by Cleo Coyle

Ahhh, ok, this should probably be higher on the list of series I enjoyed this summer because I really did enjoy it as I was reading, but I never got excited about it. I think think this is because, while the mysteries were very well done, I never really felt overly connected to any of the characters. The books revolve around Clare Cosi who has returned to the job she loved, managing the historic Village Blend coffeehouse in New York’s Greenwich Village. On her first day back on the job, she finds her assistant unconscious in the back of the store and she’s determined to find out who did it when she disagrees with the police about it being an accident. From that point on in the series, Clare continues to find herself investigating the crimes that keep happening around her. This is complicated by the reappearance of her ex-husband in her life and her developing crush on Detective Mike Quinn.

Like I said, the mysteries here are really well done. And I give Cleo Coyle credit, she never bogs down the story with too much coffee talk. Even as someone who doesn’t care for coffee, I found the discussions about it (don’t worry, they don’t spend the book waxing poetic about coffee) interesting. Plus there are recipes included in the book for when you really want to try that dish they’ve made… and you will. Part of my problem connecting to these characters comes from the fact that their lifestyles were as different from mine as you can get. They live in the city, they’re all older than I am, they have kids, they love coffee, etc., etc. As much as I liked them on paper, I never really immersed myself in their lives because they were just so foreign to mine. This sounds like a funny thing to admit given how different the various characters in these books are but the other characters always had one or two traits that I could relate to and I just never found that in these books.