Espresso Spells and Evidence
(2025)(The second book in the Griddlewitch Mystery series)
A novel by Diana Beckett
Mara Kincaid is trying to keep her head down and her griddle hot.
After the first body turned her homecoming into a headline, she has exactly one goal: run The Lucky Ladle like a normal person and stop giving Maple Haven new reasons to say her name with that gleeful little edge.
Then a coffee cart rolls into town and parks right outside her door.
The partnership is supposed to be harmless. Smart, even. Tourists want caffeine. Mara wants steady mornings. Everybody wins.
Until the roaster behind the cart does not show up for work.
When he is found dead in a storeroom, staged to look like a stupid accident, Mara knows two things for sure. Someone wanted him quiet, and someone is already shaping the story to make him look unstable enough that nobody asks questions. The problem is, Mara recognizes that kind of narrative.
It is the same kind that destroyed her.
Now she is trapped between a murder investigation she cannot ignore, a town that is itching to blame the nearest ‘problem woman,’ and a creeping realization that the smear machine is not random. It is organized. It is practiced. And it is way too comfortable lying to people who want to be lied to.
Meanwhile, Mara’s kitchen magic is getting worse. Stronger. Less polite. The more pressure she is under, the more her food carries something extra, and the more her senses pick up truths she cannot prove. Deputy Cal Rowan wants evidence, not instincts, but he keeps ending up in Mara’s orbit anyway, and their old history makes every conversation feel like a dare.
Someone killed a man over coffee.
Mara just has to figure out whether the motive was money, power, silence… or the fact that he was about to expose the wrong name.
Espresso Spells and Evidence is a first-person cozy mystery packed with small-town drama, culinary charm, witchy trouble, a complicated slow-burn romance, and a murder that hits way too close to home.
Genre: Mystery
After the first body turned her homecoming into a headline, she has exactly one goal: run The Lucky Ladle like a normal person and stop giving Maple Haven new reasons to say her name with that gleeful little edge.
Then a coffee cart rolls into town and parks right outside her door.
The partnership is supposed to be harmless. Smart, even. Tourists want caffeine. Mara wants steady mornings. Everybody wins.
Until the roaster behind the cart does not show up for work.
When he is found dead in a storeroom, staged to look like a stupid accident, Mara knows two things for sure. Someone wanted him quiet, and someone is already shaping the story to make him look unstable enough that nobody asks questions. The problem is, Mara recognizes that kind of narrative.
It is the same kind that destroyed her.
Now she is trapped between a murder investigation she cannot ignore, a town that is itching to blame the nearest ‘problem woman,’ and a creeping realization that the smear machine is not random. It is organized. It is practiced. And it is way too comfortable lying to people who want to be lied to.
Meanwhile, Mara’s kitchen magic is getting worse. Stronger. Less polite. The more pressure she is under, the more her food carries something extra, and the more her senses pick up truths she cannot prove. Deputy Cal Rowan wants evidence, not instincts, but he keeps ending up in Mara’s orbit anyway, and their old history makes every conversation feel like a dare.
Someone killed a man over coffee.
Mara just has to figure out whether the motive was money, power, silence… or the fact that he was about to expose the wrong name.
Espresso Spells and Evidence is a first-person cozy mystery packed with small-town drama, culinary charm, witchy trouble, a complicated slow-burn romance, and a murder that hits way too close to home.
Genre: Mystery
Used availability for Diana Beckett's Espresso Spells and Evidence