Alene Baron sits down with dru’s book musings responding to a few questions so that we can learn more about her. Are you ready? Let’s get to know Alene.

My name is Alene Melanie Baron. I’m 38-years-old (although everyone says I look younger), and I own the Whipped and Sipped Café located in Chicago’s East Lakeview neighborhood. I’m divorced and have three children: 12-year-old Sierra, 10-year-old Quinn, and 8-year-old Noah. We are lucky to live with my 72-year-old father, Calvin Baron, in the building in which my sister and I grew up.

I know that sounds weird but hear me out – my mother died just before I graduated from college, and my dad never left their four-bedroom condo with its spectacular view of the Belmont Harbor. If I didn’t own a café, I’d sit in front of the window and watch the sun rise over Lake Michigan every morning. So, when Neal, the father of my children, asked for an open marriage, my father said, “An open marriage? To hell with that! How about an open invitation to move in with someone who really loves you?” Even though my dad refuses to let me pay rent, the kids and I wasted no time in taking him up on his offer. I do all the grocery shopping and make dinner every night – he loves my cooking and baking, especially anything chocolate, and always says that he gets the better end of the bargain.

Lydia, my younger sister, who lives 15 minutes away, represented me during the divorce. She’s a killer attorney – if Neal hadn’t been such a jerk, I’d have been embarrassed by how much money she got him to fork over in the divorce settlement. Some went to college funds, some into savings, and the rest went into the Whipped and Sipped Café, which I run with my best friend and pastry chef, Ruthie Rosin. We met freshman year at Northwestern. I love her to death, but she’s kind of religious, and sometimes a little preachy, even though she has a heart of gold.

I’ve dated since the divorce, but nobody was right until Frank Shaw came along. He’s a homicide detective for the Chicago Police Department, one of the good ones. We’re taking it slow – he was also divorced – and between his job and mine, we treasure every moment we can be in the same place at the same time. We do a lot of walking, a fair amount of beer-drinking, and we both love the lake. I dream about being out on a boat with him – we’ve only been dating for six weeks, and there’s a lot of summer left, so I’ll keep dreaming.

I hate to tell anyone that I met Frank at a murder scene, first because yuck, and second because we’d actually met eight years before and only ran into each other a second time, at the murder scene. I’d hoped to never see another dead body, and I already had enough on my plate – my father’s autoimmune disease, my ex-husband’s attitude, my employees and all their issues, and my pre-adolescent daughter’s behavior. The first dead body was in our building. The second one was found next door to my café.

If I just keep up the running three times a week, make time to listen to some of my mother’s favorite singers, like Joni Mitchell and James Taylor, and manage to read a few pages of a good mystery before bed – I can maybe sleep through the night. I know I have a lot to be grateful for despite life’s challenges, but if I ever wrote a memoir, I’d call it either: “Who Needs Me Now?” or “Just Trying to Do My Best.”

Smothered by G.P. Gottlieb, Whipped and Sipped Mystery #2
Genre: Cozy
Release: February 2021
Purchase Link

Owner Alene Baron is more relieved than upset when the owner of the business next door is found dead in his office. She’s been suspicious of the food supplements he’s been selling, not to mention the smoothies he’s been hawking, which are much inferior to the ones Alene sells at the Whipped and Sipped Café. Plus, Stanley Huff never cleaned up his garbage in their shared alley. As a shady businessman, Stanley had enemies, but now one of Alene’s favorite employees is a suspect in his murder. And that employee is missing.

About the author
G.P. Gottlieb has worked as a musician, a teacher, and an administrator, but she’s happiest when writing recipe-laced murder mysteries. Battered: A Whipped and Sipped Mystery and Smothered: A Whipped and Sipped Mystery take place in the spring and summer of 2019 and a third book in the series will center on a murder that occurs during the city of Chicago’s lockdown in May 2020. G.P. Gottlieb has always experimented in the kitchen and created her delicious vegan cookies and cakes in direct opposition to what she learned in courses at Chicago’s French Pastry School. She is host for New Books in Literature, a podcast channel on the New Books Network, the mother of three grown children, and lives with her husband in a Chicago high-rise that is strikingly similar to the building portrayed in the Whipped and Sipped Mystery series.

All comments are welcomed.