Mystery Lovers' Kitchen: Marc Cerasini

Sunday, May 28, 2023

Spotlight on BULLETPROOF BARISTA by @CleoCoyle + Book & Tote #Giveaway

Once a month at Mystery Lovers' Kitchen, each of us takes a turn under the heat lamp of the Kitchen spotlight. Today it's me, trying to stay cool under the circumstances because, frankly, these aren't especially comfortable to do!

Okay, so here goes...if you're new to this blog or me and my work. I'm Alice Alfonsi and I write two different mystery series under the name Cleo Coyle in collaboration with my husband, Marc Cerasini...

Above is a photo of me and Marc
posed in front of some of the earlier covers in our
long-running Coffeehouse Mystery series...

Marc and I have been partners in crime-writing for going on twenty (good grief, 20!) years. We were both born and raised in Western Pennsylvania, just outside of Pittsburgh, but we didn't meet until our adulthood (1991 actually), long after we'd moved to New York City.

When we got married in the year 2000 (at the adorable Little Church of the West), each of us had a separate, successful publishing career going.

Marc and I published many books under our own names (and I also ghostwrote), and we each hit the New York Times list with different projects. After we took a chance on getting married and living together under one roof, we decided to go for three and roll the dice on writing together, too.

We started by collaborating on a few tie-in projects, and then we decided to write a wholly original work of fiction, a mystery set in a landmark Greenwich Village coffeehouse. This "Coffeehouse" series was based on my own experiences, living in the East Village of NYC, and if you'd like to learn more about that creation and development, click here or the coffee cup below to visit our "Secret New York" site...

Anyway, our first title (published in 2003) was Coffeehouse Mystery #1 ON WHAT GROUNDS, which turned out to be a pioneering effort as a coffee-centric "urban cozy." The book was a national bestseller and the fan feedback was great, so we kept on writing, idea after idea, book after book, year after year...

During all these years of writing, we drew from our own experiences. Inspired by the strange, absurd, heroic, hilarious, and endlessly entertaining aspects of the city around us, we told the stories that we wanted to tell, in our own offbeat way. And it worked. So far, anyway. This September, we'll be celebrating the 20th anniversary of the series. We're happy about this career milestone because it will not only mark our 20th year writing mysteries together, it will also mark the publication of our 20th Coffeehouse title...

And that's why we're focusing today's

Sunday Spotlight on the cover reveal of...

Coffeehouse Mystery #20

BULLETPROOF BARISTA

(and, yes, the mystery is as much fun
as the title and cover imply)...

Coming November 2023!

To learn more or pre-order,
click a link below:

Amazon (ebook) click here

Amazon (print) click here

B&N here

Bookshop.org

+ Many More Buy Links

And finally....

As most of you know, we also write The Haunted Bookshop Mysteries. After we successfully launched the Coffeehouse series, we turned our attention to a little Rhode Island town where an earnest young widow named Penelope Thornton-McClure began to solve crimes with the help of the hardboiled (and ultimately irresistible) PI ghost she discovers haunting her bookshop.

The very first book in our Haunted Bookshop series, THE GHOST AND MRS. McCLURE was published in 2004. We followed that with four more titles, all of which were national bestsellers. Marc and I then took a ten-year hiatus, but our ghost wouldn't stop haunting us, so we returned to write more adventures in the series. Given the 2004 launch of the first book, however, looks like we'll be celebrating another 20th Year Anniversary (next year, God willing, as always) for our "Jack and Pen" Haunted Bookshop crew.

In the meantime, we're happy to share some of the lovely reviews coming in on the latest release, Haunted Bookshop #9 THE GHOST GOES TO THE DOGS. We hope you all get a chance to read it and enjoy it!

"The talented duo Alice Alfonsi and Marc Cerasini, who write under the name Cleo Coyle, continue to deliver clever, light-hearted, extremely satisfying reads in a mystery that crosses many genres. This blend of noir, paranormal, cozy, and a dash of romance sizzles with sparkling dialogue and unique plots. This is the ninth of a series that began in 2004 and still shows no sign of slowing down or losing any of its appeal."

~ Cynthia Chow, librarian and branch manager of
Kaneohe Public Library on the island of Oahu,

for Kings River Life magazine