Roastmaster (A Coffee Novel)
Author
Janice Lierz
Author Bio
Janice Lierz dreamt of being a traveling troubadour but instead took a daring path into the consumer products world. During those decades, she climbed ladders at Johnson & Johnson/McNeil CPC, Heublein, Pillsbury, Frito-Lay/PepsiCo and Whole Foods Market, where she was the president of several subsidiaries. After taming dragons, spinning tales, and perfecting her magic skills, she now spends her time with her gaggle of family and pets in the Blue Ridge Mountain of North Carolina, where she is writing novels.
She has a long family history with coffee and was inspired to write her first novel while on a visit to a coffee farm in Costa Rica.
Please visit Janice at www.JaniceLierz.com
Description
The seventh sister is over the moon for a Costa Rican coffee farmer…
In the spring of 1984, John Mallory, the seventh sister in a coffee family dies a legend when she is uprooted from Kansas City and travels to a coffee farm in Costa Rica to become a Roastmaster. Now, eighteen years later, Capri is connected to her dead aunt through a surreal sense of smell. When Capri runs away with her boyfriend, she unearths John Mallory’s story and the myth of the Pleiades, a cluster of blue stars known as the Seven Sisters. But her quirky mother, grandfather and five aunts fear love will also lead Capri to an early grave.
A heartwarming and emotionally tugging story about family bonds, sisters, coffee and the never-ending love of parent and child. It’s a novel about falling in love—and the different journeys life takes us on…A tale for those who know magic can be found in the bean of a fruit.
Book excerpt
When she turned around, she noticed the wooden tables on the other side. A small, dark man beckoned her with his finger. He hunched over and poured a steamy liquid into cups. His black hair hung forward and covered his eyes. He wore a long-sleeved shirt and worn, brown shoes. Friends, she would learn, described him as steady and slow, a tortoise, and she would tease him that it was because of his hard shell. He rarely smiled. She couldn’t catch a scent on him, either, beyond coffee.
A dozen cups were evenly spaced on the two tables.
As she approached, he said, “I am Lorenzo Domingo,” with the slightest roll of his r. He pointed to the first cup. “Let us discover what you know.”
“Señor Domingo, hello. And you know English, thank my lucky stars. Yes, I’m pleased to meet you, too. I’ve heard so much about you. You’re a legend where I come from,” she said, rubbing her hands on her pants. “I am so pleased to meet you. Lorenzo Domingo, the Roastmaster. Should I call you Señor or Lorenzo? Your reputation precedes you. I admit,” she said, feeling herself blush, “I’m rather intimidated.” She reached out her hand and then decided to curtsy.
“I am Lorenzo. Please, cup,” he said and pointed to the table, then stepped back and clasped his hands behind his back.
It is a fact that the first taste to ever cross John Mallory’s lips—all of the Mallory girls’ lips—was that of warm milky coffee. Her father believed it held magical properties. Pink and wriggling, she had sucked from the nipple of a baby bottle, underneath the ginger-red of hospital lights. Nursed by coffee, it was as necessary to her as breathing and blood. Yet, she had never taken part in a formal cupping. Many times she had heard William page his team members over the intercom at Early Mountain Coffee, calling them to the cupping room. Once, when she was eleven, she wandered down, hoping to discover their secret rituals. She hid in the shadows while William slurped and pondered, and then he spat. She tried not to gasp. At parochial schools, young girls were forbidden to spit. The process struck her as barbaric. The other men followed William down the line of coffee cups, like cowboys spewing their chew. Yet she also recognized the honesty in practicing this vulgarity. So John Mallory had stepped into the
room and asked if she could try. Their faces lifted, but William shook his head. He said it wasn’t proper. He’d never allow her, or any girl, to be part of the ceremony. No girls were allowed in the cupping room, and he shooed her away.
Beyond saying yes to her father, she had not thought about what it meant to be a Roastmaster. Now, here she stood, in a jungle of smells, with a man who wore no other scent than coffee.
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