by Cleo Coyle
Part of Coffeehouse Mystery
First published 2012
Clare Cosi runs the Village Blend, a Greenwich Village coffeehouse she knows down to the last grind. When a company asks to use her beans in Mocha Magic Coffee, a product marketed as an aphrodisiac, she agrees. The deal ties her to Aphrodite's Village, a women's online community with a massive following, and the money looks good. Then the launch party goes wrong. One of the site's editors is found dead, and Clare files it away as a tragedy. But when more members of the Sisters of Aphrodite start dying, she cannot keep looking away. Someone wants the secret formula behind Mocha Magic badly enough to kill for it, and they are not stopping. Clare teams up with her boyfriend, NYPD detective Mike Quinn, to track down who is behind the murders before the body count climbs any higher. The question she cannot shake is whether she is already too close to the formula herself. The book comes with recipes and coffee-making tips.
Genres: mystery, crime, contemporary, adult-fiction
Vibes: atmospheric, engaging, fast-paced, suspenseful
Tropes: amateur-detective, culinary-mystery, romantic-subplot
Setting: Village Blend, Greenwich Village, Aphrodite's Village, New York
Period: 21st-century, contemporary
595 pages · Paperback · Wheeler Publishing
Content warnings: murder