The Cozy Mystery List Blog

Cozy Mystery (and Other Favorite) Books, Movies, and TV

From the Agathas to the Derringers… What a Great Time of Year!

Don’t worry! I’m on it!

Actually, I doubt you are worried…….. but I am on it…. The Derringer Awards will be announced very soon, and I will be posting them on the web site.

Remember, the Derringer Awards are given by the Short Mystery Fiction Society for the finest mystery stories. Like the Agathas, they are awarded the year after the works were published. So, this year, I will be posting the 2007 Derringer Award winners, even though the date of publication was actually 2006.

And, right after the Derringer Awards being announced, the Bouchercon nominations will be announced. The Bouchercon nominations are for the Anthony Awards, which are awarded in late September.

These awards are just the beginning. I still haven’t looked up the Shamus, Macavity, Spotted Owl, Edgar, Barry, Arthur Ellis, Nero, Herodotus, John Creasey Memorial, ETC awards!

2007 Agatha Awards…… and, the Winner IS………

The Malice Domestic convention took place this past weekend. Although some sites say that these are the 2007 awards, they are actually the 2006 awards. I know that the convention itself took place in 2007, but the works of mysteries were published in 2006. Thus the different years.

I did not attend the convention, and had a difficult time finding out the winners in the different categories. But, I finally was able to solve the mystery! (The Malice Domestic site hasn’t posted the winners yet, but I’m sure they will do so soon……..) I know that a lot of cozy mystery readers anxiously await the results, but, as I have stated before on this site, this is truly a case of “being nominated is an award in itself.”  I truly believe that. I know, when I look at the lists of previous and current nominations, that I am looking at lists of cozy mystery reading at its best.

Anyway, I am posting the winners for the categories, but I’m also providing the links so that you can see all of the other nominations. Being nominated for such prestigious awards puts all of the nominated in a cozy class of excellence.

Best Novel: The Virgin of Small Plains by Nancy Pickard

Best First Novel: The Heat of the Moon by Sandra Parshall

Best Short Story: Sleeping with the Plush by Toni L.P. Kelner

Best Non-Fiction: Don’t Murder Your Mystery by Chris Roerden

Best Children/Young Adult: Pea Soup Poisonings by Nancy Means Wright

Malice Domestic Award for Lifetime Achievement: Carolyn Hart

Malice Domestic Poirot Award: Douglas Greene

Agatha Awards Look Pretty Cozy!

I have a long list of authors who have been recommended to me by either my cozy mystery reading friends, past mystery reading group members, or people who have written to me (through this site) and suggested that I add a page for one (two, or three!) of their favorite cozy authors. I was going to start adding all of these authors…. first looking up each of these authors, and then "doing what I do."

The very first thing that I do when deciding whether to add an author to this site is do some research and see if he/she is someone I would want to read. Once I determine that he/she is indeed someone I will add to my TBR list of authors, I go ahead and dedicate a page to his/her chronological book list and write a short blurp about the author on his/her corresponding alphabet page. 

When I started this website, I tried to only post authors who I could "vouch for." But, as I continue to work on the site, I am finding that since I have already posted "my authors,"  I now have the time to post authors who other cozy readers enjoy, even though I haven’t "tried them" yet. I was a little overwhelmed  when I started doing this, and found  that it would take an enormous amount of time to do each of these many authors.  So, what a pleasant surprise I had in store for me when I started making the links for the Agatha Award  pages.

As I  started typing all of the annual  award winners and nominees, I noticed a reoccurring thing……….. I already had web pages dedicated to these authors. As I made the links, I started actually being surprised by the few authors for whom I hadn’t already made web pages! That meant, that there were very few Agatha Award winners who I hadn’t read.

If you take a few minutes to peruse the lists of nominees and winners, you will find that an interesting thing happens… You can actually follow some authors’ cozy mystery writing successes.

An example of this would be Joan Hess. She won the Agatha Award for Best Short Story in both 1990 and 1992, and was then nominated for the Agatha Award for Best Novel in 1995, 1993, and 1988. As one of my favorite cozy authors, I like that  she has been recognized for her many cozy accomplishments.

Another example is Donna Andrews. She won the Agatha Award for Best First Novel in 2000, won the Agatha Award Best Novel in 2002, and was then nominated for the Best Novel in 2003, 2004, and 2005. That’s a lot of cozy enjoyment for us cozy readers!

So, I have decided that I will start "fleshing out" the Agatha Award winners and nominees. If you are new to the world of Cozy Mystery Reading, the Agathas are an excellent place to start! 

Agatha, Anthony, What's Next?

Well, I just finished the Anthony Awards, and think that maybe it’s time to take a break from these award listings, and start reading again! After all, it’s my enjoyment of reading mystery novels that got me interested in putting this website together.

I know that some of you might have noticed the new Google ads on the right side of the site. My husband has "gently convinced" me that I need to start paying my server’s fees, so, alas, that is why they are up. (Don’t even ask me what a server does…….. I thought that everything I put on the site simply was stored in my computer, but that is not the case.) My "server" isn’t even in the state we live!

Enough about that!

I am almost finished with my first Madoc Rhys novel (by Charlotte MacLeod- writing as Alisa Craig), and am still not quite sure what my opinion is. I am enjoying the novel, but I think that because I have read so many of the Peter Shandy and Sarah Kelling novels (that she wrote as MacLeod) that I still hold an allegiance to those works. Also, since I am devoting a lot of the time I used to spend reading to the Cozy Mystery site, I am reading sluggishly slow. I know that can affect a person’s enjoyment of a book.

Well, now that I have decided to slow down on the mystery awards’ lists, I will have plenty of time to read. And, since Charlotte MacLeod is one of my favorite authors, I believe that Alisa Craig will be, too!

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