The Cozy Mystery List Blog

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

Joan Hess Treated Us to Some of the Funniest & Best Cozy Mystery Reading…

I truly hate to be the bearer of this very sad news. For those of us who have delighted at the antics of the Maggody gang, who Arly Hanks has to work so hard to keep in line, Joan Hess’s passing a few days ago is very sad indeed. Several Cozy Mystery readers wrote to tell me about her passing, and I have found a few sources on the web that have also reported this awful news.

Joan Hess set both her Maggody and Claire Malloy series – which both feature strong women sleuths – in Arkansas, which makes sense since Hess was an Arkansan. I started enjoying Hess’s Maggody gang back in the late 1980s. When I later started reading Hess’s Claire Malloy series, I saw what a gifted author she was to have two such strong mystery series. So gifted in fact, that she was chosen to finish Elizabeth Peter’s last Amelia Peabody mystery book.

Joan Hess will be very much missed by many of us who spent hours with both Arly and Claire – as they sleuthed their ways into our hearts.

Happy Thanksgiving

We just got back from visiting our daughter in Washington, D.C. – after visiting my brother in Colorado Springs. It’s been a busy month for both my husband and me!

This year I decided that rather than stand in the kitchen all day long cooking, I would treat myself to a day of heating prepared casseroles that I bought at various stores. Our son will be coming over for the meal, so I’ll be able to visit with him – instead of rushing around in the kitchen. Ya-hoo!

I hope all of you are able to enjoy this day of giving thanks. 

How Early Do You Start Your Winter Holiday Reading?

WinterIt is particularly difficult for me to believe we are now in the midst of our winter holidays! I am sitting here writing this entry while looking out on our green lawn. There is absolutely no evidence of this being November! It is currently 82° here in San Antonio, and we’re expecting a high of 89° today. (I’m pre-writing this entry, so the temperature may be a little different on the day I post this.) For this reason, I have been devoting all of my reading time to Cozy Mystery holiday books, with hopes there will be snow in the books’ forecasts!

I mentioned in a September entry (Have You Ever Missed an Entry in a Cozy Mystery Series You Love?) that I was very surprised when my daughter pointed out that I had missed reading one of my very favorite authors’ Cozies. Well, I have made myself wait (and wait!) to read Edie Claire’s Never Mess with Mistletoe. It has been difficult, but I was determined to wait until the Christmas holiday season to read it.

Last week, the day after Halloween, I noticed they started putting up the Christmas tree at my local shopping center. I hadn’t even finished the Halloween Cozy I was reading! Then, when I went to Michael’s, they had the entire store decked out for the holidays and they were already playing their Christmas music loop. All of this sort of pushed my holiday reading schedule up a notch! Long story short, I absolutely couldn’t wait, and I’m currently reading Never Mess with Mistletoe… even before Thanksgiving!

I can’t be the only one who has skipped Thanksgiving and is already reading Christmas themed Cozies. There must be more Cozy Mystery readers who are as impatient as I am.

So,  my question to you ALL is this: If you save your winter holiday Cozies until their appropriate seasons, how early do you start reading them?

PS: Normally I try to respond to all comments, but in this case I may not answer all of them >>>> as I have already stated when I started and a lot of the responses to your own answers would be of the “oh I see, that’s very interesting!” variety.

Have You Ever Missed an Entry in a Cozy Mystery Series You Love?

ReadingShame on me! Here I’ve had a Cozy Mystery site devoted (as in absolutely, totally devoted!) to Cozy Mystery authors’ series listed chronologically since 2006, and I accidentally skipped a Cozy by one of my very favorite authors!!!

As a lot of you who have been with me for years know, I’m a firm believer of reading a Cozy Mystery series in its chronological order. I like “growing with the characters.” The regular characters in the books become “friends” to me, and I look forward to spending time with them. I like catching up with them and finding out what they have been up to since they last solved a crime.

Also some of you know that I follow Edie Claire‘s Leigh Koslow Never Mystery Series. I have “known” Leigh since she was single, and watched as she matured to the “woman she is today”.

My (grown) daughter and I were talking (no, she’s still in Washington, DC – these days I have to rely on our cell phones) last week when I told her that I had just finished the latest Leigh Koslow mystery. (My daughter reads only a very few Cozy series – of which this is one.) She knows how I only read holiday Cozies during their corresponding holidays – so she seemed surprised. She went on to tell me that she enjoyed that last Christmas Cozy.

I kept trying to place this Christmas Cozy – and had my daughter describe the book to me – without giving me too many details. I didn’t recognize any of the details and quickly stopped her. Yikes! I had actually inadvertently read book #11 (Never Murder a Birder) – skipping book #10 (Never Mess with Mistletoe). Perhaps I had decided to wait until Christmas to read it and then somehow forgot I had it…

So, here’s my question: Have you ever accidentally skipped a book in one of your favorite Cozy Mystery Series? And, if so, did it affect the next book in that series that you read? How did you find out that you had missed an entry? I mean, have you ever read a book in one of your very favorite series out of order and then when you went back to read the previous book, did it seem out of sequence? (I don’t think I’m explaining this very well…) Please post a comment to let us know. Thanks!

MENU