New suspect
Ok, I should have finished this book last week. Life started life-ing and I haven’t picked it up in a few days. However, I did become a little suspicious of Kevin during the family dinner scene. I’m not sure I buy the story about him moving to town to find his birth parents. It’s also odd that Derek didn’t write terrible reviews of his coffee shop. The close proximity to Tita Rosie’s Kitchen could make setting up Lila and her family too easy. I guess I’ll find out soon enough.
As someone who loves getting immersed in cozy mystery novels, I found Kevin's character especially intriguing based on the profile details and the scenes described. It's not unusual in these stories for seemingly charming characters, like Kevin—who owns a local coffee shop—to have hidden layers. The mention that Kevin is "charming... when he wants something" and is "protective of his business" raises several red flags for me. From personal experience reading similar mysteries, characters who maintain a front of friendliness but have puzzles around their motives often turn out to be key players in the plot twists. Kevin's possible financial struggles and his connection to Derek Winter’s disappearance suggest there could be more than meets the eye. What really caught my attention is the detail about his proximity to Tita Rosie’s Kitchen and how it could enable him to set up Lila and her family easily. This kind of proximity often plays a big role in unveiling the bigger scheme in such stories. I also think the odd detail that Derek didn’t write bad reviews of Kevin’s coffee shop is suspicious—it could mean Derek knew something or was somehow involved. Normally, in mystery novels, the absence of expected conflicts tells you to look harder at the relationships. Reading this has made me more attentive to subtle clues, like who Kevin really is, his past motives around birth parents, and the mysterious layers behind Java Jo's. For anyone who enjoys digging into character psychology and unraveling mysteries piecemeal, this story is definitely worth following closely. I can’t wait to see how the author unfolds these threads!