I’ve been a little busier than usual lately. Our daughter is in the process of moving between jobs, and has been home for the last week. It has been great to have her here. We haven’t been doing much as she wanted to use the time at home to regroup (take it easy). It’s been great having her here.

In between spending time with her, I have been working on the Cozy Mystery site. Since I keep a long-running, tentative list of the monthly mystery book new releases on my computer’s desktop, I decided to not wait until I publish the official monthly mystery book new releases list, but go ahead and put the books on the authors’ individual pages as soon as I find out about them. (Hope that makes sense!) That way, if you want to know if a particular favorite author of yours will be publishing a mystery book in the near future, you will be able to find out by looking at his/her page.

I will still be doing the official monthly mystery book new releases entries, but if you absolutely cannot wait until the month before the book is released, you can check to see if your favorite author has something coming out sometime soon.

For example, on September 1 I will be publishing the October 2013 Mystery Book New Releases entry. But, let’s say that you are a fan of Donna Andrews, and you want to find out (before September 1) if she will be publishing something in the near future, you can go to her page and see. Aha, you’re in luck! Donna Andrews is publishing a Christmas theme mystery (Duck the Halls) which I already have on her page. As it turns out, I also already have it on the Christmas theme mystery page with all of the A authors, since it’s a Christmas theme mystery.

Or let’s say you’re a Heather Blake fan, and you want to know if she will be publishing any new mystery books any time soon. Rather than wait until October 1 (when I post the November 2013 Mystery Book New Releases entry) I already have her new Magic Potion Mystery Series posted on her page. That way you will know that her first book (A Potion to Die For) in that series is due to be released.

Actually, I don’t know why I didn’t start doing this a long time ago. I should have been posting the mysteries as I found out about them, not “hoarding” them on my tentative list until the monthly entry. I will blame this on me being very set in my ways, and not seeing the forest for all the books.

Warning: This is not about mysteries,  although it does involve a mystery of sorts.

Let me start by telling you that I am 5’9″ tall. Invariably when I find myself in a line (like at the grocery store) I am one of the tallest women. There may be a few others who are taller, but usually there aren’t. I don’t wear high heels EVER – I can usually be seen wearing my New Balance walking sneakers.

Given all that information, can you imagine why I now have to buy my black jeans in a “petite” length?!? Are there so many women these days who wear stilettos while wearing their jeans? (A mystery to me, sort of…)

This wouldn’t annoy me if I hadn’t just bought two pair of my regular brand jeans in my previous size >>> “medium” length.  I have been buying the same brand and cut jeans for years, so when I bought my two new “medium” jeans this time, I didn’t bother to try them on. I quickly went home and washed them. That’s how sure I was they would fit. Long story short: I am currently waiting for them to be taken up. They are quite long, actually very long. And of course with the price of the alterations, I no longer feel like they are the best jeans I can buy for the lowest price around.

OK! I feel much better now that I’ve gotten the rant part out of the way!

My husband pointed out that my “Rants & Raves” entries seem to only be the negative “Rant” portion. Yikes! He’s right. Am I really that negative?!?

So it is at this time that I will finally do the “Rave” portion. (I may revert to just the “Rant” part, but I’ll try to be a little more positive in the future.)

I know I have mentioned how much my husband and I like our Keurig coffee maker (from my These Are a Few of My Favorite Things… entry, and how I fill my Ekobrew refillable K-Cups with my favorite tea blends so that I don’t have to keep paying the high prices for tea K-Cups.

My husband, however, insists on using the already made K-Cup coffee pods, which I find to be pretty expensive. I just found these San Francisco Bay K-Cups that my husband likes a lot. Even though they look different from the regular K-Cups, they fit and work perfectly in the K-Cup coffee maker, and are substantially cheaper. Since I had never seen these before, I thought those of you who might be interested in finding a cheaper alternative to the regular K-Cups might want to know about these. (My husband likes his coffee very strong, so he likes this particular blend – Fogchaser. As for me, I’m pretty sure I’d prefer the Breakfast Blend, which is always smoother to me.)

Mission accomplished! I managed to not just focus on the negative side of my “Rants & Raves”. That doesn’t mean I’m not still annoyed at having to alter my “medium” (in my opinion “tall”) jeans!

I have gotten quite a few letters and comments asking for me to add a Cozy Mystery theme that includes Romantic Cozy Mysteries. I have thought quite a bit about how long this list of romantic mysteries could end up being.

Should this list include every series of mysteries that has two characters who are clearly made for each other?

Should this list include only the mysteries you think of when you think of the Gothic romance mysteries?

Should this list include all authors who have a sleuth who just can’t seem to make up her mind between two (or more!) suitors?

Should this list include mysteries that have sleuths who are married couples?

Should this list include mysteries that I think are romantic, but that perhaps you wouldn’t?

I just keep coming back to the fact that romance is so subjective. Clearly some authors make it very easy to identify. Daphne du Maurier and Victoria Holt are two such examples. But they are both Gothic Romance Mystery authors, making it very easy to label them as Romantic Cozy Mystery authors.

However, how about  a series like the Leigh Koslow mysteries by Edie Claire? I think of those as romantic. Yep, Leigh and  Warren may not be as “romantic” as a Charlotte Brontë’s Jane and Rochester, but they are a very interesting couple to me.

I started to have this discussion with my husband because I told him I was at a loss as to how to proceed and he suggested that I ask you all. So I’m left with this dilemma: How would we define Romantic Cozy Mysteries when making up a list, keeping in mind that the list has to have some reasonable boundaries or else it won’t be a useful list for anyone?

If you have any ideas on how to define Romantic Cozy Mysteries for the purpose of this list, please post a comment. At this point I’m not asking for you to provide authors for inclusion to this hypothetical list. If you need to mention an author as an example for the point you are making, that would be fine. Once we determine if this list is even feasible (i.e. doesn’t include almost every author under the sun) then we’ll proceed to making the list.