Sneak Peek!
Coconut Confessions
Book Description:
I thought I was applying for a barista job at a cozy inn in Maine. Turns out, there was a typo—or the universe has a twisted sense of humor—because now I’m managing a falling-apart resort on Kauai’s North Shore where the pools look like primordial soup and the electrical system was apparently installed by someone who learned wiring from a cereal box.
My name is Jinx Julep, and yes, the nickname fits. I’ve got auburn hair that defies humidity, a talent for stumbling into trouble, and a recently divorced status that led me to this slice of paradise held together by duct tape and optimism.
Everything is going surprisingly well until I find a body floating face-down in our infamous green pool. Now I’m conducting amateur murder investigations with my two senior citizen sidekicks, dodging the advances of a grumpy but devastatingly attractive detective, and trying to keep our ramshackle resort from collapsing into the ocean while figuring out which of our colorful guests decided murder was an acceptable vacation activity. Okay, fine, I’m not dodging a thing when it comes to Mr. Hot Stuff, who happens to be packing heat.
Everyone is a suspect. And if I don’t figure out who’s killing our guests, the only thing deader than our victim will be my new career in paradise.
Includes RECIPE!
Chapter One
No sooner do I arrive in Kauai than I immediately assault a stranger with my luggage.
To be fair, the luggage starts it. The vinyl monstrosity shoots past me on the carousel like it’s trying to escape our relationship, and I lunge. So does someone else. My hand closes on the handle at the exact same second a larger, warmer hand does, and now I’m pressed against six feet of solid muscle and a scent that can only be described as ocean plus trouble.
“Excuse me,” the mountain says, his voice low enough to vibrate the carousel.
“Excused,” I squeak, not moving an inch.
We tug in opposite directions. The suitcase jerks free, momentum yanks me backward and him forward, and suddenly I’m plastered against a chest that feels suspiciously like a steel door. My thigh catches his hip. His forearm braces the carousel and, incidentally, me.
“Whoa,” I gasp. “Buy me a drink first?”
I pull back a notch to get a better look at him and gasp without meaning to. Heck, it was practically mandatory.
Oh my goodness! This man is hotter than a kitchen fire.
Gold-flecked brown eyes meet mine, and just like that, I immediately regret having lungs, because they stop cooperating.
His gaze latches onto mine a moment too long.
His jaw ticks. His lips almost curve into a smile, then he thinks better of it, which somehow makes it worse.
My insides cinch at the sight of him.
He checks off all the tall, dark, and handsome boxes and is built like someone who regularly stands between people and danger.
Judging by the way his shirt strains in all the right places, he has a body built to withstand bullets, and I keep my eyes north out of self-preservation.
And to top it off, about a dozen women in the vicinity are all fanning themselves in his presence.
“This is my bag,” he growls, and I melt into a puddle.
I point at the neon pink flamingo luggage tag dangling from the handle. “I’m pretty sure it’s mine. Unless you also accessorize with plastic birds. Which—no judgment, but if so, soulmate.”
He releases the handle. The suitcase thunk-thunks onto the tile and nearly takes me with it. He steps back, gives me one long, assessing look—the kind people give you right before deciding whether you’re a hurricane or just an annoying light wind—and says, “Figures.”
“Figures what?” I hook my arm through the handle, as if that will keep the suitcase from abandoning me again.
“Figures the first person I run into today would be trouble.”
“I’m not trouble,” I say. “I’m… aggressively accident-prone in a limited range of scenarios.” I stick out my hand before I remember strangers and airports and pandemics, and also personal dignity. “Jinx Julep.”
He eyes my hand, then my face, like he’s cataloging evidence. After a beat, he gives me the most efficient handshake in the history of handshakes. “Koa Hale.”
No title. No small talk. No mercy. He grabs another suitcase that looks suspiciously like mine and peels away toward an employees only door. Of course, there’s a door like that. Of course, he disappears behind it. Of course, my suitcase chooses that moment to lose a wheel.
Welcome to Kauai, Jinx. Please enjoy your stay.
* * *
My name is Jinx Julep. I’m thirty-three with auburn hair that laughs at humidity and green eyes that have seen some things. I’m of average height, average shoe size, and yet I’m distinctly above average when it comes to attracting disaster. It’s been my signature move since birth, right alongside a talent for making excellent espresso and spectacularly poor romantic choices.
