Three Cozy Mystery Authors, and No More…
I got a letter this week from Alfred suggesting a topic that sounds really interesting for a lot of us Cozy Mystery readers. Thank you, Alfred, for this great entry idea!
“The reason I am writing is that I had a column idea for you and thought it might be a good one to do. What if you asked the readers if they could only choose 3 or 4 authors to read, who would they choose and why? I gave this some thought and my three would be Laura Childs’ Tea Shop Mysteries and Emily Brightwell, of course I really like her. For my third one I would have to say Lorna Barrett’s Bookshop series. But what really takes center place on my bookshelf is my entire run of Tales of Grace Chapel Inn – this is an excellent series and you can’t wait to read each book to see what happens next.”
I’m going to start by telling you who my three Cozy Mystery authors would be:
Agatha Christie – She’s simply one of the best story tellers, her sleuths are great characters, she writes classic stories/plots with phenomenal settings, the mysteries are difficult to guess – yet make sense in the end because they are character-driven mysteries.
Ngaio Marsh – Her mysteries are really good classic stories that make sense, yet they are complicated. They (again) are character-driven. The characters are three dimensional, not caricatures. Marsh is a another truly good story teller. The sleuth and his team are a comfort to read about, there are no wild changes in the characters’ personalities. Her stories usually open with very long exposition of the crime setting and the characters, but the pay-off is well worth the wait – once the sleuth and his team arrive, the unfolding investigation of the crime makes interesting reading.
As for my third Cozy Mystery author, I’ll have to continue to think about this. There are so many other authors who I enjoy reading. I cannot imagine having to limit myself to only one out of all my favorite authors.
So, if you only had three Cozy Mystery authors who you could read, who would they be AND why?
(Here are all of your answers in list form: Three Cozy Mystery Authors, and No More – Part 2
August Is Here, and It’s Bittersweet for Me!
Wow! It’s August already!
At the beginning of the summer I wrote about our daughter coming home for the summer to study for the Bar. She took the three-day exam at the end of July, and then immediately started the process of moving. It’s been a big summer for her!
We have spent the last week moving her to her first “official” job, – although as some of you know through this blog, she interned every summer during both her college and law school years. Our house has looked like a storage place since she came home to study. We had all of her bins from school out in our living room, with new bins upstairs that she used to pack her “childhood” things into. We had her rowing machine in our family room, and our dining room table housed her breakable things, in short, we have been in a sort of transition stage.
I woke up two days ago with this epiphany: This is it! She is moving on with her life, and from now on, she will simply be “visiting” us… a wonderful accomplishment for her, but not so great for me as her mother! Her bedroom here now houses only has personal mementos: high school newspapers from her years as a reporter and editor, U.I.L. awards, fiction she wrote, history and science papers and projects, all things that probably mean more to me than they do to her. (She’s still young, with the passing of time she may just find that those things do indeed matter to her!)
Her life is going just as she planned. She will be working in a job she truly wants, she’ll be able to see her college roommate who will still be in Austin for another half year, and she will be living close enough to our home that she can visit when she wants, but far away so that we can’t just drop in when we want. (She hasn’t said the last part of that sentence, but I’m not so old that I can’t remember what it was like to be her age!)
So, with her moving out – and on with her life – it will be a time for the rest of us to adjust to our new family structure. My husband and I will slowly convert into the role my parents held all the years since I graduated from college and moved on with my life. It’s a cycle that is inevitable, one which I would much prefer reversing, but unfortunately, in all things related to time, cannot.
When Is a Cozy Mystery Theme Enough to Make You Put a Mystery Book Down?
I finally have experienced what some of you Cozy Mystery readers have talked about before! And what’s more, I agree with you!
I have to admit that until this month, I have always been selective with my Cozy Mystery themed books. I only read the themes I was interested in.
Let’s see:
I love British mystery series, so, of course, I tossed the British themes into my grab-bag of “Likes.”
Aha, I have always loved history, so that means I grab-bagged historical mysteries.
Animals? I simply can’t get enough of them! I’ll take Animals to go please, Alex.
Culinary mysteries? While I might not enjoy cooking or baking, I sure do love to eat! I’ll toss those cookies in my grab-bag of mystery themes, also.
How about vacations? Do I love seeing far-away places of interest? Who doesn’t? Throw those mystery books that take place in mysterious locales right into my overnight grab-bag.
Holidays, anyone? Who doesn’t enjoy their favorite holidays, whether the holidays are Thanksgiving, Halloween (paranormals, anyone?), Christmas, or Hanukkah.
Are you getting my drift? There really were very few themes that I absolutely could NOT relate to… until this month!
This month, I tried a new-to-me author who I absolutely knew I was going to enjoy, but who I also knew writes a mystery series based on a theme I positively cannot relate to. I knew that I could overcome this theme, since I had done my homework. I had paid attention to your comments and recommendations, as well as read all of the Amazon reviews.
However, I finally met a theme I simply cannot enjoy. (Since there are very few authors who write this particular theme, I’m going to keep the theme in my bag, as in trash bag!) Every time the author mentioned the totally boring minutiae of this particular theme, I lost interest. Unfortunately for me, the author mentioned this boring theme way more times than she needed. While reading (I should say “trying to read”) the mystery book, every time the author started rambling on (and on, and on) about the theme, she lost me.
I know that in the past I have talked a lot about, let’s say, Monica Ferris and her delightful Needlecraft Mystery Series. I now wonder what those of you who don’t enjoy cross stitching and needle pointing think when I drone on (and on, and on) about how much I enjoy this series.
What about you? Have you ever disliked a mystery series theme enough to make you avoid an author? (Please do not name specific authors. If you happen to forget, I’ll simply have to replace the author’s name with ***** or something just as descriptive.)
