger – but all totally believable… The Milk Tart Murders is truly recommended as a wonderfully entertaining novel.’ – Barry Meehan, ArtSmart
‘Twists, turns, suspicions, ‘journalistic investigations’, agony aunt recipes – all falls into place, as expected. In a crazy world, Tannie Maria is the coziness you need right now.’ – Roelia Schoeman, The Life and Times of a Boozy Foodie
Visit Sally’s website