This novel It's Not Just the Coffee is Catherine de Waal's eighth novel. There are three sequels in this trilogy. The first novel of this trilogy was published in 2022 as It's so Much Better Here. It's not Just the Coffee is the second sequel and to be published shortly is the third novel called Nothing Happens by Chance.


Vivienne Matthews and Ivor Murphy had decided to slow their relationship down. He is asked to give a series of art lectures in a very small rugged seaside resort called Rooi-Els, and he invites her to join them. They stay in separte rooms in a cottage close to a mountain and the sea. All is going well, until a sensuous woman called Maureen Grylke, an art student, claims that she has known Ivor her whole life and he had promised to marry her. Ivor, however, remembers nothing.


Catherine de Waal enjoys writing and her hobby is watercolour painting. She lives in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, on a large wooded property, inhabited by many different types of birds, and finds inspiration in nature.