Case in point, I just spent seven years married to a man who thought “monogamy” was a type of wood furniture, and after catching him with his twenty-three-year-old “executive assistant” in a position that was definitely not in her job description, I decided it was time for a career change. Not in my actual career—I’m a barista, have been since college, and I will probably die with a portafilter in my hand—but a career change in the geographic sense.
Turns out, when your husband downgrades to a newer model, the best revenge isn’t living well. It’s living over three thousand miles away in a place where even his text messages can’t reach you, and his explanations certainly can’t find you. Also, where Ohio’s endless gray skies can’t remind you that you wasted your entire twenties on a man who peaked in college.
Hence, Hawaii. Or what I thought was Maine. The jury is still out on which universe I’m actually in.
The air outside the Līhuʻe Airport feels like a deep, warm, humid hug wrapped in jet fuel and the scent of plumeria flowers. I step into it, and just like that, there’s no turning back. An overwhelming feeling hits me immediately—my life just took a hard left and didn’t use the blinker.
Forty-eight hours ago, I was on a Zoom call, wearing a blazer over pajama shorts, applying for what I thought was a barista position at a quaint seaside resort in Maine. Lobsters. Lighthouses. Leaf peeping. You know, the cozy trifecta. Lodging included. My ex-husband’s new fiancée had just posted their engagement photos—bare feet, beach, monogrammed towels—and I was impulsive enough to think, sure, let’s go pour coffee for tourists and pretend maple syrup cures betrayal.
“Welcome, Justine,” said a voice as the Zoom call began its reign of futuristic terror, no face, just a screen saver of some picture-perfect tropical locale that looked like it had been ripped straight from a resort brochure. Palm trees, turquoise water, the works. Very mysterious. Very “I definitely have something to hide.” Most certainly not Maine.
I’d worn my best pajama bottoms for this—the ones without holes—and had ironed an actual blouse. All wasted on a stock photo of paradise.
“It’s Jinx,” I said. “I only pull out Justine for the DMV and tax season.”
“Jinx,” the disembodied voice repeated, and I swear I could hear him smile. He had a soothing radio voice, the kind that could sell a sedan or a cult membership with equal success. “Interesting name. Well, Jinx, I’m Mr. X—yes, that’s what I go by. For privacy reasons, you understand.”
I didn’t understand, but I needed a job, so, “Of course.”
“We’re a family place. Quiet. We prefer employees who can keep things… peaceful.”
“Peaceful is my middle name,” I lied. “Okay, it’s actually Louisa, but—”
“Wonderful,” he said. “When can you be in Kauai? Coconut Cove Paradise Resort can offer lodging. You’d start as a barista, complete with an espresso bar plus breakfast service, but there’s room to grow. We’re understaffed. We’re…”
There was a pause, and I could swear I heard something in the background. A rooster? A cat? Both locked in mortal combat? Hard to tell through the dicey audio quality.
“We’re hopeful,” he finished.
The tropical screensaver never wavered. The voice remained disembodied. And somehow, in the space between lobsters and lei making, I became the woman who says yes to mysterious strangers offering jobs in paradise.
What could possibly go wrong?
Now here I am, wrestling a suitcase with three wheels, chasing a taxi like I’m in a romantic comedy with less romance and far more perspiration.
“Resort shuttle?” a man in a floral shirt calls out, holding a sign that reads COCONUT COVE—something. Half the letters have sunstroke; the rest are hanging on by tape.
“That’s me,” I say, tipping the driver with a smile and a mental IOU. My savings account is currently a conceptual concept—fragile, theoretical, and mostly imaginary.
The shuttle is one of those vans that has seen things and refuses to talk about them. The air is thick enough to chew, the seats are cracked, and someone has stuck a tiny hula dancer to the dashboard, grinning as if she’s seen every bad decision before this one. She shimmies optimistically as we bounce over potholes and curve along the coastline.
