Today, I’ll be continuing my posts about the most popular and recommended Cozy Mystery series with Victoria Gilbert‘s Blue Ridge Library Mystery Series. As usual, I’ll be specifically discussing the first book in the series – in this case, A Murder for the Books.

Starting this book, most Cozy readers will very quickly identify that this is a very standard opening for modern Cozies. Library director Amy Webber has relatively recently left a much more prestigious job at a nearby university for two reasons – first, so she can be closer to her Aunt, who is having increasing physical mobility problems, and second, to avoid her philandering former boyfriend. Though Taylorsford, Virginia, isn’t exactly described as Amy’s hometown, she definitely has a history in the smaller community, having spent many of her vacations as a child with her aunt, and technically commuting from there to her former university job until she quit.

Despite the fact that she has sworn off men for the time being, she quickly becomes exposed to temptation in the form of Richard Muir, her new neighbor, a “hunky” artistic former dancer and choreographer now working as an instructor at the university Amy formerly worked at. Richard has recently purchased the house next door to Amy – a supposedly haunted house owned by his great-uncle. Said relative had a particular interest in proving the innocence of a supposed murderer who had been legally acquitted, but still believed to be a murderer in public opinion. When Amy takes Richard into the archives to begin his investigation of older material, the pair quickly locate a corpse.

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again – I strongly prefer when a Cozy presents the murder right away rather than lingering through chapters and chapters of atmosphere before getting to the mystery. This is definitely one of the fastest to murder – the corpse is located at the very end of Chapter 1, page 17 according to my Kindle, out of 30 chapters and 323 pages. While atmosphere is of course an important part of a Cozy, it’s definitely better to establish it while keeping the actual case in mind rather than going through many descriptions of pastries or antiquing or other incidentals.

Fortunately, Taylorsford does present an interesting atmosphere as well, as an example of a relatively old small American town with a mix of some surviving older buildings, including the library, as well as some newer development like the nearby shopping areas.

A Murder for the Books includes many familiar modern Cozy elements, but it does so in a charming enough manner to entertain nonetheless. Enthusiasts of modern Cozies should find plenty of material to like in A Murder for the Books – and this is especially true for anyone who considers the actual crime to be the most important “front-and-center” element of the Cozy.

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

So, for the second time, I’m writing about a Kate Collins’ series in my posts about the most popular and recommended Cozy Mystery series. Last time (five years ago — time flying is more than an old cliche!), I wrote about her Flower Shop Mystery Series, more specifically, the first book in that series, Mum’s the Word. You can read that post if you click here. As you might guess, I liked her earlier series quite a lot. Many other readers did too — enough that several books from that series were made into mystery movies shown on the Hallmark Movies & Mysteries channel. (This was back when that channel showed a decent selection of original mystery movies.)

Anyway, enough about the past. This time I am writing about Kate Collins’ Goddess of Green St. Mysteries. The first book in the series is Statue of Limitations. Athena Spencer is the sleuth. She is a young(ish) single mother who has recently been divorced and has lost her job with a big city newspaper. So, she has returned to her small-town roots where her big Greek family runs both a diner and a garden center.

She works at the garden center but also spends a lot of time at the diner run by her grandparents in the town’s Little Greece section of the small town of Sequoia picturesquely set on Lake Michigan. She also writes, anonymously, a blog that features in a slightly veiled fashion her family.

The three blocks or so of Little Greece are threatened with destruction by the rich family in the town who presumably owns or controls that property. And, a statue that her grandfather bought from the rich family has brought an attractive, mysterious stranger to town searching for the authenticity and origin of the ancient statue. 

Before you know it, a murder has occurred. And the earlier death of the older member of the wealthy family is also considered suspicious. Of course, Athena is directly involved in trying to stop the demolition of Little Greece. She also gets involved in trying to solve the mystery of the two murders because the handsome stranger who Athena has just met (and seems more than a bit smitten by) is considered the prime suspect by the police.

Athena’s official boyfriend — formerly a lawyer, but now working as a law clerk for some reason — is also involved in the mystery — as are most of the people in the town it seems. This is truly a small tourist town setting, and it is quite worthy of being considered a Cozy Mystery.

Kate Collins’ is a fine writer who brings Athena and her big Greek family to life. This series already has three books, and I am looking forward to reading the other two. If you are looking for a Cozy series that has a lot of heart, look no further than the Goddess of Green St. Mysteries.

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.

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.