Writers Pour it On

By Melissa Mia Hall -- Publishers Weekly, 6/12/2007 11:49:00 AM

Writers and Starbucks go together like espresso and foam. First authors turned the coffee chain’s nearly 8,000 U.S. locations into their writing spaces. Then Starbucks began moving big numbers of books for a tiny number of authors (Mitch Albom, Ishmael Beah).

Now, the people who’ve been filling the easy chairs at Starbucks are filling their books with Starbucks references. Looks like those years of letting aspiring authors hang out all day over their laptops nursing a venti café latte is paying off.

Consider Kyra Davis’s Obsession, Deceit and Really Dark Chocolate (Red Dress Ink, Sept.) starring San Francisco sleuth Sophie Katz, a coffee addict whose case this time around involves mud-and-fur-slinging congressional candidates. It is the current champion in mentioning Starbucks or Starbucks products, clocking in at 18. Obsession features this memorable quote: "Are you actually asking me to leave a Starbucks without getting a drink? . . . I reluctantly climbed on the back of Anatoly’s bike and gave Starbucks one last look of longing before we roared off." Note: Davis’s first book in the series was titled Sex, Murder and a Double Latte.

First runner-up for multiple mentions, logging 11, is Kayla Perrin and Brenda Mott’s How To Kill a Guy in 10 Days(Avon, Aug.). Two friends reunite in Miami, solve the murder of a male exotic dancer and decide to become bookstore owners while often pursuing clues and coffee breaks at Starbucks: "You know, we really should stop drinking Starbucks when we've got our own coffee counter," I said.

"No way," Hailey said. "I’m addicted to their lemon pound cake. Besides, you know how that goes—nothing you make yourself tastes as goods as something someone else makes."

In movies and television, companies pay big for this kind of brand-name-dropping. But authors and publishers say Starbucks is getting all this product placement for free.

"I wish Starbucks paid us for mentioning them," Perrin said in an e-mail. She explained that she uses the coffee chain because it’s become "mega prevalent in our culture." She continued, "The beverages are expensive, yet there's always a line to get a drink. I practically start salivating when I see a Starbucks shop, as do most of the writers I know!  It's also a great place to work, and a lot of my writer friends work and drink coffee at their local Starbucks these days.

You get it—she really, really likes Starbucks.

And so does Victoria Christopher Murray, who makes six Starbucks references in  The Ex Files (Touchstone, July). Prayer group members Sheridan, Kendall, Vanessa and Asia become friends during crisis times. For Sheridan, the coffee shop is a place to meet with her ex-husband, Quentin. But then, oops, she’s caught by her current sweetie: "Through the glass window, he stood outside Starbucks and watched her. She was still in Quentin’s arms when Brock turned and walked away."

Five references to the chain are found in in Annie Argula’s Walla Walla Suite (A Room with No View) (Ballantine, Sept.). Seattle-based PI Quinn returns for another investigation, trying to unmask the killer of a young woman whose boyfriend works at Starbucks. Quinn notes the evolution of Starbucks from mere coffee bar into a popular Seattle tourist magnet: "They want to visit the first Starbucks and have their pictures taken in front of it."

Less frequent mentions of Starbucks occur in:

Harley Jane Kozak’s Dead Ex (Doubleday, Aug.). Series heroine Wollie Shelley, an L.A. artist, is trying to help her friend Joey, a former soap star on the lam who’s accused of murder, but is unwilling to rendezvous with Wollie at a Starbucks because it’s "too exposed."

Jane O’Connor’s Dangerous Admissions (Avon, July) features Manhattanite Rannie Bookman, a recently unemployed copyeditor working part-time at her son’s posh school when a beloved teacher is murdered. She discovers: "Like Starbucks, the second floor of the Barnes and Nobles at Broadway and 83rd Street had become a post-layoff workplace of choice." 

Kelley Armstrong’s No Humans Allowed (Bantam Spectra, May) stars Jaime Vegas, a supernatural Nancy Drew who can communicate with the dead and solve crimes. She makes this apt comment about Starbucks’ influence on the American landscape: "It was some Starbucks clone in a strip mall, the kind of place it seemed no neighborhood could be without." 

Starbucks rival Seattle’s Best Coffee, hasn’t infiltrated America’s literary scene to anywhere near the same extent. But it does get mentions in Kat Richardson’s Poltergeist (Roc, Aug.). Richardson’s Seattle-based paranormal investigator prefers SBC over Starbucks: "SBC was only a block from my office and I wished I’d thought to meet him there in the first place. At least I’d be able to get a decent cup of coffee."