#GuestPostTour ~ Double Scoop of Murder by Lena Gregory @LenaGregory03 @dollycas

Double Scoop of Murder
(Coffee & Cream Café Mysteries)
by Lena Gregory

About Double Scoop to Murder

Double Scoop of Murder (Coffee & Cream Café Mysteries)
Cozy Mystery
3rd in Series
Setting – New York
Gemma Halliday Publishing (February 27, 2024)
Number of Pages 226
Digital ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0CKV7QQB8

From author Lena Gregory comes a hunt for more than just treasure…

Danika Delany is loving running her uncle’s old fashioned malt shop on eastern Long Island and putting her own modern spin on the treats they serve. Life is finally looking up for her! That is, until local billionaire Maxwell Crumbholtz dies and leaves his fortune in the form of a treasure hunt. Chaos descends on Watchogue, and Dani and the rest of the gang from the Coffee & Cream Café join the melee when they enter the contest, try to decipher the clues, and go in search of the treasure. But Dani digs up more than she expected when she discovers a dead body buried instead of a treasure! To make matters worse, a witness claims to have seen Dani at the scene of the murder. Now, instead of a four-billion-dollar payday, Dani is on the hunt for a killer.

Guest Post

Inspiration for the Coffee & Cream Café Mysteries

People often ask what inspired my stories. In the case of the Coffee and Cream Café Mysteries, it was the setting, a small town on Eastern Long Island, similar to the one I grew up in.

My first job was working early mornings in my grandfather’s deli in a town just like Watchogue. I can still remember getting up at four in the morning to go in and stock shelves, the scent of kaiser rolls with butter and bacon frying, and the gossip. Boy, was there gossip. I have such fond memories of my grandfather standing behind the counter, leaning forward, enjoying shooting the breeze with customers (the inspiration for Uncle Jimmie). My grandmother knew everyone by name, and assumed everyone else did too. She used to start off a conversation with, “Can you believe Jodi did this, or did you hear Donna did that?” As if you would automatically know who those people were.

I wanted to capture that feel, to share that sense of community, of knowing your neighbors. But there’s a down side to that too. Not only do you know what all of your neighbors are doing, they are all aware of your deepest, darkest secrets as well. There’s nothing like getting into trouble and having your parents know about it before you even walk through the door.

And then there was that one family, like the Jenkins brothers in Watchogue, who always seemed to have one kid or another in trouble, the standard by which all other kids were measured. As long as you weren’t as bad as those kids, you were doing okay.

Another fond memory from that time is ice cream sandwiches made with waffles and Neapolitan ice cream. I used to love when we made them fresh, before we wrapped them and put them into the freezer, when the waffles were warm and the ice cream would begin to melt as you ate it.

But my most cherished memory from back then is family. Four generations of my family lived in that same small town—grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, along with my parents and my brother and sisters and, eventually, all of our children. I attended the same school as my uncles did before me and my children did after me. We even all shared a few of the same teachers. Family functions always included a ton of people laughing, eating, gossiping, and just enjoying being together. I’ve tried to capture that same sense of family in the Coffee & Cream Café Mysteries.

About Lena Gregory

Lena Gregory is the author of the Bay Island Psychic Mysteries, which take place on a small island between the north and south forks of Long Island, New York, the All-Day Breakfast Café Mysteries, which are set on the outskirts of Florida’s Ocala National Forest, the Mini-Meadows Mysteries, set in a community of tiny homes in Central Florida, and the Coffee & Cream Café Mysteries, which take place in a small town on the south shore of eastern Long Island, New York.

Lena grew up in a small town on the south shore of eastern Long Island, but she recently traded in cold, damp, gray winters for the warmth and sunshine of central Florida, where she now lives with her husband, three kids, son-in-law, and four dogs. Her hobbies include spending time with family, reading, and walking. Her love for writing developed when her youngest son was born and didn’t sleep through the night. She works full-time as a writer and a freelance editor and is a member of Sisters in Crime.

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