From USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR Harper Lin: a new cozy mystery series with recipes!
Francesca Amaro moves back to her hometown of Cape Bay, Massachusetts, and takes over the family business, Antonia’s Italian Café. She spends her days making delicious artisan cappuccinos, until she stumbles upon her neighbor’s dead body. When the police discover Mr. Cardosi was poisoned, Francesca becomes a … Francesca becomes a suspect.
The victim’s son, Matty, happens to be Francesca’s old high school friend. Together, they uncover the secrets of the locals in order to find the killer in their idyllic beach town.
Includes two special cupcake recipes!
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What a cute book – loved the cover, the story, the characters, the setting and everything in between. It’s definitely worth checking out!
You can check out my booktube video review at https://youtu.be/OyFQpXw0dX4
or read my review on my blog at https://lisasiefert.com/book-review-cappuccinos-cupcakes-and-a-corpse-by-harper-lin-cape-bay-cafe-mystery-book-1/
Good Summer reading for the beach. The book has great characters and good plot. It is clean so suitable for teens as well.
3.5 Rounded to a 3. I picked up the audio for this through my library to fulfill a book bingo prompt. For the most part it was enjoyable, quick and fun to listen to. There were times the narrator irked me but that happens to me a lot with audio anyway so that didn’t play into my rating.
I know Cozies are supposed to be an amateur sleuth who takes on the mystery in hopes of solving it. However, the MC in this one doesn’t really do any sleuthing .. she talks to people and makes wild guesses and accusations .. which are all wrong.
I am not giving up on this series just yet. It could be that the author is just opening it up and will develop the character in future books so I’m willing to give the 2nd one a try and see where it goes.
I picked up this audiobook because it was short and I had a short ride ahead of me. I’d never heard of Harper Lin or her books and I’m not a big reader of mysteries, but the cover’s cute, so why not?
For starters, I loved the narrator — this is the second audiobook I’ve listened to with East Coast characters and I’m falling in love with the accent!
Most importantly, though, the story was cute. It’s everything I expect from a cozy mystery — a lot of life-beyond-the-crime, so I got to know the characters and find out a little about the town. It’s short, so there’s not as much detail as you might find in some longer novels, but the story was still enjoyable and it ended in such a perfect way that now I HAVE to get the next book to find out what happened. Nicely done!
If you like Joanne Fluke’s books, I think you’ll like this one. PG/PG-13 for content (there’s a murder and some suspicious activities).
A new to me mystery series with a coffee shop owner named Francesca who has recently moved back to her hometown in Massachusetts. Francesca comes upon her neighbor who is dead and that sets her on a sleuthing path. Even though the premise of this story was around a murder, I found myself laughing at times to Francesca’s quick wit. I am going to continue with the series to get to know all of the residents of Cape Bay better!
I have read several of the books by Harper Lin. I know nothing about latte and such, but the books are well written so I read. them. Being a writer of cozies, I enjoy them a lot
Franny stuck her nose in where the police didn’t think it belonged and she got taken down a notch and I LOVED it! Nothing against Franny I think it’s Great that she wanted to help Matt but what experience does she have? I will continue with the series because I HAVE to know who the secret admire is ( I think its the police guy) but other than that we will have to see.
Fun characters. The mystery holds your keep you guessing till the end without being too serious.
Great book
This was a great easy cozy mystery.
Lots of details, but not much substance. The characters didn’t pop for me and I can barely remember how any of them were described. There was no buildup, no bread crumbs to find the murderer. The writing was good at moving the story along and the transitions worked, but I wasn’t invested.
I enjoyed the story, and I will be reading book number two in the series. This had some slow parts, but I noticed that happens sometimes in books that are first in a series. I found the characters likable, and I want to see what happens to them next.