Whispers Beneath the Brew

A Claire Mitchell Cozy Mystery Book 1

Some recipes are meant to stay buried… until now.

When a mysterious break-in shatters the calm of Pinewood View, café owner Claire Mitchell discovers her grandmother’s secret mocha recipe has vanished—along with the quiet certainty she’s always known.

Detective Jack Sullivan casts it off as a prank but she’s certain it’s more than a petty crime.

With only a cryptic note, a hidden key, and her mischievous Labrador Murphy, Claire teams up with her fearless best friend Lucy to uncover long-forgotten truths, and family secrets hidden in plain sight.

But as Claire follows a trail of mysterious clues, the puzzle deepens—and the faces she thought she knew begin to wear stranger shadows.

In a town where smiles hide secrets and old grudges linger, Claire begins to suspect the missing recipe is just the first thread. Something—or someone—is unraveling the past... and they’ll do anything to stop her from stitching it back together.

Good story, AI voice abysmal

The story is interesting and well-written, but I gave up near the end of chapter 8. The AI narration leaves a lot to be desired. For the majority of sentences, the voice inflections are all wrong. This puts an enormous extra burden on the listener to make sense out of the words. The jobs of human narrators are still safe.