[I received a free electronic review copy of this book from Netgalley and Kensington in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.]
Summary
Sage and her friend, Harley, just opened their coffee cart, Ground Rules. They’ve been getting to know their neighbors – other food truck owners – and watching the protesters across the street, protesting a development going in.
On what should have been their third day of business, Sage discovers the gate to the square open, the door to her coffee cart ajar, and a dead body. And the murder weapon, a box cutter, was something Sage had been using in her cart for the last two days.
Now Sage is a murder suspect, her business is temporarily closed for the investigation, and she finds out her estranged mother has ties to the case. If Sage wants to be able to focus on the full launch of their business, she’s going to have to clear her name and find a killer.
Review
This was so good! There’s an engaging cast of characters, excellent pacing to both the mystery and the series set up, and tons of great coffee-related moments. For serious coffee lovers, there are lots of little details about what Sage and Harley are doing with their business, both the food cart and the roasting pieces. For those of us who take a more simple approach to caffeine, though, the details are fun but don’t bog things down.
The mystery does a great job of drawing out the details of Sage’s childhood and the situation with her mother in genuine and unforced ways. I was really impressed by how the author used the mystery to share that backstory rather than dumping the information in some other way. This way of crafting the story was one of my favorite parts of the book. Also, the reveal of the killer caught me completely by surprise, which was fun.
I loved the characters in this! Sage will keep me coming back for more books in this series. I was fascinated by the ways her character is self-aware, especially about the impact of life with her mother on her personality now. She does a great job thinking through the boundary between being personable and manipulating people. I hope her romantic life will settle on my favorite of her two suitors. And I’m eager to see how some of her other relationships develop, especially with Harley, who is off-page for a lot of the book. I never got a good feel for her in the book, so I have high hopes that book 2 will dig more into their friendship and business partnership.
This books releases NEXT week, on March 30, 2021.
Rating: ♥♥♥♥½*
♥♥♥♥½ = I loved it ! Would re-read.