On my right, the ocean is a sheet of hammered blue in a hue I never knew existed. On my left, mountains rise like the spine of a sleeping dragon, their slopes streaked with red dirt so vivid it looks like the earth is bleeding rubies. A rooster stands on a fence post, looking like he owns the whole island while crowing at the sky. A scraggly cat slinks across the road and pauses to give us a look of supreme indifference before disappearing into the red hibiscus bushes.
I have two voicemail messages from my mother, “Are you sure about this, honey?” And five from my ex. “We can be adults about this.” “I think we should talk before you make any rash decisions.” “Jinx, come on. This is childish.” “You’re really going to throw away everything we built?” “Call me back.”
It seems he’s conveniently forgotten about his new fiancée and the fact that he’s the one who got caught with his hand in someone else’s cookie jar—literally, if you count the Instagram photos from that “business trip” to Santa Barbara with the two of them stuffing their faces with artisanal cookies.
I turn the volume down on my thoughts and let the island swallow the noise.
We peel off onto a narrower road scented with wet leaves and sunbaked asphalt. The driver points with his chin. “Coconut Cove Paradise Resort in Hanalei Bay,” he says, proud, as if he built it with his bare hands. “It’s just down the road.”
“Just down the road” turns out to be a driveway framed by palm trees that would look majestic if they weren’t leaning like they’d given up. A battered wooden arch proclaims WELCOME TO COCONUT COVE PARADISE RESORT in peeling paint. The second C in COCONUT hangs by a nail. The S in PARADISE is more of a rumor than a fact. A tiki statue guards the entrance, his paint flaking, and his smile is a little too enthusiastic for someone in that condition. Six chickens run in front of the shuttle, and about a dozen cats scatter on top of that. I like animals. This should be fun. I hope.
I spent the entire plane ride reading up on Kauai—the Garden Isle, oldest of Hawaii’s eight main islands, famous for being impossibly green, aggressively rainy, and home to more feral chickens than traffic lights. Also, the dirt is red. Like, shockingly red. It’s as if Cheetos and paprika powder had a delicious lovechild. The guidebook promised it was charming. The island might be charming, but this resort looks like a haunted house on tropical steroids.
We rumble to a stop in the circular driveway in front of the lobby, and I stumble out into the thick heat and fragrant day as the sun blasts me with all its tropical glory. The main building sprawls before me like a faded postcard—two stories of pale coral stucco with a terracotta tile roof that’s missing a few teeth. Plumeria trees frame the entrance, their white and yellow blooms dropping onto cracked pavement.
The automatic doors don’t bother welcoming me. One panel is stuck half-open like a weary usher holding a grudge. Inside, the ceiling fans wobble and churn as if they can’t handle the heat. The floor is a checkered tile pattern in a shade I can only describe as vintage nicotine. The front desk looks like it was once a bar in a pirate movie. And just like that, I’m immediately in love, because falling for lost causes is my thing, as evidenced by my aforementioned ex.
That should have been my first warning.
Chapter Two
“Oh good—fresh blood!” cries a voice behind me, right here in the lobby of the Coconut Cove Paradise Resort, and I turn to find a tall, willowy woman who’s somewhere north of eighty but moves like she’s still outrunning her twenties.
Her long red hair is streaked with silver, and her gold hoop earrings could be used to signal ships. She’s wearing a kaftan that looks like someone let a floral parade loose on fabric, and she’s practically dancing a jig in her flip-flops.
“You must be the new girl,” she chirps. “Thank the heavens. I’m Ruby Figgins, née Akana, formerly Figgins, formerly—listen, we don’t have time to list all the husbands. I've collected more wedding rings than you've got coffee mugs, and I live here at the resort now. Well, technically, I'm a guest, but I've been here long enough that the furniture knows my name.”
“I’m Jinx,” I say, suddenly grateful for someone whose regret era matches mine. “I make coffee. And bad decisions. But mostly coffee.” Okay, so it’s mostly bad decisions, but still.
“Wonderful.” She claps her hands and sends her rings chiming. “Lani! Kitchen Witch! Our caffeine miracle has arrived!”
A petite older woman who also looks north of eighty appears through the swinging doors that lead to the dining area. She has short silver hair with lavender tips, warm brown eyes that miss nothing, and forearms that could arm-wrestle a linebacker. Flour dusts her muumuu, and she’s holding a wooden spoon like it’s a scepter.
