This month, I decided to read the first entry of one of the more often recommended Cozy Mystery series from more recent years that I hadn’t gotten around to yet, in this case the first entry of Amanda Flower‘s Amish Candy Shop Mystery Series, Assaulted Caramel. Though this is the first entry in this particular series for me, I have read other books by Amanda Flower before, so I wasn’t surprised by how much I enjoyed this particular entry.

This series combines two things that many Cozy lovers  can’t seem to get enough of – a particular food type and a less mainstream, less urbanized way of life, in this case chocolate and the Amish.

Both features get ample coverage, and the sleuth of the entry, Bailey King, provides an excellent protagonist viewpoint. A successful chocolatier in New York City, Bailey is introduced visiting her ailing grandfather, or daadi, whose failing health is making running the family candy shop increasingly difficult. When visiting, she overhears an argument between her grandfather and a local real estate magnate arguing about selling the shop, which daadi strongly opposes. To Bailey and her grandparents’ surprise (but not to ours!), the magnate is found dead shortly thereafter, stabbed by a chocolate cutting knife in the King business’s kitchen.

Naturally, Harvest, Ohio, proves to be full of other eccentric and interesting characters, from the handsome and charming police deputy, to the domineering matriarch dead set on having her daughter married despite the recent murder of the groom’s father, to the local leader of the local quilting circle and her pet potbellied pig, Jethro. These and many other charms of the small town life lead to the conclusion of one of the novel’s ongoing threads, the obvious growing discontent Bailey has with her big city life. She starts the novel in a secret relationship with a man she rarely sees, and while she is up for a big promotion at her big city chocolatier job, she doesn’t seem incredibly keen on pursuing that for most of the novel. This particular culmination is hardly a surprise – it’s the Amish Candy Shop Mystery Series, after all, not the Big City New York Candy Shop Mystery Series!

For anyone who has read another mystery by Amanda Flower (or Isabella Alan, the other pseudonym she writes under), the high quality of the writing is hardly a surprise either. Flower also writes the Magical Bookshop Mystery Series, the Magic Garden Mystery Series, the Living History Museum Mystery Series, the Appleseed Creek Mystery Series, the India Hayes Mystery Series, and (as Isabella Alan) the Amish Quilt Shop Mystery Series.

Also, for those who may be swayed by a sweet tooth, this book does include a recipe, for salted caramel fudge which does sound absolutely delicious.

As a reminder, from now on I’m going to try to announce what I’m reading a month ahead of time, so people can look up the books before I start writing about them. Next month will be the first book in Paige Shelton’s Scottish Bookshop Mystery Series, The Cracked Spine.

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Sometimes I set myself to the delightful task (although “task” sounds too much like “work”) of reading a new-to-me author’s first book in a Cozy Mystery series. In this case, I decided to try the first book in Vicki Delany‘s Sherlock Holmes Bookshop Mystery series, Elementary, She Read. Despite that she has been publishing books since at least 2001, somehow I had never gotten around to reading one of her books >> but of course with my to be read lists of books being so long that I cannot even remember what is on it without resorting to one of my lists, it is not unusual for me to miss gems such as this series for quite some time.

I read Elementary She Read for part of my continuing series that I call the Most Popular and Recommended Series. And, I am so glad that I finally decided to read it >> after her books being recommended many times.

This book is narrated in the first person by the sleuth, Gemma Doyle who describes herself as:

 … the half owner, manager, head shop clerk, and chief duster of the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop and Emporium in the Cape Cod town of West London, Massachusetts. As well as reprints of the original Sir Arthur Conan Doyle books, we carry new books representing anything and everything in the pastiche or vaguely derived from the Holmes legend.

The bookshop and emporium is located in the fictional town of West New London, Massachusetts, and it’s address is on Baker Street. Gemma is said to be a distant relative of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and her Uncle Arthur (who owns the shop with her) has been a big fan and collector of Sherlock Holmes related manuscripts and books for a long time. Gemma, who is British, came to West New London five years earlier to take over the running of her Uncle Arthur’s shop.

