Tuesday, July 8, 2025

~ WEDNESDAY COZY MYSTERY FEATURE ROCKY ROAD TO MURDER ~

🧁🍰🍨🍪🍦🎂🔦🔎👀🧁

~ WEDNESDAY COZY MYSTERY FEATURE ~
  --  'ROCKY ROAD TO MURDER'  -- 
AUTHOR LENA GREGORY  

🧁🍰🍨🍪🍦🎂🔦🔎👀🧁

 

Rocky Road to Murder (Coffee & Cream Café Mysteries) by Lena Gregory

🧁🍰🍨🍪🍦🎂🔦🔎👀🧁 

About Rocky Road to Murder

 

Cozy Mystery 6th in Series Setting - New York 
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Gemma Halliday Publishing (July 1, 2025) 
Number of Pages - 220 Digital 
ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0F7MV3JW5 

 goodreads badge

 

🧁🍰🍨🍪🍦🎂🔦🔎👀🧁

From author Lena Gregory comes a tasty summer murder mystery...

Danika Delaney is thrilled that her old fashioned malt shop, the Coffee & Cream Café, has gotten a catering contract for the biggest party of the season, the Rutherford Manor Fourth of July gala. She’ll be providing desserts for the party as well as attending the exclusive event on Eastern Long Island.

However her path to the gala quickly becomes a rocky road...

Dani arrives at the event, only to find the gala's hostess, Cressida Rutherford, dead! What's worse, one of Dani's signature parfaits sits next to the dead woman, with what looks like peanuts in it—a food Cressida is severely allergic to. Amid the melted ice cream mess, Dani initially blames herself, thinking she made a mistake while rushing with the desserts. However she quickly learns that what appeared to be an accident was actually foul play, and suddenly Dani has to spring into action proving that she isn't the perpetrator. Along with her friends, Dani uncovers a string of people in Cressida's life who might have wanted the socialite dead. Can she prove her innocence and make sure the killer gets their just desserts?   

🧁🍰🍨🍪🍦🎂🔦🔎👀🧁

 Author Guest Post 

'My Small Town'

By

Lena Gregory 

I lived most of my life in a small town on the south shore of Eastern Long Island, along with four generations of my family. My grandfather owned a deli in town, where I started working stocking shelves and sweeping floors when I was twelve years old. When I was a little older, I started working the breakfast shift, the inspiration for the All-Day Breakfast Café Mystery series.

I’ve always loved the small-town feel, the way everyone knows everyone, especially the families who lived there for generation after generation as mine had. When I married a man from the neighboring town, it seemed natural to settle down where we’d grown up and start our family.

Then my husband got a job offer in Florida, and he accepted. We moved down right after my daughter finished kindergarten. I had only ever been to Florida once, when my daughter was three and we spent three days in Disney World, so I had no clue what to expect.

I was used to deer crossing signs, since Long Island is home to a large deer population, but the first time I drove my daughter to school and saw a bear crossing sign, I actually turned around and went back to see it again. I thought I was mistaken, but nope, it was a bear crossing sign. Until that moment, I had no clue there were bears in Florida.

Then there were the love bugs, and they were everywhere. And lizards, which I’d never even seen in real life before I moved, and snakes, sometimes poisonous ones.

Aside from the critters, the weather brought a few surprises as well. On the rare occasions Long Island gets tornadoes, they are small F-1s that do very little damage. One night, about six months after we moved to Florida, I had just gotten into bed and turned on the TV, and the weather report came on. A line of damaging storms were coming through. The reporter said if you live on my road, “take cover now,” and I freaked out, to put it mildly, woke my daughter and stuffed her and my dog into the tub, even tried to wrestle a mattress into the tiny bathroom. (That was so not happening.)

Whenever I got homesick, I spent a lot of time checking off the positives and negatives of living in Florida and New York.

Because there were also amazing things about living in Florida. The natural springs, with their crystal-clear water, gorgeous blue skies—even in the winter when the skies in New York are permanently gray. And who could complain when everyone in New York was shoveling out from under a foot of snow, and I was laying by the pool?