“Leilani Mahelona,” she says, giving me a once-over typically reserved for produce. “You’re late.”
“I thought I was early,” I say.
“You are,” she says. “And yet, you’re still late. That’s how things are around here.”
Ruby beams, “Isn’t she a delight?”
Before I can answer, a woman slides behind the front desk with the determined glide of someone who has replaced her soul with a spreadsheet. She’s all sharp cheekbones and sharper manicures. Her dark hair is aggressively sleeked back into a bun, and her lipstick is in a shade I’m pretty sure is called Hostile Cherry.
Her name tag reads MELANIE. Her perfume arrives ten seconds before she does and smells like expensive gardenias and regret. She carries a clipboard like a weapon and taps a red pen against it with the rhythm of a firing squad.
“You must be the barista.” She says barista as if the word offends her personally. “Welcome to Coconut Cove Paradise Resort. Please read the employee handbook at your earliest convenience, which means never, because we don’t have one. Hours are when I tell you. Don’t comp anything. Don’t promise anything. Don’t bring me problems.”
Ruby coughs “manager” into her fist like it’s a diagnosis. “Mel runs a tight ship. It’s just not… moving.”
Melanie’s smile is made of glass—transparent and easy to cut yourself on. “We’ll be having a staff phone call with the owner at four. He is very private and very busy, so we will be very professional.” She levels her gaze at me like I’ve already failed this test. “Try not to improvise.”
“I’m a barista,” I say. “Espresso is ninety percent improvisation.”
Her nostrils flare a millimeter. “Four o’clock.”
She vanishes into an office and slams the door. Message received.
“I like her already,” I say. Have I mentioned the heat is capable of causing delusions?
“You’re easy to please,” Ruby quips.
“I’ve been called worse.”
“Come,” Lani says, tipping her chin toward the swinging doors. “If we’re going to keep this place alive through dinner service, we’ll need caffeine, carbohydrates, and maybe duct tape.”
Ruby nods. “Definitely duct tape.”
* * *
As it turns out, the kitchen is controlled chaos.
Pans hiss, a fan rattles, and the scents of sweet bread, caramelizing sugar, and coffee are strong enough to hug.
Lani moves like she’s conducting an orchestra with a wooden spoon, while Ruby insists every flat surface can use flowers.
“This is the mean machine and your new best friend,” Lani says, patting the hulking espresso beast. “He’s temperamental. If you talk nicely to him, he’ll talk nicely back. Maybe.”
It doesn’t sound hopeful.
I’ve tried sweet-talking a machine or two instead of hiring a repairman. At this point, my longest relationships run on electricity.
“Hello, gorgeous,” I murmur, flipping switches while steam hisses, water sputters, and a light blinks like it’s threatening me with nuclear annihilation. “We’re going to be friends. I promise. The best of friends.” And maybe the worst of friends, but I don’t dare say that infamous Dickens’s line out loud.
“So,” Ruby leans against the chipped orange counter, “what brings you to our little slice of almost-paradise, Jinx Julep?”
“A typo,” I say, tamping espresso with hope and a prayer. “I thought I was moving to Maine. It was not Maine, but I’m not complaining either.”
Ruby cackles with delight at the thought. “I once married a man because he said he had a yacht. Turned out, he had a kayak. We can’t always get what we want. But we might just get what we need.”
Lani slides a tray of what look like jelly donuts rolled in sugar into the oven like she’s making an offering. “You’re here now. That’s what matters.”
“Those sweet treats are called malasadas,” Ruby says, following my gaze. “They’re originally Portuguese donuts. Baked or fried, they’re delicious. They’re the best thing that ever happened to these islands besides me.”
A chicken struts into the kitchen like she’s conducting an inspection. Two cats follow—one scraggly gray cutie that looks like he’s lost more arguments than he’s won and an orange marshmallow the size and shape of a basketball with glowing eyes, a half missing ear, and a swagger that says he ate the last leader and enjoyed it.
The fans thrum overhead. The oven hisses. My shoes stick slightly to the tile. Through the kitchen window, there’s a sliver of ocean so blue it looks photoshopped.
Something settles in my chest—quiet and certain.
