Brewed Awakening
(Coffeehouse Mystery #18)
by Cleo Coyle

Kindle Edition, 352 pages
Expected publication: December 3rd 2019 by Berkley



Goodreads synopsis:
From Cleo Coyle, the New York Times bestselling author of Shot in the Dark and Dead Cold Brew, comes a delicious new entry in the "fun and gripping" (Huffington Post) Coffeehouse Mysteries.

When coffeehouse manager Clare Cosi awakens on a bench in Washington Square Park, she has no idea she's been missing for days, or that her friends and family have been frantic with worry. Now that she's back, everyone is overjoyed, including a handsome NYPD detective who claims to be her fiance. But to Mike Quinn's crushing distress, Clare doesn't remember him, or much of anything about the last fifteen years of her life.

Clare's missing memory is tied to a crime she witnessed. An acquaintance of Clare's elegant employer--and fellow member of an exclusive Gotham circle known as "The Ladies Who Brunch"--invited Clare to her posh hotel to sample gourmet wedding cakes. After their indulgent tasting, they headed to the parking garage, where a camera captured a masked figure with a gun confronting the hotel heiress with Clare looking on. Did the kidnapper take Clare, too? The camera went dark, just like Clare's memory. Soon authorities grow suspicious. Is Clare really a victim? Or merely acting like one? Evidence is mounting that she set the woman up.

To clear her name, Clare must find a way to reclaim her memories and rescue the heiress before this high-stakes crime ends in tragedy. Otherwise, instead of walking down the aisle, Clare may find herself perp-walking to prison as an accomplice to kidnapping and murder.

***

5 Stars

This is book eighteen in the Coffeehouse Mystery series by Cleo Coyle.

This series just rings all the bells for me. Murder by Mocha was my first introduction into the cozy mystery world and I have been hooked ever since. Stepping back into this series is like coming home. So, when Clare Cosi loses her memory we are transported back to a time just after her separation with Matt and her daughter, Joy is still a kid.

It was fascinating to watch the fallout from Clare’s memory loss and how it effected everyone. This was all before Clare ever did her sleuthing thing so she was so out of her element and I couldn’t take my eyes off the page. Matt was at his most annoying and taking advantage of the situation, per usual. Why does this guy never learn? And Mike Quinn, her fiancee, and I loved the whole flashback to the proposal. How inventive!

This reminded me of other Coffeehouse books where Clare and Mike were on the run and it was a good feeling of deja vu. This book makes you appreciate how far the series has come. And it it making me want to revisit the entire series with a marathon re-read starting at book one! Just can’t get enough of this coffeehouse series. It feels like coming home.

To me this is part police procedural and part cozy mystery with all the best parts of each genre featured here. I definitely can’t wait to see what Cleo Coyle comes up with for book nineteen!

If you love cozy mysteries or police procedurals/detective fiction, definitely try out this series for size. I am sure you will not be disappointed.

I received this as an ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) in return for an honest review. I thank NetGalley, the publisher and the author for allowing me to read this title.

I loved this entry in the coffeehouse series. This one is a bit of a departure from the normal storytelling because it starts with the main character, Clare Cosi, loosing all of her recent memories. Clare and a friend recently went missing and then Clare woke up in a park with no recent memories of why or how she came to be there. As far as she remembers, she is still recently divorced, her daughter is still a little girl and she's never even met her fiancé! She has to get to know her new life and become reacquainted with her current fiancé, all while hiding out from a doctor that wants to commit her and police that are trying to find her. Her friend is still missing and recovering her memories is the only way to find out what happened to her. This book kept me up all night waiting to find out what happened and if she got her memories back!

Do you ever read books where if it weren't for one thing, the book would really work well? Brewed Awakening is like that for me. This will include spoilers in regards to a certain situation (but not for the mystery).

I am really grossed out by Clare's ex husband, Matteo, who blocks everyone from mentioning Mike (her fiancé) and tries to get her to have sex with him to bring her memory back multiple times. It was disgusting, there are definite consent issues here. It's really not dealt with later and brushed off as "he wants her back." The guy who can't be monogamous just wants her because she's not available, and somehow that is ok for him to pressure her into having sex with him when she is engaged to someone else and he hasn't told her? It made no sense.

In regards to the mysteries, there are multiple ones. What happened to Clare and where is Annette? Why was she kidnapped? Her husband's death was not as it appears, which brings up more questions. Also, why is this doctor so insistent on getting his hands on Clare and keeping her sedated when she is calm? He shows up out of nowhere and convinces her to come upstate for "free treatment". This is how horror movies start, Clare.

Long time series readers may enjoy that this one takes largely outside of the city, and away from the coffeehouse.

I have really mixed feeling about this book. Matteo's actions were despicable- he would've had sex with her without telling her she was engaged. It would've ruined her life with Mike.I would've given the book a much higher rating if not for that, the mystery part was great. But it was so cavalier and there was never any accountability, it was horrifying.

It's nice when a long-running series changes things up a little. Brewed Awakening is the 18th coffee house mystery, and I enjoyed it as much as any previous installment and definitely more than the one where we were inside the killer's head. This time, Clare wakes up in Washington Square Park with no memory of the past 15 years, including the past few days after she was snatched up along with a hotel heiress.

No spoilers, but we get a lot more Matteo and lot less Mike than usual, which I enjoyed. It was also nice to take a break from the coffeehouse and the endless events catering to focus on Clare herself. The plot wasn't so farfetched as usual, and I was completely immersed.

I'd usually say you can start a mystery series like this without having read previous books, but this one would be a challenge for new readers. It's not that it would be that confusing, but without a previous connection to Clare and her family and friends, it would be hard to get invested in the story.

Clare Cosi wakes up on a park bench not remembering the last 15 years of her life including who she is engaged to now. What happened during the last 2 weeks, and who should she trust?
Fun read with awesome recipes at the end.

There was something different in the writing style of this book. An almost push and pull between the styles of the writing team of Marc Cerasini and Alice Alfonsi.

What begins with Clare Cosi, manager of the Village Blend waking up on a park bench with no knowledge of how she got there, to recalling the area looked familiar and hopeful she might be able to get help at a coffeehouse where she once worked with her ex-husband, to realizing she has somehow lost about 10+ years of her memories. Clare is now in a struggle with the local police, and a questionable publicity hound doctor, to prove she is not responsible for the disappearance of a local hotel owner.

No one wants to push Clare into remembering, reasoning she should come about her memories as organically as their coffee, yet Matteo wants to use their time to convince Clare they belong together all the while Mike Quinn has a ring he is dying to put back on her finger.

‘Brewed Awakening’ involves the usual “scooby-do” type adventure all over New York and the Hamptons, and somehow, they bumble their way around the police, even though Mike is the police, to get to an interesting conclusion as to who and what was behind this mishap all along.

There is more than the usual amount of characters bandied about so the reader is going to have to pay close attention as to who is related to who, who married who, and most importantly who ended up where.

This story is the perfect amount of coziness and suspense! I absolutely loved it. I was anxious for Clare to get her memory back and I loved seeing her open up to Mike. I am a fellow coffee drinker, so the coffee aspect was interesting to read about. It was nice to learn how much Clare loved coffee and the way she would make new blends. The Village Blend seems like a wonderful coffee shop and one that I definitely wish was real!



(I will be posting a review on my bookstagram @ilia_thebookworm & will be talking about it on my youtube channel in a future video.)