West New London is a charming Cape Cod town that is built near the water. Gemma live with her dog Violet in Uncle Arthur’s house which is within walking distance of the shop. As though the book and emporium aren’t enough of things related to Sherlock Holmes in the story, adjoining the shop is “Mrs Hudson’s Tearoom.” Uncle Arthur and Gemma co-own this tea room/bakery with Jayne Wilson, Gemma’s best friend.

The mystery in Elementary She Read revolves around the discovery by Gemma of an early edition of the earliest Sherlock Holmes story in the bookshop. Gemma figures out who probably left the old magazine there, and Gemma and Jayne go looking for her. Soon they discover a body, and the hunt is on!

The book has many of the hallmarks of modern Cozies. Gemma has a mysterious romantic past. The small town setting, the main characters running a small shop, the main characters former relationship with the town’s chief detective are also plot devices that are typical nowadays of our beloved genre.

What elevates this book, however, is the great writing. As I read more and more of the book, Gemma became very “real” to me. I found myself entering the town of West New London and regretting the moments when I had to put the book down and return to my real world. What better praise for a book than to say that you can get lost in it!

Elementary She Read, published in 2017, is the first of four books in the series so far with the fifth book, There’s A Murder Afoot, scheduled to be published in January 2020. If the quality of this series holds up (as I believe it will), we will be entertained by Gemma and the goings on in West London for many, many more enjoyable hours.

Click here to read more posts about the most popular and recommended Cozy Mystery series.

P.S. Vicki Delany writes the Lighthouse Library Mystery Series as Eva Gates.

This month for my regular series highlighting some of the most popular and recommended Cozy Mystery Series, I decided to try a “new to me” author I’ve been meaning to get around to for a while, Victoria Hamilton, largely because she’s been recommended by site visitors multiple times. Since her Merry Muffin Mystery Series is what has been recommended more often than not lately, I decided to start with the first entry in that series, Bran New Death. As always when something is repeatedly recommended, I wasn’t disappointed.

Bran New Death is firmly in the new style of Cozy Mysteries that has proliferated so much in the last decade – a woman no longer happy with her big city career, going back to somewhere from her past, to take up a long beloved hobby on a more professional basis. That said, it does distance itself somewhat from this formula through many minor variations that help to make it a bit more distinctive than the average modern Cozy. First, the sleuth, Merry Wynter, isn’t going back to her hometown – instead, she’s going to the family’s hereditary castle in upstate New York that she only visited once, now bequeathed to her upon the death of her estranged uncle. She also isn’t coming off of a bad breakup with a cheating spouse, either – instead, she is a widower, one who loved her spouse very dearly and has had trouble moving on since his accidental death several years earlier. Finally, she’s not originally intending to settle in Autumn Vale permanently, at least at the beginning of the novel – rather, she’s just hoping to clean up the castle enough to sell it, as she has recently been fired by a demanding and erratic employer.

These sorts of little touches help show that the author is willing to variate from the standard formula for modern Cozies, which can be very appreciated. What Victoria Hamilton doesn’t skip out on is the eccentric characters who populate small town Autumn Vale. Supporting cast is vitally important in a series like this, as they serve both as recurring characters and the original set of potential victims and criminals, and it’s always a pleasure when the characters walk that fine line between being interesting and being “wacky”. Fortunately, that is the case here – none of the supporting cast verged into the more cringe-worthy “zaniness” that can sometimes be found in Cozies, but at the same time are well characterized and interesting enough that you want to learn a bit more about them.

All told, if you’re looking for something well written and interesting in the “modern” Cozy style, the Merry Muffin Mystery Series is probably worth checking out.

Victoria Hamilton also writes the Vintage Kitchen Mystery Series, and has also written under several different names before this – she is the author of the Teapot Collector Mystery Series under the name Amanda Cooper, and the Lady Anne Addison Mystery Series under the name Donna Lea Simpson.

PS: For those who are swayed by such (and you know who you are!), this mystery does contain several recipes at the end – two for muffins, obviously, but also one for a chowder soup that sounds quite interesting as well.