Summary
Gia is starting fresh in Florida with a new business – the All-Day Breakfast Café. She set everything up while commuting from New York, so she doesn’t have everything 100% in place. The cook she hired actually has no restaurant experience and can only prep one thing at a time. Gia has no idea what grits are, but her customers are asking for them so she needs to figure that out soon. But those things are easily fixed. What really matters is that she has left her crook of an ex-husband – and all of his legal issues – behind her.
Gia never expected Bradley to follow her. But she knew when she saw the arm hanging out of her dumpster that it was her ex. And Bradley’s presence – even though he is dead – means vandalism and threats will follow. Gia can’t seem to catch a break. She’s either going to have to give up and head back to New York, or she’s going to have to find out what Bradley was up to if she wants to save her business.
Gia has a couple suspects to check out right off the bat. And new questions are popping up all the time. She isn’t used to trusting others, but Gia is not sure she can sort this thing out on her own. Could her new community help her solve this mystery and salvage her fresh start?
Review
I really enjoyed this mystery. This is a great start to a new series. The characters are fun. There’s depth to Gia and her best friend Savannah. The cast of characters was big enough to keep things interesting but not so big that you need a cheat sheet to keep track. The potential love interest is terrific. There’s nice chemistry between them. I enjoyed the time I spent with the characters, and I would love to read more books in this series.
We had only the smallest introduction to the setting, both the town and the restaurant. That leaves some fun directions for future stories as the series grows.
The mystery was good. Everyone tied to Bradley’s crimes thinks Gia knew about his schemes, so there are a lot of questions to explore there. Then the murder adds another layer to the mystery. The details of the mystery build at a nice pace through at least 2/3 of the book, so there isn’t an excessive amount of deliberation over suspects. It all comes together perfectly. I didn’t feel rushed or that the wrap up took forever. A terrific first mystery.
Thanks to Netgalley and Lyrical Underground/Kensington for an electronic review copy in exchange for an honest review.