Brewed Awakening by Cleo Coyle

Brewed Awakening by Cleo Coyle ISBN-13: 9780451488879 Hardcover: 368 pages Publisher: Berkley Released: December 3rd 2019

Source: review copy from the publisher.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
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?

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.


My Review:
Brewed Awakening is a cozy mystery. This novel is the 18th in the series. You don't need to read the previous novels to understand this one, and this story didn't spoil the whodunit of the previous books.

This is yet another mystery where someone with amnesia is a witness and needs to remember what happened. However, the authors focused on how this affected her relationships with the people she still knew and the people she ought to know, including her fiancé. I enjoyed this character development. Suspense was created by the relationship tensions and from the danger of someone trying to harm her because she is a witness. This didn't stop Clare from helping her handsome detective to investigate an old murder and a current kidnapping. They asked good questions and yet whodunit still came as a surprise to me.

There was some bad language. There were no graphic sex scenes; any sex was fade-to-black style after they started to kiss. Overall, I'd recommend this interesting mystery.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.


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