Brewed Awakening is our eighteenth Coffeehouse Mystery. As our longtime readers know, I write this series with my talented spouse, Marc Cerasini. Like every married couple, we have good days and bad days, but I’m thankful every day for the gift of Marc’s partnership—in writing and in life.
The inspiration for this story began with a conversation. If our history as a couple were to be wiped clean, would we still be drawn to each other? How does “like” deepen into something more? When does love happen?
With two of our main characters on a path to be married, we decided to explore these questions within the plotline of this mystery and agreed the fulcrum of the tale would be memory loss.
Although Clare’s story is fictional, we were inspired, through our research, by many remarkable true cases of amnesia, including a married woman whose traumatic accident resulted in forgetting her own husband—and believing her teenage daughter was still a toddler. In another case, a young teacher disappeared after going for a jog, and then reappeared, floating in New York Harbor, with no memory of how she got there or the weeks she went missing. (We could go on, but you get the idea.)
Other elements in Brewed Awakening were inspired by our decades of living and working in New York. While the Parkview Palace exists only in our imagination, you can visit many of the grand hotels that inspired its creation, including the Plaza (theplazany.com), the Pierre (thepierreny.com), and the Lotte New York Palace, formerly known as The Helmsley Palace (lottenypalace.com).
Our fictional Gypsy boutique hotel was also inspired by a real one: Paper Factory Hotel (paperfactoryhotel.com) of Long Island City, Queens, a uniquely modern inn that was literally transformed from a 100-year-old paper factory.
For coffee inspiration, we thank the folks at Hampton Coffee Company (hamptoncoffeecompany.com), an independent coffee roaster and retailer that pioneered micro-roasting on the East Coast, and whose dedication to freshly roasted joy is never short of admirable.
Our interaction with New York’s Finest is always nothing but the finest, and we thank them for providing answers to our questions. For deviations from doctrine, we plead the author’s defense—in the service of fiction, rules occasionally get bent.
Caffeinated cheers go to our publisher and the diligent crew who helped put this book into your hands. We are especially grateful to our editor, Michelle Vega, whose valuable input strengthened our story. Thanks also to editorial assistant Jennifer Snyder and production editor Stacy Edwards for keeping us on track; as well as to copyeditor Frank Walgren, our designers Rita Frangie and Kristin del Rosario, and our marketing and publicity team, Elisha Katz and Brittanie Black, for their essential contributions.
To the brilliant artist Cathy Gendron, we send sincerest appreciation for another spectacular Coffeehouse Mystery cover.
To John Talbot, our literary agent, we continue to treasure your patient support and consummate professionalism.
Last but far from least, we send love and gratitude to everyone whom we could not mention by name, including friends, family, and so many of you who read our books and send us notes via e-mail, our website’s message board, and on social media. Your encouragement keeps us going, and we cannot thank you enough for that.
Whether you are new to our world or a devoted reader, Marc and I invite you to join our Coffeehouse community at coffeehousemystery.com, where you will find recipes, coffee picks, and a link to keep in touch by signing up for our newsletter. May you eat, drink, and read with joy!
—Cleo Coyle,
New York City