Name: On What Grounds
ISBN: 9780425192139

Cleo Coyle

Clare Cosi, the manager of The Village Blend, finds a murder mystery percolating in her very own store when the assistant manager is found dead in the back and the police believe it to be an open-and-shut case of robbery, but certain clues lead Clare to believe otherwise. Original.

On What Grounds

Sarah Sammis

Very very very coffee obsessed. 

http://pussreboots.com/blog/2017/comm...

In looking at the two ends of this series, the question I want to address is, how much time has passed in universe? The reason this question is at all relevant, is that Clare suffers from a temporary amnesia making her think it's fifteen years in the past. Sixteen years has passed between books, but Clare in the last books believes she has just moved to New Jersey and is in the early days of her divorce from Matteo Allegro.

So let's start at the beginning. In book one, Clare, now an empty nester, has accepted the position of manager of the Village Blend, a place she worked at during her nine years of marriage to Matteo. Now that Joy, their daughter, is in culinary school in New York, Clare is returning to Soho to live in the apartment above the coffeehouse. She and Matteo have been divorced now for ten years.

http://pussreboots.com/blog/2021/comm...

Rachel Kanyid

3.5/5
It wasn't the best story or plot ever, but it was very enjoyable! And I really want to try all of the coffee drinks mentioned... Yum yum yum.

High Fidelity

Cozy read about murder mysteries and lots and lots of coffee.
Narrating is really warm,but serious when needed. The fact that it takes place around a coffee shop is very specific but not cliche. Characters are different enough to keep the attention and so was the mystery. Gonna pick up more of this series.

This book had so much potential. The story was there, the mystery could have been super intriguing and left the reader wondering about class and grey areas between getting by and succeeding, but Cleo Coyle was unable to take it there.

What we end up with is a protagonist with a likeable voice but who doesn't get to use it in the right way. Instead of charming us through her missteps in sleuthing she tries to cram all of the coffee knowledge she can down our throats, and indulges herself with rants on quotes and decaffeinated coffee drinkers.

I'm also a little miffed that the mystery was incredibly abstract and buried under a love interest and coffee facts. I can kind of see why after the end we have to sit through why the Village Blend is so great at coffee, but my god it's just a coffee shop. They act like the best thing since sliced bread. Also I don't like how much fluff is thrown in about random things that pertain to neither the plot nor the romances. If you want a romance to the up 50% of the book, fine, but make it 50/50 and not 50% romance, 25% coffee facts, 15% random background information and then 10% of the mystery solved in two chapters with the perp admitting to it and Clare not even figuring it out.

Anyways, not a horrible first read since the end was super cozy and warm and fuzzy. I will read the next in the series to see if she tightens up her writing, but it is far from the best I've read.

(view spoiler)[ I just am bummed that Annabelle was not only killed, but somehow turned from an innocent girl into a cold hearted blackmailing woman in the end with no explanation. I don't care if her mother was trying to force her into it, she was characterized as someone who would say no to that and walk away. It just seems sloppy to not tie up that part of her character. I still don't know how I was supposed to comprehend that scenario from her nude dancing gig, and tea. We have him leaving the table written off as being a jerk so why would I double think it, after her tirade on the upper class society she doesn't like.  (hide spoiler)]