The Cozy Mystery List Blog

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

Suffolk Mystery Authors Festival on Saturday, November 8, 2014

I just got back from visiting my mother up in Colorado Springs (more on that some other time) and realized I didn’t pre-plan an entry about this terrific mystery fair they will be having in Suffolk, Virginia all day this Saturday. I know this is short notice, but for those of you in the area, this looks like an absolutely wonderful festival!

Suffolk Mystery Authors Festival >>> Saturday, November 8, 2014, 11:00 am – 7:00 PM

Suffolk Center for Cultural Arts >>> Free & Open to the Public 757-514-4130

Take a look at the roster of bestselling Cozy Mystery authors who will be attending:

Ellery Adams (aka J.B. Stanley, Jennifer Stanley, and 1/2 of Lucy Arlington)

Melissa Bourbon (aka Misa Ramirez)

Mary Burton

Mollie Cox Bryan

Joyce and Jim Lavene (aka J.J. Cook & Ellie Grant)

Maggie Sefton

Gayle Trent (aka Amanda Lee)

LynDee Walker

(aka Annie Knox)

(Wow! It’s like reading a who’s who list of Cozy Mystery authors!)

The very first annual Suffolk Mystery Authors Festival is being sponsored by the Suffolk Center for Cultural Arts, the Suffolk Public Library, and the Suffolk Division of Tourism. The authors will be signing books, meeting Cozy Mystery fans, and performing readings. Also, there will be “how to become a mystery author” workshop and an author panel.

If you want more information, please go to their site: VisitSuffolkVa.com  and click on the Suffolk Mystery Authors area. And, for those of you who live in the area, the site looks like they are sponsoring all types of fun in other venues.

Makes me wish I lived on the east coast!

Re-Trying an Old Favorite Author Who You Discarded…

negative nellieSo, a few months ago Angela gave me this great idea for an entry. I’m going to post her comment, and then my comment back. BUT I’d love to know what you ALL think.

Angela:

With current series, I have found that I have burned out on the series after a few books and I do wonder if I had spaced them out more if I would have been more tolerant of all the things that bugged me so much I decided to stop reading the series. But ultimately I figure there are so many books out there to discover and by dropping one series I just made room for another one that I will potentially enjoy so much more than the one I just dropped so either way I win. To take the question further, how many of us go back to a dropped series years later and find that we do like it?

My Answer:

Angela, I have a good friend who shares a lot of my favorite authors. She has persuaded me twice to go back to an author who I finally decided to drop. Both times, she was absolutely sure I was going to add these authors right back to my favorite authors lists. Nope! The same things that caused me to drop the authors kept me from enjoying them.

Good grief, now that I just re-read that answer of mine, I know I look like a “Negative Nellie” (I think that’s the expression, although I could be wrong…) When I wrote that answer, I had forgotten that one of my current favorite Cozy Mystery authors is someone who I tried reading way back in the early 2000s >>> who I put my “*****YUCK” next to. Now I read one of her Cozy Mystery books whenever I’m looking for a really good, light Cozy Mystery. She simply writes what I think of as a good, light, and enjoyable Cozy Mystery.

When I try to re-read an author who I previously enjoyed, and then moved to my “*****YUCK” list, I try to remain positive >>> since I know there were things I loved about this author before. However, that doesn’t always work! (Actually, it barely ever works for me!)

How about you? Do you ever re-try an author who you absolutely knew you didn’t like, and then find that you enjoy him/her? Or, once you put an author on your personal “*****YUCK” list, does he/she remain there forever? Do you even re-try him/her once you have sent him/her to your “don’t-want-to-see-you-again”list?

(Since I’m asking about authors who you don’t like, or at least didn’t like in the past, please do not name specific authors!)

It Looks Like We Know When Enough is Enough!

loveFirst of all, let me tell you ALL how much I have enjoyed reading all of your comments to the last entry posted! Donna, you certainly had a great idea! (When Is Too Much Romance Not a Good Thing?) Usually, I try to answer all of your comments (other than the monthly recommendations entry), but this particular entry seemed to just take off. So I’m going to address the general impressions I got from your comments:

I just re-read all of your comments, and it looks like the majority of us don’t mind a little romance, but we don’t want it to become a major component in our Cozy Mysteries. We don’t mind it, but it’s not a definite requirement. Most of us agree there is a definite difference between a Cozy Mystery and a Romance novel with a little mystery in it. We are reading Cozy Mysteries because they are, indeed, mysteries!

Several of the comments reflect that one of the reasons we like the Cozy Mystery genre is because of the fleshing-out of the characters and their relationships with other characters, whether they are romantic interests, or not. We want our characters to interact with each other; to be like the type of people we know in “real life”.  (After all, not all of the people we know “in real life” have significant others.)

I love that some of you were able to cite some really iconic sleuths who have loving, committed relationships. Those of us who are Ngaio Marsh fans can remember how smitten Roderick Alleyn was with Agatha Troy; however none of us was privy to their “romantic” life. It wasn’t a subject which took up a lot of the books. Same goes for Dorothy L. Sayers’ Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane. We see the same thing with Agatha Christie’s Tommy and Tuppence. The authors focused on the mysteries, not the couples’ courtships and/or marriages. The authors’ abilities to write good mystery novels with engaging mysteries is what keeps us coming back for more.

P.S. As an aside to love triangles, which were brought up a few times:  It looks like a lot of us agree that you should be able to decide on one suitor. It’s realistic that you would have a few doubts, and that it might take you a little time to find the person who is right for you, though here’s a thought >>> If you can’t decide between two potential love interests, then neither of them is probably right for you! (Maybe I’m just jealous, though. I don’t remember any time in my life where I had two men who desperately wanted to be with me, and who didn’t mind that I was dating the other!)

Cozy Mystery Sleuth Lives Next Door (Yikes!)

Last week, a Cozy Mystery reader made a comment (I wish I had written it down in a note to myself, since I can’t remember the exact comment!) about a Cozy Mystery sleuth moving in next door. I went back and read my Definition of a Cozy Mystery (click on the blue link to see the entire definition), since I sort of remember talking about Jessica Fletcher moving in, and the horror one might feel to know that someone who apparently is followed by the Grim Reaper should be moving in next door.

So, at this time, I would like to borrow from that comment and ask you all:

Which Cozy Mystery sleuth would you most want to live next door to, and why?

Oh, and to do this, let’s pretend that your favorite Cozy Mystery sleuth doesn’t follow the Grim Reaper around, solving mysteries, because, let’s face it, none of us would want to live next door to him/her!

Thank you!

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