If you’re anything like me in the mornings, you’re scarcely coherent until you hear that familiar burble of searing coffee spurting up through your Italian-style espresso maker. Until that rich, gritty aroma pervades the air, warming, waking: the mere promise of your morning coffee is almost enough to rouse you from your complacent, vaguely somnolent state.

And if you’re anything like me, you like reading about coffee almost as much as you enjoy drinking it. At the very least, you surely enjoy reading about it whilst drinking a coffee. Working purely on this assumption, I thought it might be timely to put together a list of coffee-themed fiction for you to peruse over your morning cuppa. Enjoy!

The Various Flavors of Coffee by Anthony Capella (see our review)

Blurb: It was a cup of coffee that changed Robert Wallis’s life — and a cup of very bad coffee at that. The impoverished poet is sitting in a London coffeehouse contemplating an uncertain future when he meets Samuel Pinker. The owner of Castle Coffee offers Wallace the very last thing a struggling young artiste in fin de siècle England could possibly want: a job.

But the job Wallis accepts — employing his palate and talent for words to compose a “vocabulary of coffee” based on its many subtle and elusive flavors — is only the beginning of an extraordinary adventure in which Wallis will experience the dizzying heights of desire and the excruciating pain of loss. As Wallis finds himself falling hopelessly in love with his coworker, Pinker’s spirited suffragette daughter Emily, both will discover that you cannot awaken one set of senses without affecting all the others.

Their love is tested when Wallis is dispatched on a journey to North Africa in search of the legendary Arab mocca. As he travels to coffee’s fabled birthplace — and learns the fiercely guarded secrets of the trade — Wallis meets Fikre, the defiant, seductive slave of a powerful coffee merchant, who serves him in the traditional Abyssinian coffee ceremony. And when Fikre dares to slip Wallis a single coffee bean, the mysteries of coffee and forbidden passion intermingle…and combine to change history and fate.

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The Espressologist by Kristina Springer

Blurb: What’s your drink of choice? Is it a small pumpkin spice latte? Then you’re lots of fun and a bit sassy. Or a medium americano? You prefer simplicity in life. Or perhaps it’s a small decaf soy sugar-free hazelnut caffe latte? Some might call you a yuppie.

Seventeen-year-old barista Jane Turner has this theory that you can tell a lot about a person by their regular coffee drink. She scribbles it all down in a notebook and calls it Espressology. So it’s not a totally crazy idea when Jane starts hooking up some of her friends based on their coffee orders. Like her best friend, Em, a medium hot chocolate, and Cam, a toffee nut latte. But when her boss, Derek, gets wind of Jane’s Espressology, he makes it an in-store holiday promotion, promising customers their perfect matches for the price of their favorite coffee.

Things are going better than Derek could ever have hoped, so why is Jane so freaked out? Does it have anything to do with Em dating Cam? She’s the one who set them up! She should be happy for them, right? With overtones of Jane Austen’s Emma and brimming with humor and heart, this sweet, frothy debut will be savored by readers.

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The Coffee Trader by David Liss

Blurb: In his richly suspenseful second novel, author David Liss once again travels back in time to a crucial moment in cultural and financial history. His destination: Amsterdam, 1659—a mysterious world of trade populated by schemers and rogues, where deception rules the day. On the world’s first commodities exchange, fortunes are won and lost in an instant. Miguel Lienzo, a sharp-witted trader in the city’s close-knit community of Portuguese Jews, knows this only too well. Once among the city’s most envied merchants, Miguel has lost everything in a sudden shift in the sugar markets. Now, impoverished and humiliated, living on the charity of his petty younger brother, Miguel must find a way to restore his wealth and reputation.

Miguel enters into a partnership with a seductive Dutchwoman who offers him one last chance at success—a daring plot to corner the market of an astonishing new commodity called “coffee.” To succeed, Miguel must risk everything he values and test the limits of his commercial guile, facing not only the chaos of the markets and the greed of his competitors, but also a powerful enemy who will stop at nothing to see him ruined. Miguel will learn that among Amsterdam’s ruthless businessmen, betrayal lurks everywhere, and even friends hide secret agendas. With humor, imagination, and mystery, David Liss depicts a world of subterfuge, danger, and repressed longing, where religious and cultural traditions clash with the demands of a new and exciting way of doing business. Readers of historical suspense andlovers of coffee (even decaf) will be up all night with this beguiling novel.

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Black Coffee by Agatha Christie

Blurb: Created in 1930 as a stage play and faithfully adapted by Charles Osborne, Black Coffee brings back beloved detective Hercule Poirot to exercise his “little grey cells” one more deliciously deductive time…

An urgent call from physicist Sir Claud Amory sends famed detective Hercule Poirot rushing from London to a sprawling country estate. Sir Claud fears a member of his own household wants to steal a secret formula destined for the Ministry of Defense. But Poirot arrives too late. The formula is missing. Worse, Sir Claud has been poisoned by his after-dinner coffee. Poirot soon identifies a potent brew of despair, treachery, and deception amid the mansion’s occupants. Now he must find the formula and the killer…while letting no poison slip ‘twix his low lips.

