Sweetleaf Café is Noah Garcia's sanctuary. After years of careful work, the cozy Bluebonnet Falls café is more than a business. It is the place where he belongs.

Then Martin Caldwell walks in.

The feared food critic has a reputation for destroying restaurants with a single review, and he wastes no time humiliating Noah in front of the morning crowd. Minutes later, Caldwell takes one sip of Noah's House Special latte and collapses on the café floor.

The evidence vanishes as quickly as the man who delivered it. The sheriff sees a public argument, a poisoned drink, and a café owner with everything to lose. Mystery novelist Eric Chu, who had his own ugly history with Caldwell, looks almost as suspicious.

With the town watching and their reputations crumbling, Noah and Eric form an uneasy alliance. Noah knows people, gossip, and the hidden rhythms of Bluebonnet Falls. Eric knows motive, misdirection, and the shape of a good murder plot. Together, they follow a trail of missing bottles, secret payments, old grudges, and festival whispers toward a killer with far more to protect than a reputation.

But the closer they get to the truth, the harder it becomes to ignore what is growing between them.

Murder at Sweetleaf Café is a cozy MM murder mystery about suspicion, trust, small-town secrets, and two men who find love while trying not to be framed for murder.