Well I just finished reading Cleo Coyle’s On What Grounds. While I’m not a coffee person (tea for me, thanks), I found it to be a delightful, light read with entertaining characters and the same sort of charm I attribute to Laura Childs and her Teashop Mysteries. I’ve been in the mood for cozies lately rather than the more brutal, hard-boiled mysteries (probably because I’m busy brutally murdering people in my own manuscript this week) and this more than fit the bill. Whodunit was probably more predictable to someone not reading under the influence of prescription cough syrup, but I didn’t figure it out before it was revealed, and that’s always a plus with me. I also didn’t feel like the bad guy was out of left field at the end either. Clues were seeded along the way. Clare Cosi, the heroine and manager of The Village Blend, is a likable heroine, who comes across as warm and human and definitely not too stupid to live (which is an excellent trait in a heroine who’s going to be keeping is company for several books to come in a series). I’ll definitely be checking out the next books in the series to see if she ever gets back together with hunky ex-husband Matteo or goes out with the sexily rumpled Detective Quinn, or whether Coyle brings some other love interest on the scene. The book is low on the romance quotient, but that’s unsurprising and standard for the cozy genre. Great mystery read though.
