Welcome to my stop on the Great Escapes Virtual Book Tour for Soft Serve Sleighing (Coffee & Cream Café Mysteries) by Lena Gregory. Stop by each blog on the tour for interviews, guest posts, spotlights, reviews and more!
Soft Serve Sleighing (Coffee & Cream Café Mysteries)
by Lena Gregory
Soft Serve Sleighing (Coffee & Cream Café Mysteries)
Cozy Mystery
5th in Series
Setting – Long Island, NY
Publisher : Gemma Halliday Publishing (January 28, 2025)
Number of Pages – 226
From author Lena Gregory comes a delightfully delicious cozy mystery…
With most of Eastern Long Island closed down for a blizzard, Danika Delaney and her friends are holed up in her old fashioned malt shop, the Coffee & Cream Café, with ice cream and hot chocolate. However, their plans to wait out the storm in cozy company are interrupted when a popular YouTuber and her two companions show up at the door—they’ve been trapped by the storm, and Dani generously offers to serve them breakfast. But her generosity isn’t rewarded in kind, as the reviewer then tries to extort money from Dani in exchange for a good review! When the storm finally clears, Dani is happy to have seen the last of them.
Or so she thought.
Dani and her friends decide to go sleigh riding the morning after the storm clears, but instead of a winter wonderland, they find the extorting YouTuber…dead! To make matters worse, Dani suddenly finds herself accused of the woman’s murder. Intent on restoring her reputation, Dani sets out to prove she didn’t do it. This is one storm she’s not sure she can weather…
My review of Soft Serve Sleighing
Soft Serve Sleighing by Lena Gregory is the 5th book in the charming Coffee & Cream Cafe Mystery Series. A blizzard has the Eastern Long Island town of Watchogue shut down and snowed in. When Danika “Dani” Delaney, owner of the Coffee & Cream Cafe, kindly opens her door to three young women, even though she’s closed, she also opens herself to another murder investigation!
You can read Soft Serve Sleighing as a standalone, but I absolutely recommend the whole series. It’s one of my favorite cozy mystery series and has some of my favorite characters. I really don’t mind the snow, though a week of it is plenty for me! I’m done with it right now! However, I DO love reading books set in a blizzard or ones that have snow in general. As long as I’m not dealing with the snow, I’m good.
Well, Eli, a twenty-something computer tech genius and waiter/busboy/whatever at Dani’s cafe is going stir crazy. He also happens to be one of Dani’s best friends, so he convinces her, Gwen (another best friend), and Meghan (her sister whom Eli has a serious crush on) to go sledding down the big hill by the B&B. Did I mention that Eli cannot sit still for more than a few minutes at a time? He’s one of my favorite characters! It’s hilarious reading what he’ll come up with next. So, sledding. It’s cold and since they rarely have snow, it’s something they haven’t done in a long time! Well, it turns out, Dani probably won’t want to go again for a long time since her first time down the hill lands her in some bushes where a body just happens to be hidden. And so it begins! Dani and company are on the case (much to the chagrin of her detective boyfriend’s chagrin)!
I loved this cozy mystery immensely! As I said, it’s got some of my favorite characters. In addition to Eli, there’s also Uncle Jimmie who is quirky and loves Dani fiercely. He used to be the owner of the cafe but since he’s getting older (and forgetful) Dani returned to their small town to take over. I love Dani’s family with all of its quirkiness. I love watching Dani and Jake interact. They’re not quite at the officially a couple stage yet, but I’m sure they’ll get there eventually! The “guest” characters are also well-written and serve a purpose…red herrings anyone?
Soft Serve Sleighing is a page-turning cozy mystery that will keep you guessing! It’s well-plotted with outstanding characters and lots of humor! I highly recommend it and give it 5 huge stars!
I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book. All views expressed are only my honest opinion.
Character Guest Post
10 Things You Didn’t Know About Me
By Danika Delaney
I love getting to know my customers, so please feel free to leave a comment letting me know a little something about you. Just be careful—anything you say might well end up in the Watchogue rumor mill.
So, do you share any of my quirks?
1- I grew up in an Irish/Italian Catholic family on the south shore of eastern Long Island, where Sunday dinners are a must and gossip is a favored pastime.
2- I fled Watchogue amid a scandal from prom night and attended college in New York City, where I earned a marketing degree I’ve yet to find a use for.
3- I returned home to take over my Uncle Jimmie’s old-fashioned ice cream parlor and turned it into my very own Coffee & Cream Café.
4- I am apparently afraid of commitment, which I only found out recently.
5- I am a master procrastinator. Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow?