I don’t know exactly what I’ve done, flying thousands of miles to make a cup of joe at a resort held together by hope and duct tape. But standing here with malasadas baking, a chicken underfoot, and an orange cat who clearly runs this place, I know I don’t regret it. Yet.
At 3:59, Melanie reappears with her phone and a manufactured smile pressed on her face. Up close, she’s still all edges—sharp earrings and sharper claws. Her blouse is starched within an inch of its life, and her eyes do that glittery thing people’s eyes do when they love rules more than people.
“It’s time for the staff phone call,” she chirps with her voice bright and brittle. “Everyone who counts, gather.”
“We count,” Ruby whispers. “We just don’t get counted.”
We cluster near the front desk, with me smelling like a latte, Lani perfumed with sugar and steel, and Ruby holds the scent of something floral and a few dark secrets. There are also two teenage lifeguards who look like they were born yesterday, and a bellman who has mastered invisibility. Melanie puts her cell on speaker.
The line rings once.
A voice fills the lobby. Smooth. Low. The kind of voice that convinces you to buy timeshares and salvation. It’s the voice from my Zoom call.
“Aloha, team,” he says. “Mahalo for your work this week.”
Ruby mouths the word owner at me and fake swoons. And Lani wastes no time swatting her with a wooden spoon.
“As you know,” the voice continues, “Coconut Cove Paradise Resort has been operating at a loss. I don’t want to close. This place matters. But if we can’t bring the bottom line into the black, we’ll shut down at month’s end.”
A hush falls over the room. One of the lifeguards stops chewing gum.
A month? Paradise, lost in thirty days?
A part of me wonders if I’m the bad luck charm in this equation. I’ve torpedoed things before—case in point, my marriage—but that one was sort of justified. He cheated. I was efficient about the exit.
“I’ll be on the island soon,” he says. “Until then, Melanie has my full authority. Cut costs. Increase revenue. Don’t comp anything. And above all—this is important—work together. I trust you.”
The call clicks dead.
Melanie’s smile slides off like butter on hot toast. “Well,” she says brightly. “You heard the man. No freebies. Tight ship. Let’s not panic.”
Ruby clutches my arm. “We’re absolutely panicking.”
Lani doesn’t look panicked. She looks like someone dusted with enough flour to overthrow a government. “We’ll bake. We’ll serve. We’ll clean. We’ll charm. We’ll fix what’s broken.”
“But all I do is make coffee,” I say. “And offer suggestions no one asked for.”
“You’ll do both,” Lani says. “And we’ll put out a tip jar the size of a breadbox.”
Melanie has already retreated with her phone in hand. Through the slit in the office door, I catch a glimpse of her screen. An email subject line pops up: Severance Package—Confirmation.
And just like that, the curtain drops on this good time. My stomach does a slow roll like a wave deciding whether or not to break.
Ruby follows my gaze. “Well, that’s not ominous at all.”
Lani taps her spoon against her palm. “Listen up, you two. We’re not letting this place die.”
I look at the crooked welcome sign, the tired fans, the ocean winking through the palms like it knows a dirty secret or two. I look at Ruby, who is all sparkling chaos, and Lani, a touch of stubborn grace.
“Lani,” I say, “tell me where you keep the extra duct tape.”
She finally breaks out a smile, and it’s the kind that looks as if it could hold up a roof. Good thing, because it just might need to.
She nods my way. “Now you’re talking.”
Heels click in our direction as Melanie reappears, looking freshly recalibrated, and with a fresh touch-up of her Hostile Cherry lipstick, too.
“Heads-up,” she barks, glowering at me like I personally offended her. “A new group of guests is arriving in twenty minutes. I have a nail appointment. You—” her pen jabs the air at my chest— “will greet them. Smile. Don’t promise anything. First impressions can be murder around here.”
She pivots and stalks off, leaving a trail of perfume and disapproval in her wake.
Ruby gives my arm a quick squeeze. “Welcome to Coconut Cove, Jinx. I hope you specialize in miracles.”
I glance at the tiki statue by the door. His painted grin dares me to say it.
“Miracles I can do,” I sigh. “It’s the murder I can do without.”
And yet somewhere outside, a police siren wails like a promise of murderous things to come.
***I hope you enjoyed this preview! Thank you for reading!****