Love & Coffee didn’t start off as a book. It began life as a guy scribbling a few lines here and there to pass the time in his favourite coffee shop. Waiting for a damned Americano to get cool enough to drink. Not gulp. Just sip now and again, nice and slow, while his brain said hello to the morning.

A funny thing happens while you wait for something like that. You get to looking around. Not obviously so other folk see you doing it. Not blatantly so they wonder why the hell you’re looking at them. But slyly.

You come to an agreement with the guys in control of your central and peripheral vision that as long as tl1ey don’t tell you all the details of what they do and sec … you can’t be held accountable. Plausible deniability. And when that happens something else happens.

All the guilt you felt before because you were looki11g at folk getting ready to meet the day disappears.

And when that happens, folk tend to open up to you. Not intentionally. Not deliberately. But somewhere in between the lines.

Somewhere in between the actions. Then the change takes place takes place.

You become the fly on the wall. ‘The piece of furniture. The witness to all the good and bad tl1at happens in their lives. And you learn things pretty fast. Things like everybody wants to be happy. And everybody wants to be loved. Some folk want to remember. And others just want to forget.

And somehow, here, everybody gets the chance to get back in touch with whatever makes them want to wake up in the morning and get out of bed.

They get the chance to go some place where the heart beats a little steadier. 1 11e smile stretches a little wider. The tears fall a little Jess. And the breathing shifts down a gear or two.