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Death by Latte by Linda Gerber

Blurb: It was only a few weeks ago that Aphra Connolly’s life changed completely. She had been living a quiet existence on her father’s secluded island resort, until Seth Mulo turned up and stole her heart …and provided information that led her to find her mom in Seattle. But the reunion isn’t quite what she expected. Aphra’s mom, Natalie, doesn’t seem happy to see Aphra, and Natalie’s boyfriend, Joe, insists that Aphra go home. Even worse, Seth shows up, only to ask her to return the ring he gave her the previous summer. At least Natalie’s hunky neighbour is sympathetic. But when Joe is found dead at a nearby coffee shop, Aphra discovers her whole trip to Seattle has been based on a lie. And now someone just might be trying to kill her…

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Confessions of a Triple Shot Betty and Triple Shot Bettys in Loveby Jody Gehrman

Blurb for Confessions of  Triple Shot Betty: Geena can’t wait to spend summer vacation with her two best girls: her friend Amber and her cousin Hero. All three are working at the Triple Shot Betty coffee shop together, but the moment Amber and Hero meet, the claws come out. They hate each other on sight. Geena’s dreams of a girl-bonding summer fl y out the window, and then threaten to disappear completely when a few cute (okay, drop-dead gorgeous) guys come along to woo the Bettys. But all is not what it seems, and in a story of mistaken identities, crazy summer high jinks, and enough romance to make Shakespeare proud, Geena and her friends learn that when Bettys unite, they can take on the most powerful force in their world: a hot guy.

Blurb for Triple Shot Bettys in Love: Geena is freaking out. She’s been going out with Ben for five months, their relationship is comfortable and perfect, and then Bam! he’s suddenly putting the pressure on to be way more physical. She’s not sure she’s ready.  Enter Mr. Rex Sands, Geena’s delectably hot and brilliant English substitute teacher (he speaks to her soul!), on whom her best friend Amber develops an immediate crush when he stops by the Triple Shot Betty coffee shack. Amber needs Geena’s help talking to him because he is such an intellectual, so Geena finds herself writing love notes, MySpace messages, and texts to Mr. Sands under Amber’s name. And he writes back! Geena is just doing it all for Amber (sort of), so it’s not technically cheating on Ben . . . right? In this romantic and playful update of Cyrano de Bergerac, Jody Gehrman reintroduces readers to Geena, Amber, and the Sonoma gang as they walk the rocky and confusing path toward true love.

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The Van Gogh Cafe by Cynthia Rylant

Blurb: At the Van Gogh Cafe, anything can happen. Clara’s dad owns the cafe, and she’s seen it all – from food that cooks by itself to poems that foretell the future. This award-winning collection of vignettes by Newbery medallist, Cynthia Rylant, is a treat to be relished. So bring your appetite for the unexpected, because at the Van Gogh Cafe, your order of tea and toast comes with a side of magic! Cynthia Rylant is the acclaimed author of more than a hundred books for young people, including the new poetry volume, “Boris” and the novel, “Missing May”, which received the Newbery Medal.

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Coffeehouse Angel by Suzanne Selfours

Blurb: From the author of Saving Juliet comes a romantic comedy that is good to the last drop. When Katrina spots a homeless guy sleeping in the alley behind her grandmother’s coffee shop, she decides to leave him a cup of coffee, a bag of chocolate-covered coffee beans, and some pastries to tide him over. Little does she know that this random act of kindness is about to turn her life upside down.  Because this adorable vagrant, Malcolm, is really a guardian angel on a break between missions. And he won’t leave until he can reward Katrina’s selflessness by fulfilling her deepest desire. Now if only she could decide what that might be . . .

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Double Espresso by Anthony Bruno

Blurb: Parole officers Loretta Kovacs and Frank Marvelli have been ordered to find hit man Sammy Teitlebaum before Sammy kills mob turncoat Gus Rispoli, who’s tucked away at My Blue Heaven, the Witness Protection Program’s top-secret prison. But the bad guys don’t anticipate the determined efforts of Loretta and Frank as they travel to Seattle to find Sammy. They also don’t foresee Loretta and her mood–just as they hit Java City, she’s decided to quit coffee cold turkey!

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Cleo Coyle’s Coffeehouse Mysteries series:

(free reading guides are available from the author’s website)

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Sandra Balzo’s Maggy Thorsen mysteries:

(see our review of Uncommon Grounds, our review of Grounds for Murder, and our review of Bean There, Done That)