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Cozy Mystery Book Recommendations – March 2023

EDIT: I’ve had a lot of spam coming into the comments over the last few days… I’ve been manually tagging them, so it’s possible that I tagged a “good” message or two accidentally. If you have a comment that doesn’t get posted over a few days, please repost it! I probably deleted it by accident.

March is almost over, so it’s time to discuss our favorite Cozies that we read this month!

If you read a Cozy mystery this month and want to recommend it to the rest of us, be sure to post it here! For this month, I read the first entry of Ellie Alexander’s Sloan Krause Mystery Series. For the reasons I want to recommend it, be sure to check out the blog entry!

So, what have you been reading that you can recommend in March? Please be sure to tell us why you liked these Cozies so much. I know we’re all always on the lookout for more particularly good Cozy Mystery authors! (If you have a lot of Cozies you think are great, please post the ones you like the most at the top of the list.)

As always, please do not tell us about the Cozy Mysteries you did not like.

What really good Cozy Mystery did you read March 2023 that you want the rest of us to know about, and why did you enjoy it?

Ellery Adams (aka J. B. Stanley, Jennifer Stanley, & 1/2 of Lucy Arlington): Book Retreat Mystery Series

Ellie Alexander  (aka Kate Dyer-Seeley): Sloan Krause Mystery Series

Donna Andrews: Meg Langslow Mystery Series

V.M. Burns: Baker Street Mystery Series

Ellen Byron (aka Maria DiRico): Vintage Cookbook Mystery Series

Kate Carlisle: Fixer-Upper Mystery Series

Laura Childs (aka Gerry Schmitt): Tea Shop Mystery Series

Nancy Coco (aka Nancy J. Parra and Nell Hampton): Candy-Coated Mystery Series

Peggy Ehrhart: Knit & Nibble Mystery Series

Agatha Frost: Peridale Cafe Mystery Series AND Claire’s Candles Cozy Mystery Series

Alexia Gordon: Gethsemane Brown Mystery Series

Steve Higgs: Albert Smith’s Culinary Capers (first entry Pork Pie Pandemonium)

Zara Keane: Movie Club Mystery Series (first entry Dial P for Poison)

Harper Kincaid: Bookbinding Mystery Series (first entry To Kill a Mocking Girl)

Charlotte MacLeod (aka Alisa Craig): Peter Shandy Mystery Series

Alyssa Maxwell: Gilded Newport Mystery Series

Carlene O’Connor: Home to Ireland Mystery Series

Carol J. Perry: Haunted Haven Mystery Series

Misha Popp: Pies Before Guys Mystery Series (first entry Magic, Lies, and Deadly Pies)

Ellen Riggs: Bought the Farm Mystery Series (first entry Dogcatcher in the Rye)

David Rosenfelt: K Team Mystery Series

Lee Strauss: Ginger Gold Mystery Series (first entry Murder on the SS Rosa)

Betty Webb: Gunn Zoo Mystery Series

I will list the authors and series that have been recommended, but I urge you to read the comments below so you can see the reasons other Cozy Mystery readers thought these were their best reads of the month.

♦To access more Cozy Mystery Books Recommendations, click on this link♦

P.S. I usually don’t comment on your recommendations since they speak for themselves.

Darci Hannah: Beacon Bakeshop Mysteries

Murder at the Beacon Bakeshop (A Beacon Bakeshop Mystery Book 1) I am the first to admit that Cozy Mysteries are deeply rooted in fantasy. Even Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple was living a life just a bit too good to be true. With her perfect little cottage and flower garden, her perfect little village of St Mary Mead where she knew everyone and nearly everyone was her friend and confidante. And where her nephew, Raymond, supplied the cash she needed to go on her Caribbean adventure, Miss Marple lived in stories that were just far enough from reality to be really fun to read.

However, Lindsey Bakewell’s life (yes her friends give her a hard time about her name given her talent for baking), far exceeds anything in Agatha Christie’s characters or for that matter most characters in most books in the fantasy department. Lindsey is the daughter of a fashion model mom and a Wall Street hedge fund manager. Luckily for Lindsey, she inherited the best characteristics from both of her parents. Lindsey says of herself:

Thank goodness I’d gotten my light green eyes, high cheekbones, and ash-blond hair from Mom and Dad’s affinity for numbers.

Murder at the Beacon Bakeshop is the first in the Beacon Bakeshop Mystery series by Darci Hannah, and this is the next in my continuing effort to write about the most popular and recommended Cozy Mystery series. 

Anyway and needless to say, Lindsey is a 30-something beauty who is wealthy and smart. At the beginning of the story, we learn that she just recently quit her Wall Street investment banking job where she had earned a boatload of money and had bought a run-down lighthouse on the coast of Lake Michigan which she proceeds to turn into a bakeshop and cafe. Baking is Lindsey’s true passion and she is very, very good at it. Lindsey’s baking skill, plus having her best friend who is a social media influencer with over 10 million followers, virtually guarantees that the bakeshop will be an instant hit.

She is also quite good at attracting handsome men. Having just dumped her fiancé (a celebrity chef in New York City) who she had caught cheating on her, Lindsey finds that her lighthouse, although no longer a working beacon for ships on the lake, is now a beacon for handsome and fit men. Nearly the first person she meets is her neighbor, Rory, a former Navy Seal who is her closest neighbor and who is working on writing a book. 

Soon enough, a murder happens and Lindsey gets involved in the sleuthing. She is naturally involved because the murder was a poisoning that happened at the bakeshop on its opening day. 

Murder at the Beacon Bakeshop is a fun read. If you are looking for a Cozy that will put you in a truly enchanting setting (there is even a ghost involved),  and want to follow a character who has lived what for most people would be considered a truly charmed life. this book should be one of your first choices.

I almost forgot to mention the delicious-looking recipes included at the end of the book!

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 Cozy Mystery site.

June 6 to June 12, 2022

Here is the list of new releases for June 6 to June 12!

Lorna Barrett (aka L. L. Bartlett & Lorraine Bartlett): Clause of Death (This will be the 16th in the Booktown Mystery Series.)

Ellen Byron (aka Maria DiRico): Bayou Book Thief (This will be the 1st in the NEW Vintage Cookbook Mystery Series.)

Eva Gates (aka Vicki Delany): Death by Beach Read (This will be the 9th in the Lighthouse Library Mystery Series.)

Victoria Gilbert: A Fatal Booking (This will be the 3rd in the Book Lover’s B&B Mystery Series.)

Diane Kelly: The Proof Is in the Poison (This will be the 2nd in the Southern Homebrew Mystery Series.)

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