Title: Cool Beans
Latte Daze
Double Shot
Author: Erynn Mangum
Published: All published in 2010 by NavPress
Version: Paperbacks
Obtained: Library
Cool Beans Summary:
Everything seems to be going perfectly for Maya Davis: She has a great job at a coffee shop, gets along with her parents, and is happily single. That is until her best friend unknowingly starts dating Maya’s high school sweetheart, her annoyingly perfect brother moves back to town, and her co-worker starts showing interest in her. What is God trying to teach her about life, love, and commiserating over coffee?
Latte Daze Summary:When Maya Davis’ ex-boyfriend proposes to her roommate, Jen, their apartment becomes Wedding Central. As if that weren’t awful enough, Jen’s obnoxious mom moves in to help with the planning!
Maya's relationships really start to get crazy when her genius brother and sister-in-law announce their pregnancy, and then to top it off there’s Jack—could it be love? Who wouldn’t need a coffee break!Double Shot Summary:
Now that Maya is engaged to Jack, the love of her life, everything should be perfect, but actually, it’s the opposite. Maya must trust that God is in control even when things seem to be a disastrous mess.
I now officially adore Erynn Mangum. I had thought that she couldn’t get much better than the Lauren Holbrook series, which was completely amazing (My review). However, apparently Erynn is just stock full of hilarious characters and great story lines that resonate with normal people like me.
Both of these series are about normal people. Normal people doing normal things. Dealing with normal problems. However, this becomes way more exciting than it sounds because Maya Davis (and Laurie Holbrook) is SUCH a character. Maya faces her insecurities like sibling rivalry, obsessive worrying, getting over long past relationships, telling the truth, etc. Yes, she’s a college graduate working at a coffee shop fulltime when she majored in English, but she’s a mostly normal 20-something Christian. As the series goes on, she matures, gets over past issues, learns to trust God more and more and commits to a relationship with none other than the dorkily amazing Jack.
I think that Maya should meet Lauren. They could bond over their love for chocolate, coffee, caffeine, junk food, and movies. Also they could tell stories of their adorable husbands. Essentially, I think Erynn writes herself, just with different issues, depending on the character.
Throwing this in here: I’m so glad these aren’t the contemporary stories that toss in a depressing death of a nice character just for drama. There is still plenty of drama in storylines that just sorta chill.
If you are a fan of contemporary Christian fiction, this series is DEFINITELY for you! Unless you like your stories all NicholasSparksian, full of drama. Then I would steer you towards historical Christian fiction (it’s either gonna be the dad or the newly married husband that dies).
:) Write on Mrs. Mangum, write on!
Content Warning: Well, there’s some VERY NON-descriptive kissing.
Rating:
