American/Cozy

Amanda Flower: Honeymoons Can be Hazardous

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Amanda Flower’s Honeymoons Can Be Hazardous gives readers not only a suspenseful mystery, but also a unique look into Amish life, particularly how they live alongside and interact with the Englisch (what Amish refer those who are not of their faith), in the shared town of Harvest, Ohio. The town has always been relatively peaceful, but recently things have become unstable as there has been an increase in drug trafficking and use among both groups in the community. In a lovely display of camaraderie in the face of this new threat, everyone works together to fund and staff a community center where troubled individuals can go to get the help that they need. Everyone wants to protect the youth of their community, and to offer them education to help to avoid making desperate choices that could ruin, or even take, their lives. read more

Katie Oliver: A Murderous Persuasion

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This charming cozy featuring Phaedra Brighton hits almost every important cozy note: a bread and breakfast; a Jane Austen weekend; an aunt in trouble; a single woman in search of love; bookstore owning parents; a haughty cat; and an adorable small town.  As the book opens, Phaedra is alarmed that her aunt is thinking of selling the beloved B & B Phaedra has viewed as a second home. She pleads with her aunt who argues back that business is down, and so Phaedra plans (almost on the fly) a Jane Austen weekend. read more

Laura Levine: Death by Smoothie

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Death by Smoothie, Laura Levine’s latest work, has Jaine Austen tossed into investigating two murders: that of a classic sitcom turned musical, and that of the lead actress starring in said musical. Jaine is approached by her friend and neighbor Lance Venable and asked if she would be interested in doing the screen writing for the musical remake of an old sitcom called ‘I Married a Zombie’. While she isn’t a fan of the sitcom or of the idea of a musical based upon it, she is definitely interested in the paycheck the job would bring. David and Becca are the couple who are funding and directing the project using the winnings from David’s recent lotto ticket. While she is hesitant about working on such a tacky project, Jaine is won over by the large pay out promised. read more

Winnie Archer: Bread over Troubled Water

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Winnie Archer’s Bread Over Troubled Water has aspiring photographer Ivy Culpepper racing not just to solve a murder, but to also to save her friends and her job at bakery Yeast of Eden from disaster. As the book opens, Ivy’s morning is focused on her normal routine of baking and on reflecting on her own to-do list for her impending wedding party. She does not have much free time, however, as the bread shop is a town staple and thus plenty of regulars and tourists pass through, keeping everyone busy. One such regular is Josh Prentiss. He is a well-known fixture in Yeast of Eden, working away most mornings on his laptop and offering charmingly flirtatious remarks to both customers and employees. After some light commotion in the shop resulting in dropped bread and a broken plate, he leaves the shop and Ivy does not think about him further, until her determined and charming pug, Agatha, sniffs out his body amongst flowers in the park and drags Ivy once more into a mystery. read more

Lauren Elliott: Steeped in Secrets

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Anyone looking for a new cozy series that has a strong protagonist, multiple levels of enigmas, and a supernatural flair, need look no further than Lauren Elliott’s Steeped in Secrets. The main character, Shayleigh Myers, finds herself back in her hometown of California’s Monterey Peninsula due to her life falling apart. This is thanks to her ex-husband Brad’s scheming and cheating, both in love and in business. Shayleigh is left destitute and discredited from her chosen profession of gemologist and has nowhere to go but back to her hometown and crashing on her sister’s couch.  Just as everything seems hopeless, however, she receives unusual news from the estate of Bridget Early. read more

Joyce St. Anthony: Death on a Deadline

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It’s 1942, and Irene Ingram is managing The Progress Herald while her Dad is covering the front lines.  She’s in tiny Progress, Pennsylvania, and everyone in town is in a state of excitement at the news that Clark Gable will possibly be attending the war bond rally at their county fair.  The sensible and skeptical Irene is not so sure about it, though, and the book starts with her trying to get to the truth of the Clark Gable rumor.

This is a bit of a different take on a WWII mystery.  Many of the books are set in Europe, where the war was a daily and deadly occurrence.  However, the war reached its fingers everywhere, and even tiny Progress feels the impact.  Sweethearts, brothers and husbands are away; there’s shortages of almost everything; women are working in places they hadn’t before, like the newspaper.  St. Anthony brings the war home with her chapter epigraphs in the form of newspaper headlines, detailing the sinking of ships and lives lost all over the globe, and some even close to home.  The U.S. was not inviolable, as Pearl Harbor proved. read more

Paige Shelton: Dark Night

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This is the third in Paige Shelton’s insanely enjoyable Alaska wild series, set in tiny Benedict and featuring Beth Rivers, who is hiding out. She’d been kidnapped and got away, though sustaining a concussion and other injuries as well as suffering from PTSD.  She is wary when she arrives in Alaska but by book three has begun to relax into life in Benedict – more or less.

She had left the lower 48 after her kidnapping, leaving the hospital against her doctor’s orders and in fear of the man who took her, who so far in the series has not been captured (though I’m assuming that will eventually happen).  She’s also a well known writer under a pen name, so she’s able to maintain cover by writing the tiny town paper while using the paper’s “office” – a tiny shack behind the library (good wifi and cell phone coverage, which happens few other places in town).  She’s made a connection with the librarian, a stoner Willie Nelson type who nevertheless has some special ops skills as far as obtaining information goes. read more

Best of: Cozies 2021

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I read many books in a year, but I still can’t claim an encyclopedic reading of the cozies that were published in 2021.  These delicious morsels of storytelling are reason for joy, as the storytellers, even though they include murders, are in general optimistic.  You like the characters in these books, and would love to be friends with them.  These are my favorites this year.  For a really deep dive, check out Dru Ann Love’s blog, Dru’s Book Musings, which tackles everything in the cozy universe.  All of these titles are available on our website.  read more

Elle Cosimano: Finlay Donovan is Killing It

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This book, which opens amidst the morning chaos of a mother with two children, one of whom has just cut off part of her hair right before school, breezily catches the feel of young motherhood.  It’s exasperating, exhausting, and nerve wracking. Finlay drops the kids off at school as she heads to meet her book agent and deliver the bad news that the book she’s supposed to turn in is nowhere near finished.

On top of all this, Finlay’s husband has left her for the cute realtor, his sod business is going full blast, and she has a mountain of bills to pay with no means to do so.  Also, to spite her, her ex has let the baby sitter go.  Things go poorly with her agent where they’ve met for coffee, but a woman nearby, over hearing – and misinterpreting – their conversation (Finlay writes thrillers) leaves a mystery note on Finlay’s table.  The sum of $50,000 is mentioned and there’s a phone number. read more

Paige Shelton: Cold Wind

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This is the second book in Paige Shelton’s series about thriller writer Elizabeth Fairchild, now in hiding in tiny Benedict, Alaska as Beth Rivers, after being kidnapped by a crazed fan.  Elizabeth/Beth lives in a halfway house and appreciates the privacy she finds in the Alaskan wild, a place that truly seems to be its own country, existing without a real nod to the rules and regulations more common in the lower 48.  Shelton, the author of four other cozier series than this one, is a real pro at narrative, pacing, and character.  These skills easily transfer to this series which is a bit darker in tone, and fits in more with work by writers like Ellen Hart, Dana Stabenow and Julia Spencer-Fleming. read more