Bookstore-café owner Krissy Hancock has plenty to keep her occupied outside business hours, like preparing for her best friend’s wedding and solving a murder . . . Krissy is meeting Vicki’s parents at the Pine Hills, Ohio, airport—it’s the least she can do as maid of honor, even if her relationship with Mr. and Mrs. Patterson is a bit strained. Besides, her own dad is coming in on the same flight. But there are a few additional arrivals, too. Her father’s brought a date—and the Pattersons, both actors, seem to have an entire entourage trailing behind them. Uninvited guests are a headache—especially when one turns out to be, allegedly at least, the most important wedding planner in all the world. Though Vicki and Krissy have already made arrangements for a small, simple party, Vicki’s snobby drama queen mother has her own ideas. Cathy the wedding planner is raring to go, possibly energized by the chocolate-covered espresso beans she compulsively munches. But while the caffeine keeps her awake, it doesn’t keep her alive—and after Cathy chokes on an espresso bean after being hit in the head, Krissy has to find out who ended her supposedly stellar career . . .

A sleuthing bookseller has her hands full with a hyperactive wedding planner, a meddlesome mother-of-the-bride—and murder… Bookstore-café owner Krissy Hancock has plenty to keep her occupied outside business hours, like preparing for her best friend’s wedding. She’s meeting Vicki’s parents at the Pine Hills, Ohio, airport—it’s the least she can do as maid of honor, even if her relationship with Mr. and Mrs. Patterson is a bit strained. Besides, her own dad is coming in on the same flight. But there are a few additional arrivals, too. Her father’s brought a date—and the Pattersons, both actors, seem to have an entire entourage trailing behind them. Uninvited guests are a headache—especially when one turns out to be, allegedly at least, the most important wedding planner in all the world. Though Vicki and Krissy have already made arrangements for a small, simple party, Vicki’s snobby drama queen mother has her own ideas. Cathy the wedding planner is raring to go, possibly energized by the chocolate-covered espresso beans she compulsively munches. But while the caffeine keeps her awake, it doesn’t keep her alive—and after Cathy chokes on an espresso bean after being hit in the head, Krissy has to find out who ended her supposedly stellar career…

When Krissy Hancock and her best friend Vicki decide to open a bookstore café in their new town of Pine Hills, they decide to call it "Death by Coffee," after Krissy’s father’s most famous mystery novel. Little do they know how well the name fits… On their very first day of business, Brendon Lawyer huffily takes his coffee…to the grave. It seems he had a severe allergy to peanuts…but how could there have been nuts in his coffee? And who stole his emergency allergy medication? Fortunately, Krissy’s love of puzzles and mysteries leads her not only to Officer Paul Dalton, but also to many of her new neighbors, who aren’t terribly upset that the book is closed on Brendon. But one of them is a killer, and Krissy needs to read between the lies if she wants to save her new store—and live to see how this story ends…

Krissy Hancock and her pals are taking a coffee break—leaving their bookstore-café in Pine Hills, Ohio, and heading to a convention. But this road trip will be more dangerous than they expected … Coffee lovers are gathering from far and wide at the hotel, and Krissy, Rita, and Vicki are excited. But some of the attendees may need to switch to decaf, as a public argument breaks out soon after they check in and then a flavor competition leads to bitter feelings. When the winner of the contest is beaned with a carafe full of café mocha, suspicions swirl—along with accusations of bribery. Was the dead man offering perks to the judges—or was something sinister going on in his personal life? This case is going to keep Krissy up all night long …

Krissy Hancock runs a bookstore-café in Pine Hills, Ohio, but she’ll be setting up shop as a sleuth when she discovers a long-unsolved murder . . . Krissy’s helping a friend clean out her late mother’s house when she learns that although the deceased died peacefully at an advanced age, her brother did not. In fact, Wade was killed more than thirty years ago, and the case was never closed. What surprises Krissy even more is that she has a personal connection to the story—her friend Rita was seeing Wade at the time, scandalizing the town with the couple’s large age difference. With an older Rita now part of Krissy’s writing group—and another member with police experience—she starts digging up gossip, talking to the victim’s local coffee klatsch, and trying to find real clues amid the old rumors. But things just seem to grow muddier as she fights to identify whodunit . . .

The manager and chief barista of The Village Blend, a popular New York coffeehouse, Clare Cosi is hired to create a gourmet coffee and dessert bar for her ex-husband's upcoming wedding to magazine editor Breanne Summour, a difficult task that is complicated by a series of fatal "accidents" targeting people close to Breanne.

Anna Lee is an anxious 17-year-old whose life is stuck, largely because of her strained relationship with her mother Jacqueline, a quirky recovering alcoholic who is now addicted to coffee. The two take a road trip to explore independent coffee shops along the east coast, but Jacqueline's real agenda is an opportunity to reveal a series of disturbing family secrets-a fatal drunk driving accident, an abusive parent, and her mother's betrayal of a woman Anna Lee holds dear. "As Donna Stramella strengthens Anna Lee's voice and probes her choices, readers receive a realistic story of an entire family struggling to recover not just from alcoholism, but the codependent pattern it creates. ...thoroughly engrossing and hard to put down." Midwest Review "Coffee Killed My Mother is a wonderfully written tale about a mother-daughter journey. Stramella's novel shows an admirable level of professionalism with its characters and settings, and promises great things for the first-time author." Nancy Stancill, Author of Saving Texas and Winning Texas "Written in Anna Lee's seventeen-year-old voice, Stramella's writing is superb, her characters fully developed and relatable, her settings of small-town eastern seaboard America realistic. Easily one of the best novels I've read this year, I look forward to reading more of Donna Stramella's work." Toni Morgan, Author of Patrimony and Queenie's Place. "Stramella does a wonderful job of doling out Jacqueline's persona from behind a curtain of secrets and half-truths that drives the story's pacing to its unexpected conclusion." James White, Author of Ransoms are for Amateurs and Helen and her Brothers