6- One of my favorite things to do is take a long walk along the beach, preferably without stumbling over a dead body.
7- Reading is one of my favorite hobbies. (My sister Meghan is the athletic one in the family.)
8- I am kind of shy. As much as I love socializing and even meeting new people, I do much better one on one than I do in a group.
9- I am surprisingly technologically challenged for someone of my generation.
10- I am very high strung and rarely relax. I go from the time I get up until the time I go to bed. I talk fast, I move fast, and I always have a list a mile long of things I have to get finished in a day. Of course, I usually forget or misplace the list, so it doesn’t always help much.
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
- Newsletter: http://lenagregory.us12.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=9765d0711ed4fab4fa31b16ac&id=49d42335d1.
- Website: http://www.lenagregory.com/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lena.gregory.986
- Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/Lena.Gregory.Author/?fref=ts
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/LenaGregory03
- Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14956514.Lena_Gregory?from_search=true
- Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/lenagregoryauth/
Purchase Links
Amazon B&N Kobo
Enter the giveaways
Soft Serve Sleighing TOUR PARTICIPANTS
January 28 – Jody’s Bookish Haven – SPOTLIGHT
January 28 – Reading, Writing & Stitch-Metic – AUTHOR GUEST POST, INDIVIDUAL GIVEAWAY
January 28 – fundinmental – SPOTLIGHT
January 29 – Socrates Book Reviews – SPOTLIGHT
January 29 – Reading Is My SuperPower – REVIEW
January 30 – Christy’s Cozy Corners – REVIEW, CHARACTER GUEST POST, INDIVIDUAL GIVEAWAY
January 31 – Guatemala Paula Loves to Read – REVIEW
January 31 – Celticlady’s Reviews – SPOTLIGHT
February 1 – Frugal Freelancer – CHARACTER INTERVIEW, INDIVIDUAL GIVEAWAY
February 1 – Elizabeth McKenna – Author – SPOTLIGHT
February 2 – Cozy Up With Kathy – REVIEW
February 2 – FUONLYKNEW – SPOTLIGHT
February 3 – Angel’s Book Nook – AUTHOR INTERVIEW
February 3 – Read Your Writes Book Reviews – CHARACTER GUEST POST
February 4 – Ruff Drafts – AUTHOR GUEST POST
February 4 – Cassidy’s Bookshelves – SPOTLIGHT
February 5 – Novels Alive – REVIEW
February 5 – Escape With Dollycas Into A Good Book – REVIEW
February 6 – Rebecca M. Douglass, Author – REVIEW
February 6 – Ascroft, eh? – CHARACTER INTERVIEW
February 7 – View from the Birdhouse – REVIEW
February 7 – StoreyBook Reviews – SPOTLIGHT
February 8 – Maureen’s Musings – SPOTLIGHT
February 9 – Sapphyria’s Book Reviews – REVIEW
February 10 – Deal Sharing Aunt – AUTHOR INTERVIEW
February 10 – Sarah Can’t Stop Reading Books – REVIEW
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Thank you for your review on SOFT SERVE SLEIGHING by Lena Gregory and for being part of the Great Escapes Virtual Book Tour book tour.
Love Lena’s book and naturally this book is on my TBR list. Can’t wait for the opportunity to dive in reading it.
LOVE any kind of ice cream! If I’m having just ice cream, I love soft serve in cone form. However, if I want some sort of topping on it (hot fudge, some sort of sweetened fruit, caramel, marshmallow creme, chocolate chips, nuts – one of a combination – you get the idea), I like hard ice cream in a bowl to hold it all.
Thank you, Kay!! And now I’m craving a hot fudge sundae! Lol
I liked the review, thank you.
Thank you so much for such a wonderful review! I’m so happy you are enjoying this series. 🙂
Also, thank you for having me and for sharing the release of Soft Serve Sleighing!
You’re welcome! Thanks for stopping!
I like hard ice cream with a topping, especially hot fudge.
I would rather have solft serve, though both are good
i like soft serve
I would rather have hard ice cream.
Fabulously fun cover. I like soft serve but mostly because it reminds me of my dad. It’s a treat we used to get together, when I was a little girl & it was just the two of us. It’s a bittersweet memory & it makes me miss him. ♡
I like hard ice cream.
I love all ice cream, although I would probably take hard ice cream over soft serve. I also love hot fudge as a topping.
Definitely soft serve. But now you have me wanting to go to Dairy Queen.
I’ll go with you!
I prefer to have hard, scooped ice cream – with toppings like hot fudge and whipped cream and a cherry on top!