Cozy

Jennifer J. Chow: Tell-Tale Treats

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Magical Fortune Cookie #3

In Jennifer J. Chow’s third installment in the Magical Fortune Cookie series, readers meet Felicity Jin, who works in her family bakery, the Jin Bakery, that serves up a little more than Chinese specialty treats. Their baking is quite literally magical, and the Jin family is able to infuse their goods with magic. Her mother, for example, can infuse her products so that the consumer feels happier. Felicity has a gift of prophecy, and she uses it in specialized fortune cookie messages for customers and friends. Her boyfriend, Kelvin Love, runs the flower shop in town, and the two of them have started to bloom not only in their relationship but also in their investigative teamwork. I would be remiss to not to mention Felicity’s most adorable sidekick, Whiskers, the mystical white rabbit from the stars. read more

Michelle L. Cullen: A Field Guide to Murder

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Debut

This is a perfectly charming novel with enough quirky characters to make it a standout debut.  Roughly following the “Thursday Murder Club” scenario in which retirees in a closed community solve crimes, it features widower Harry Lancaster, who has recently suffered a hip injury. He’s forced to temporarily hire a younger in-home caregiver, Emma, who, having burned out on critical care nursing, sees helping people like Harry as her next step.  The setting is a small community of mostly retirees, and, with many hours to kill, Harry spends many of them looking out his large front window at the comings and goings in the neighborhood. read more

Vivien Chien: Crime Rangoon

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Noodle Shop #12

The heroine of the fun, bouncy series is Lana Lee, the owner (along with her family) of a restaurant in the Asia Village neighborhood of Cleveland. Lana is browsing in her favorite local bookstore one day when the owner mentions that her employee has quit without warning, leaving her shorthanded for an important upcoming event with a popular writer.  Lana, a big fan, happily offers to help, and the owner assigns her to act as her assistant (mainly monitoring the signing line and opening the books to the right page to be signed). read more

Elizabeth Penney: Vows and Villainy

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Cambridge Bookshop #5

In Elizabeth Penny’s fifth addition to her Cambridge Bookshop series, Vows and Villainy, the reader finds Molly Kimball, a librarian who helps her aunt in her bookshop and the local police with their murders in Cambridge, England. Molly uses deductive reasoning and her social prowess to entice others to give her clues and bits of information. She also does not try to solve everything on her own and then turn over the information to the authorities – instead, she keeps the local detectives in the know as she goes, trying her best to be helpful as well as safe. While they might not praise her for her efforts they appreciate and utilize her intel as much as possible, more so now that she has established herself as a credible amateur sleuth. read more

Rhys Bowen: From Cradle to Grave

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Royal Spyness #19

February 1937.  King Edward VIII has abdicated the British throne to be with his beloved Mrs. Simpson in Paris, his brother George VI awaits his coronation, and Lady Georgie is busy enjoying being a new mother and running the country house of her godfather, Sir Hubert. Alas, her peaceful home life is soon destroyed by the arrival of the horrible Nanny Hardbottle, sent by her dreadful sister-in-law Fig to bring Georgie’s life up to Fig’s cold worst-of-British childrearing standards. As if the anti-Mary Poppins isn’t bad enough, Fig herself soon arrives and settles into Georgie’s comfortable house to avoid the worst of the Scottish winter and shows no sign of leaving. read more

Peggy Townsend: The Botanist’s Assistant

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I could not have loved this utterly charming mystery more.  It’s original, it’s well written, it’s well plotted, and it has a wonderful main character in botanist Margaret Finch.  Much like her name, Margaret resembles a large bird (and she is in fact referred to as Big Bird behind her back), and she values order, cleanliness and science above all else.  In her work as a research assistant in a lab, these qualities serve her well.  It’s people she has trouble with, not plants.

The only person she has true respect for is her boss, Dr. Deaver.  When she discovers his body in his office, details seem off to her, details the busy police officer (who is busy ignoring Margaret’s suggestions of poison) seems not to notice.  When Dr. Deaver’s death is declared a heart attack, Margaret knows, in the interest of truth and science, that she must discover what really happened.  In this way, Margaret is similar to all amateur sleuths of every description.  She fits into a narrower category – the neuro divergent detective, someone familiar to fans of detective fiction and TV for many years, from Columbo to Monk to E.J. Copperman’s classic Asperger detective to Nita Prose’s “maid.” All share a quirkiness and while there are many differences, their similarity is the observation of all details. read more

Daryl Wood Gerber: Murder by the Millions

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Literary Dining #2

In the second outing of Daryl Wood Gerber’s literary dining series, we find Allie Catt, who runs Feast for the Eyes catering in Asheville, North Carolina, as well as  working at her best friend Tegan Potts’ bookshop. The two of them have taken up throwing literary themed parties at the bookshop as well as solving mysteries. Her cat, Darcy, is always ready to point out a clue or two as well. Business is really taking off and, while Allie is pleased, she is also grateful for the help of her new partner Vanna Harding – Tegan’s half-sister with a rather abrasive personality. Surprisingly, though, the two are getting along rather well, and Vanna isn’t just railroading Allie into all of her own catering ideas. read more

Alex Erickson: Death by Java

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Bookstore Café #14

In the fourteenth outing of Alex Erickson’s Bookstore Café series, protagonist Krissy Hancock has made a comfortable life for herself in Pine Hills, Ohio. She owns and operates a bookstore café called Death by Coffee with her longtime friend Vicki Lawyer. The two of them have worked hard to make their shop a success, as well as a local landmark. Krissy has also picked up a little side hustle of solving crime throughout the town. Local law isn’t exactly thrilled, but they can’t deny that she has been instrumental in solving many murders. However, they can breathe a sigh of relief and get a break from the amateur sleuthing as Krissy is heading back to her hometown of Redwood Village, California, to visit her roots with her father, his girlfriend, and her boyfriend. read more

Leslie Meier: A Matter of Pedigree

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Series debut

The prolific Leslie Meier has long enamored readers with her Lucy Stone Mystery series (31 books and counting) and she’s now branching off with a new series.  The new series follows Carole Capobianco in Rhode Island, where she and her husband Frank are starting to move up in the world. Frank invented a revolutionary new device, the Bye-Bye Toilet, which has made the Capobianco family millionaires practically overnight. As their two children have moved out for careers and school, the pair of empty nesters are looking to move into more upscale and plush living accommodations. This is saying something, as their current apartment is quite upscale. read more

Lee Hollis: Death of a Tom Turkey

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Haley Powell #18

Lee Hollis’ latest Haley Powell mystery, Death of a Tom Turkey, is the perfect fit for a thanksgiving read. Haley Powell is a food writer and the owner of Hayley’s Kitchen restaurant in Bar Harbor, Maine. While food is her primary passion, she has developed a deep love and talent for investigation, too. She’s aided in her sleuthing by her husband Bruce, who is a crime reporter, and her brother in law Sergio, who happens to be the chief of police. Haley has a warm and soothing personality, perfect for putting people at ease and getting them to open-up and tell her things they might not be so willing to tell Sergio or any other officer of the law. However, even though she can often coax them to talk to her alone, she encourages them to speak to the police as well, sometimes going as far as to offer to go along with them as support so they don’t feel as intimidated or vulnerable. read more