It’s time once again for me to write another past in my series highlighting the most popular and recommended Cozy Mystery series. This month, I’ll be reading another very new Cozy mystery series, the Avery Ayers Mystery Series by Tracy Gardner. This series is so new that the book I’m reading, Ruby Red Herring, the first in the series, came out last year (which is 2021, for those of you reading in the future).

The titular Avery Ayers is a 25 year old woman taking over the family business of Antiquities & Artifacts Appraised after the death of her parents about a year before the start of the novel. The business has offices both in Lilac Grove, a small upstate town less than an hour outside New York City, and a branch office in Manhattan. Avery had moved back to Lilac Grove from Philadelphia after the death of her parents to take care of her much younger sister Tilly, still in high school, as had their eccentric Aunt Midge, a sixty year old woman with a wide and diverse network of contacts in art and culture.

The book certainly starts out fast with a mystery – a note, apparently written by the siblings deceased father, arrives one morning warning them from taking a contract, though which contract is vague. Avery has no doubt that their father is deceased, but the note is hard to shake entirely, using nicknames that few other people outside the family would have known.

The only obvious upcoming “contract” that could prove troublesome is an offer from the New York Museum of Antiquities to appraise a large ruby, an obviously potentially valuable item but also one well within Avery’s area of expertise. The ruby seems potentially to be a match for a missing gem from another art piece, a dragon medallion which had already been missing a ruby eye before coming into possession of the Museum of Antiquities. When the ruby goes missing, suddenly coworkers, museum employees, and even visiting actors shooting a movie in a closed part of the museum all suddenly start looking like potential suspects… not only in the missing ruby, but in the death of Avery’s parents, which starts to look less and less like an accident.

One thing I really appreciated about this novel is that at least one aspect of the mystery surfaces immediately upon starting. Though establishing the setting is no doubt important in Cozies as in any other form of fiction, many modern Cozies have a tendency to amble on for a hundred pages or so before the first crime. Though this is certainly a good way to establish both setting and give service to whatever “niche” the Cozy is inhabiting (often food related, though antiques aren’t uncommon either), it can leave the mystery feeling like a distant secondary consideration.

That isn’t the case in Ruby Red Herring. With a mysterious letter arriving immediately as the book opens, it makes it clear that the mystery of this “mystery novel” won’t be taking second place to antiques, as interesting as that secondary focus can be. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in a modern Cozy that starts off with mystery right away rather than beating around the bush for a hundred pages first.

If you’re interested in seeing other most recommended or popular Cozy Mystery authors/series, please visit the Most Popular & Recommended Cozy Mystery Series page on my site.

Time is zipping along so fast for me these days that I find it hard to believe that it is already time for my next post in my series highlighting the most popular and recommended Cozy Mystery series. This month I read the first book in Anna Gerard’s very popular Georgia B&B Mystery Book series, Peach Clobbered. Anna Gerard is also known as Diane A. S. Stuckart and Ali Brandon, so many of you may know some of her work under these other names.

(By the way, I’ve taken these days sometimes to not create a new page for every author alias on the main Cozy Mystery site. Therefore, Anna Gerard is listed under the Diane A. S. Stuckart page).

In Peach Clobbered, the story begins just after Nina Fleet (recently divorced) has moved into a large Queen Anne-style house in the small Georgia town of Cymbeline. Nina is about 40, so she is somewhat older than the typical modern Cozy late 20s sleuth. Nina’s divorce has apparently left her quite wealthy, so she says she only plans to turn the house into a bed and breakfast because she is afraid that someday she will get bored doing nothing. (A nice problem to have, I think!)

Anyway, Nina is soon visited by a nephew of the lady from whose estate Nina bought the large old house. The nephew, Harry Wescott, thinks he has a claim to the house and that Nina had no right to buy it. She is also visited by a local real estate mogul who seems to have made an enemy of just about everybody in the town.

On top of all of that, Nina’s application for a zoning change to allow the B&B to be opened is unexpectedly granted. And, Nina finds herself with a house full of unusual and unplanned guests within 24 hours of the zoning change approval. Finally, as any seasoned Cozy Mystery reader would predict, there is a murder in the town, and Nina is in the middle of it.

Peach Clobbered is an easy and fun read. I think it is a breezy and fast story, well written with an attractive sleuth and a nice supporting cast. I could picture myself sitting on a beach enjoying this book and the rest of the Georgia B&B Mystery Book series.  The rest of the series has gone on my to-be-read (TBR) list!

If you’re interested in seeing other most recommended or popular Cozy Mystery authors/series, please visit the Most Popular & Recommended Cozy Mystery Series page on my site.

One of the most popular authors listed on the Cozy Mystery site is Ellen Byron. And, it is no wonder given her credentials as a writer. She has written for television (Wings, Just Shoot Me, and Fairly Odd Parents). Not many Cozy Mystery authors have written TV comedy shows! Anyway, Ellen Byron’s books have been recommended many times by members of this blog’s community — and I’ve already written a post about her Cajun Country Mystery Series as part of my posts about the most popular and recommended Cozy Mystery series. As you all probably know already, Ellen Byron also writes as Maria DiRico.  

So, this month I am adding the first book of Maria DiRico’s Catering Hall Mystery Series, Here Comes the Body to the most popular and recommended Cozy Mystery series list. In the story, Mia Carina returns from Florida having split with her cheating husband to Queens, New York, to work in the event center of her sometimes mob boss father. On her first day working there, a woman appears and publicly accuses Mia’s father of having failed to pay for matchmaking services (Mia’s father denies this allegation). Later, the woman is found in the event center dead in a bachelor party’s cake. As is common in mystery books, a close relative of Mia (in this case, her father) is accused. This leads to Mia’s investigation.

Considering that the characters in the book have connections (“former” or otherwise) with the New York mob, you wouldn’t think that this book is a good fit for the Cozy Mystery genre. However, the “family” is remarkably close-knit. And the event center and Mia’s grandmother’s home provide appropriate places for the “village” setting so often associated with Cozies. And, the story contains a surprising amount of humor.

You might not know that Ellen Byron says in her bio that she “considers her most impressive credit working as a cater-waiter for Martha Stewart.” This experience, of course, gives her credibility when writing her series about event planning and catering. 

As with all of the author’s books, this story is very well written and full of unexpected plot twists and fun surprises. The characters are easy to like despite their “connections”. So far there are only three books in the series, but I hope there will be more!

If you’re interested in seeing other most recommended or popular Cozy Mystery authors/series, please visit the Most Popular & Recommended Cozy Mystery Series page on my site.