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Weary Writers and Post-Pandemic Blues

Author: Cleo Coyle

The Village Blend is suffering during the post-pandemic slump. People aren’t coming in for their morning coffees anymore, and during what used to be peak time, the coffee house sits silent and empty. To keep the shop, Clare decides to revitalize an old idea: a special writer’s lounge. She’s heard a bit about it from a previous customer and found one of the old signs. What better way to get people to incorporate the coffeehouse into their daily lives, and foster their creative process? What Clare doesn’t know, however, is that the original writer’s lounge ended in tragedy.

Once a favorite customer and original lounge member is attacked twice at The Blend and left in a coma, Clare starts to research into the past. This man knew something about the original writer’s lounge, and now that it’s back, someone is desperate to keep the secret, even if it means killing those who get too close.

The Coffee House Series is still going strong 21 books in – a truly amazing feat for a cozy mystery series. The Hannah Swenson series started to suffer before it even hit the tenth book. In No Roast for the Weary we have an average offering. It wasn’t my favorite of the series, but it was still a solid mystery and I was engaged.

Mike Quinn is mostly out of the picture this time. We do have some Clare and Matt antagonism, with a sideline of potentially selling out the waning business to a heartless competitor. Otherwise, most of the action is focused on Clare and Esther with Madame providing some essential backstory later in the narrative.

From there, we get a strange mélange of old secrets, new deaths, snooty antagonisms, and a duck (of all things.) The duck, by the way, is a show stealer and needs to come back. We get some moments in the writer’s lounge itself as Esther and Tuck work the crowd and help get the creative juices flowing while also trying to quell mini-fights that break out between the writers.

All along, we get what matters most: coffee, coffee, coffee. There is no real character growth here or significant relationship developments. This one is more focused on the business and the specter of potentially losing it, which, admittedly, is a realistic post-pandemic worry.

At the end, we get all our answers. It takes a while to get there and the going is a little slow in the beginning, but when we do find out both motive and killers, it is one of the more wild and unexpected reveals. It’s a little hard to keep track of at first, and I had to slow down and really concentrate on who-was-who and how the large cast of potential killers were related to one another. It was worth the time, though, and a satisfying, and somewhat bittersweet conclusion.

I’m already looking forward to the next work in the series. I’d love to see Clare and Mike finally get hitched and see some development in their relationship. It would also be nice to see Clare’s felines get some more top billing. Overall, I continue to be in love with this cozy cityscape mystery and hope the series goes on for many more books. Recommended.

– Frances Carden

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Frances Carden
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