Initial Impressions 6/7/12: This was a pretty entertaining read overall. I enjoyed all of the characters and it was nice that Clare was a normal, down-to-earth protagonist. The somewhat love triangle between her, her ex-husband Matt, and Lt Quinn is something I look forward to in future books. Seems like that could get interesting and I'm actually glad they didn't rush through it in the first book! The mystery was nice also - Not something I expected even though the clues were there! Like the characters, I was just blinded by the obvious! The thing that annoyed me though was that there was a little TOO many references to coffee. I get that they're in a coffeehouse and this is what Clare does for a living, but I didn't like to have to read step-by-step instructions on how to make an latte or what a real espresso is. They were nice additions to the annex in the end, but I felt like it broke up the story too much and I was anxious to skip over it and just continue on! 
 Full review as originally posted on The Book Addict's Guide: This was a pretty enjoyable read. Once I got a good block of time, I really breezed through it. I was extremely interested in how the mystery was going to play out and what the real cause of her fall down the stairs was. I really liked Clare's character a lot -- She seemed really down-to-earth and completely normal. Of course she has some skeletons in her closet like her ex-husband Matteo (Matt), who becomes a big part of the story. I loved the relationship with her mother-in-law known as "Madame". They still have a great friendship and Madame still sees Clare as a daughter-in-law, and a very trustworthy one at that when she has Clare start running the Village Blend again. 
 I liked the love triangle (or set up for one) between Clare, Matt, and Lt Quinn -- Madame is still trying to get Clare and Matt back together, even after they've been officially divorced for years -- and Clare starts to formulate a little crush on Lt Quinn when he starts on the case. I'm really glad these relationships weren't developed in this story... There's a lot of opportunity now to develop the relationship (whichever one they choose to go with) in the future books. 
 What I didn't like was the over-explanation of coffee. I know that this takes place in a coffeehouse and that's Clare job, life, and passion, but I felt like it interfered with the story quite a bit at times. I know a lot of books include recipes in the back; for example, in the case of the Hannah Swensen books I've read, they're interspersed, but blocked off as specifically recipes in between chapters. In ON WHAT GROUNDS, Clare was narrating how to make a latte, what a real espresso is, etc right in the middle of the action and the dialogue. It was pretty distracting to me... I either wasn't interested half the time because I won't need to use these coffee recipes or I already know the difference between coffee/espresso/latte/cappuccino, etc are, but mostly because it just cut right in the middle of everything I was interesting in reading. Maybe for some people it's interesting information to make the book richer, but I just didn't want it to be in the meat of the action, that's all!