In the end, my decision was made for me when my husband and I both got job opportunities in New York. We ended up moving back to New York and visiting Florida every year, because we missed it so much.

While I loved moving back to our small town and raising two of our children there, we eventually did move back to Florida. This time, though, we found a small town outside of the more touristy areas, with a beautiful downtown area that reminds me some of the town I came from. Now, when I reminisce about the past, I realize things have changed in New York. My once small town grew until I no longer knew everyone, most of my family no longer lives there, and the cost of living skyrocketed. Thankfully, I still get to revisit my hometown in my Coffee & Cream Café Mysteries, since the fictional town of Watchogue is based on my childhood home.

🧁🍰🍨🍪🍦🎂🔦🔎👀🧁

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.

🧁🍰🍨🍪🍦🎂🔦🔎👀🧁 

Author Links:

Purchase Links - Amazon - Barnes & Noble - Kobo 

🧁🍰🍨🍪🍦🎂🔦🔎👀🧁

TOUR PARTICIPANTS:
July 1 – Jody's Bookish Haven – SPOTLIGHT  
July 2 – Books, Ramblings, and Tea – SPOTLIGHT  
July 2 – Ruff Drafts – AUTHOR GUEST POST  
July 3 – Elizabeth McKenna - Author – SPOTLIGHT  
July 3 – Frugal Freelancer – SPOTLIGHT  
July 4 – OFF  
July 5 – Guatemala Paula Loves to Read – REVIEW  
July 5 – Eskimo Princess Book Reviews – SPOTLIGHT  
July 6 – Salty Inspirations – CHARACTER INTERVIEW  
July 6 – Cozy Up With Kathy – REVIEW , CHARACTER GUEST POST  
July 7 – Reading Is My SuperPower – REVIEW  
July 7 – FUONLYKNEW – SPOTLIGHT  
July 7 – Baroness' Book Trove – CHARACTER INTERVIEW  
July 8 – Ascroft, eh? – CHARACTER INTERVIEW  
July 8 – Sarah Can't Stop Reading Books – REVIEW  
July 9 – Reading, Writing & Stitch-Metic – AUTHOR GUEST POST, INDIVIDUAL GIVEAWAY 
July 9 – Socrates Book Reviews – SPOTLIGHT  
July 10 – Christy's Cozy Corners – REVIEW, CHARACTER GUEST POST, INDIVIDUAL GIVEAWAY  
July 10 – Angel's Book Nook – SPOTLIGHT  
July 11 – View from the Birdhouse – REVIEW  
July 11 – Read Your Writes Book Reviews – AUTHOR INTERVIEW
July 12 – MJB Reviewers – REVIEW  
July 13 – Sapphyria's Book Reviews – REVIEW  
July 14 – Rebecca M. Douglass, Author – REVIEW, AUTHOR INTERVIEW  
  

🧁🍰🍨🍪🍦🎂🔦🔎👀🧁

THIS TOUR IS OFFERING 2 GIVEAWAYS!
YOU MUST COMPLETE EACH OF THE BELOW 
 
RAFFLECOPTER FORMS TO BE ENTERED
IN BOTH GIVEAWAYS:
 
BLOG TOUR GIVEAWAY: 

a Rafflecopter giveaway 

🧁🍰🍨🍪🍦🎂🔦🔎👀🧁

INDIVIDUAL BLOG STOP GIVEAWAY: 

a Rafflecopter giveaway  

🧁🍰🍨🍪🍦🎂🔦🔎👀🧁

Have you signed up to be a Tour Host?  

Click Here to Find Details and Sign Up Today!  

Want to Book a Tour? Click Here

🧁🍰🍨🍪🍦🎂🔦🔎👀🧁

 

 

~ NEW SEWING PATTERN FABRIC FLOWER TOWELS ~

~ NEW SEWING PATTERN FABRIC FLOWER TOWELS ~