In her delightful debut, Balzo puts a 21st-century spin on the traditional cozy, replacing tea with coffee as the comfort beverage of choice. Maggy Thorsen, a divorcée whose husband left her for his 24-year-old dental hygienist, and two women friends are eager to open a coffee shop, Uncommon Grounds, in the small Wisconsin town of Brookhills, whose inhabitants include such recognizable types as the local gossip and tennis moms. In a world where Starbuck's...

AnnaLise's philandering father's attempt to 'do right' by his many heirs goes deadly wrong Journalist AnnaLise Griggs' return to her hometown in North Carolina's western mountains has led to some unexpected surprises – most notably the discovery that legendary womanizer Dickens Hart is her birth father, and she an heir to Hart's huge fortune. Founder of the White Tail Lodge – a High Country knock-off of the Playboy concept – Hart now claims...

The first three titles in the Maggy Thorsen Coffeehouse Mystery Series UNCOMMON GROUNDS In her delightful debut, Balzo puts a 21st-century spin on the traditional cozy, replacing tea with coffee as the comfort beverage of choice. Maggy Thorsen, a divorcée whose husband left her for his 24-year-old dental hygienist, and two women friends are eager to open a coffee shop, Uncommon Grounds, in the small Wisconsin town of Brookhills, whose inhabitants...

Things go from bad to worse for Wisconsin coffeehouse owner Maggy Thorsen when her cousin Jacque Oui finds himself in hot water. Wisconsin coffeehouse owner Maggy Thorsen's cousin, Jacque Oui, is in trouble. Big trouble! Not only is his cash-strapped Schultz's Market facing competition from a major new grocery chain, but his ex-wife Paulette has arrived from Paris, spectacularly claiming that she and Jacque are still married, despite Jacque being...

Trouble is brewing for coffeehouse owner Maggy Thorsen when she's caught up in a storm - and murder - at a writers' retreat. Coffeehouse owner Maggy Thorsen has reluctantly travelled north with her business partner, Sarah Kingston, to cater for a weekend writers' retreat at Payne Lodge log cabin. The remote location deep in the Wisconsin forest is the perfect setting for mystery writing workshops . . . and murder. Maggy's no fan of the outdoors,...

Exactly how hot is the competition at the annual coffee trade industry conference in Milwaukee? Scaldingly hot.What's not hot? Finding Marvin LaRoche, owner of the HotWired coffeehouse chain store stone-cold dead under a banquet table in the middle of the convention.And everybody knows that Maggy was no great fan of Mr. LaRoche, nor of his overly competitive business practices - so it's up to Maggy's own amateur sleuthing skills to get herself out...

The choice of an antique silver coffee urn as the final resting place for elderly Celeste Bouchard's ashes might seem a cruel joke. After all, the wealthy boutique owner was taken ill and died while daughter Hannah was off having lattes at Uncommon Grounds. But Maggy Thorsen, the coffeehouse's owner, has more pressing things on her mind: a jailbreak and subsequent shoot-out has forced her main squeeze, Sheriff Jake Pavlik, to take refuge with her. Maggy...

Trouble is brewing for coffeehouse owner Maggy Thorsen when her barista's wealthy beau is murdered. Maggy Thorsen's head is spinning thanks to partner Sarah Kingston's latest idea - selling luxe espresso machines in their Wisconsin coffeehouse, Uncommon Grounds. But Maggy soon faces a far bigger problem when her fiancé, sheriff Jake Pavlik, makes an official call on the coffeehouse's star barista, Amy Caprese. Amy's wealthy new beau, investment...

It's November and Maggy Thorsen, co-owner of the Wisconsin gourmet coffeehouse, Uncommon Grounds, is in South Florida at an annual crime-writers' conference with her beau, local sheriff Jake Pavlik, who is due to speak as a 'forensics expert'. Maggy's pledge to behave solely as a tourist becomes trickier than she anticipated when the conference's opening night event turns out to be a re-enactment of Agatha Christie's classic, Murder on the Orient...

A café owner tries to figure out who might have sent someone flying out a tenth-floor window:"Entertaining ... Maggy makes an appealing amateur sleuth." -- Publishers Weekly First, Maggy Thorsen is shocked to find her ex-husband Ted in a fight with William Swope, an oral surgeon at Ted's dental practice, outside Uncommon Grounds, the Wisconsin gourmet coffeehouse she co-owns. But she's even more horrified to discover Swope's dead body outside Thorsen...