Brewed awakening

At the start of bestseller Coyle's engrossing 18th Coffeehouse mystery (after 2018's Shot in the Dark), Clare Cosi wakes up on a Washington Square park bench with no money, no identification, and no memory of how she got there. She knows she's in Greenwich Village, though, and makes her way to her ex-mother-in-law's Village Blend Coffeehouse, only to find it populated by people she doesn't know. But they know her. To her horror, Clare realizes that it's not only what happened yesterday that she doesn't remember, it's the entire past 15 years of her life--not that Village Blend now belongs to her, not that she's engaged to NYPD Det. Mike Quinn, not that she has been missing for days, and not that she's the last person to have seen hotel owner Annette Brewster, who's presumed kidnapped. Amid the delightfully twisty mystery, Coyle (the husband-and-wife team of Alice Alfonsi and Marc Cerasini) poses an intriguing question: if you lost all memory of your beloved, would you fall for him all over again? Agent: John Talbot, Talbot Fortune. (Dec.)

In this next in the New York Times best-selling "Coffeehouse Mysteries" series, coffeehouse manager Clare Cosi is in trouble, having come to on a bench in New York's Washington Square Park after being missing for a week. She has no memory of what happened to her, of the NYPD detective who's supposed to be her fiancé, or of the last decade of her life. And it gets worse: security cameras place Clare with an heiress at her classy hotel, just as she is grabbed by a masked intruder, and now Clare is a suspect in the kidnapping.

A coffeehouse manager awakens on a park bench minus much of her memory.Clare Cosi wakes up stiff and cold in Washington Square Park. Though there are lots of things she doesn't remember, she does know that she'll be safe at the Village Blend coffeehouse, where she's greeted with joy and told that she's been missing for four days. When her ex-husband, Matteo Allegro, and his mother, Madame Blanche Allegro Dubois, the coffee shop's owner, arrive on the scene, they realize she's forgotten the last 15 years of her life and thinks she's living in New Jersey with her young daughter, Joy. Hospitalized, she fails to recognize both Joy, now a grown-up, and her current fiance, Detective Mike Quinn. Celebrity psychiatrist Dr. Dominic Lorca takes over Clare's care and insists she be moved to an upstate facility. Despite pulling every string available, Mike can't free her from Lorca even though she's a witness in the case of missing heiress Annette Brewster. Clare, no shrinking violet, pretends to take her drugs but is dying for a cup of coffee. Madame Blanche, Matteo, and Tucker Burton, the Village Blend's assistant manager, hatch a plan to bust Clare free and find a place where she can be relaxed and open to stimuli that will help revive her memory. But Clare is loath to go with Matteo, who cheated on her repeatedly, even though their current relationship is good. Talking with her friends evokes memories of her past detective work (Shot in the Dark, 2018, etc.), and she struggles to relive her most recent days, some of which she spent with Annette, who'd arranged a private tasting of wedding cakes in the hotel she owns. Clare, Mike, and Matteo end up hiding out in the Hamptons from the police and a killer who's stalking her.An unsettling, often scary account of how memory loss affects a strong woman's life. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Coffeehouse manager Clare Cosi wakes up on a bench in a Greenwich Village park with partial amnesia, not remembering anything that happened in the past 15 years. She learns eventually that she has been missing for days and that she was present when wealthy socialite Annette Brewster was kidnapped. Although Clare has agreed to the isolation therapy that a psychiatrist recommends, family and friends disagree with this plan, as it will keep her from those closest to her. Instead, they spirit her out of the hospital and hide her from the police. As Clare's ex-husband, Matt, works to charm her once again, her police detective fiancé Mike joins the group to protect her. They work together to find out what happened to Clare while she was missing and to locate Annette. Complicating matters, the police begin to believe that Clare might be an accessory, not a victim. Told from multiple points of view, this sometimes poignant page-turner satisfies with plot twists, humor, and nicely rounded characters. Copyright 2019 Booklist Reviews.

In this next in the New York Times best-selling "Coffeehouse Mysteries" series, coffeehouse manager Clare Cosi is in trouble, having come to on a bench in New York's Washington Square Park after being missing for a week. She has no memory of what happened to her, of the NYPD detective who's supposed to be her fiancé, or of the last decade of her life. And it gets worse: security cameras place Clare with an heiress at her classy hotel, just as she is grabbed by a masked intruder, and now Clare is a suspect in the kidnapping.

At the start of bestseller Coyle's engrossing 18th Coffeehouse mystery (after 2018's Shot in the Dark), Clare Cosi wakes up on a Washington Square park bench with no money, no identification, and no memory of how she got there. She knows she's in Greenwich Village, though, and makes her way to her ex-mother-in-law's Village Blend Coffeehouse, only to find it populated by people she doesn't know. But they know her. To her horror, Clare realizes that it's not only what happened yesterday that she doesn't remember, it's the entire past 15 years of her life—not that Village Blend now belongs to her, not that she's engaged to NYPD Det. Mike Quinn, not that she has been missing for days, and not that she's the last person to have seen hotel owner Annette Brewster, who's presumed kidnapped. Amid the delightfully twisty mystery, Coyle (the husband-and-wife team of Alice Alfonsi and Marc Cerasini) poses an intriguing question: if you lost all memory of your beloved, would you fall for him all over again? Agent: John Talbot, Talbot Fortune. (Dec.)