The Cozy Mystery List Blog

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

Lifetime Channel NEW Holiday Movies – 2021

Guess what I just found! The Lifetime channel is featuring lots of all NEW Christmas movies. I know the Cozy Mystery site should only be writing to tell you about mystery movies, but I couldn’t resist making this Christmas movie list. I wasn’t able to get all of the synopses, but from the ones I posted, you’ll be able to identify quite a few stars: Reba McEntire, Smoky Robinson, Melissa Joan Hart, John Schneider,  Tia Mowry, Haylie Duff, Mario Lopez, ETC… the list goes on and on…

New Holiday Movies on Lifetime Channel 2021

NOVEMBER – NEW HOLIDAY MOVIES -EVERY WEEKEND @ 8/7c

Friday – November 26, 2021
Reba McEntire’s Christmas in Tune
Years after their personal and professional breakup, Georgia (Reba McEntire) and Joe (John Schneider) agree to reunite after their daughter, Belle (Candice King), asks them to participate in a Christmas Charity concert.

Saturday – November 27, 2021
Merry Liddle Christmas Baby
This holiday, the Liddles have much to be merry about! Jacquie (Kelly Rowland) and her husband Tyler (Thomas Cadrot) are preparing for the arrival of their first baby.

Sunday – November 28, 2021
Miracle in Motor City
Amber (Tia Mowry) takes charge of her church’s Christmas pageant and inadvertently promises a performance by Smokey Robinson. When her friends enlist Amber’s former flame (Mark Taylor) to help, the pair reconnect in a quest to convince Smokey to appear.

Monday – November 29, 2021
Welcome to the Christmas Family Reunion
Event planner Amy (Michelle Argyris) helps rising singer Tiffanie Christmas (Asia’h Epperson) plan her holiday family reunion. Along the way Amy must navigate some challenging family dynamics, especially amongst Tiffanie’s aunts as well as her own growing feelings for Tiffanie’s cousin, Calvin (Alonzo B. Slater). Will she be able to pull off an amazing Christmas family reunion? Vanessa Williams, Wendy Raquel Robinson, and Catherine Haena Kim.

Tuesday -November 30, 2021
Saying Yes to Christmas
A magical Christmas wish makes a career-obsessed June (Erika Prevost) say “Yes” to every invitation while she’s home for the holidays. But when an old flame, Blake (Romaine Waite) joins her hectic schedule of Christmas activities, past feelings are reignited. June must choose between saying yes to her career and life in the city or to her heart in her hometown.

DECEMBER- NEW MOVIES EVERY NIGHT @ 8/7c

Wednesday – December 1, 2021
Match Made in Mistletoe
When talented interior designer Emily Barnes (Natalie Lisinska) is hired by a foreign embassy in DC to decorate for the annual holiday charity ball, the newly appointed ambassador Magnus Andersson’s (Damon Runyan) “minimalist” approach creates a roadblock between them. As Emily’s undeniable love for the holiday season begins to thaw his heart, an unexpected romance begins between the two. 

Thursday – December 2, 2021
A Christmas Village Romance

Friday – December 3, 2021
A Christmas Dance Reunion
Lucy Mortimer (Monique Coleman), and her mother Virginia (Kim Roberts) return to the Winterleigh Resort to help celebrate the hotel’s final Christmas season. Lucy is reunited with her childhood Christmas Dance partner, Barrett Brewster (Corbin Bleu).

Saturday – December 4, 2021
Kirk Franklin’s A Gospel Christmas
When Olivia (Demetria McKinney), a young assistant pastor, gets assigned to be a lead pastor at a new church a month before Christmas, she’s fearful she can’t manage the transition, including getting the choir ready to open the town’s annual Winter Jamboree. Banding together with her new congregation, Olivia discovers a new home for herself, and even finds a little Christmas romance along the way! Featuring a special appearance and songs written and arranged by Kirk Franklin.

Sunday – December 5, 2021
My Favorite Christmas Melody

Monday – December 6, 2021
Secretly Santa

Tuesday – December 7, 2021
Christmas Movie Magic

Wednesday – December 8, 2021
Christmas with a Crown

Thursday – December 9, 2021
A Fiancé for Christmas
Sawyer (Amanda Payton) makes a fake wedding registry. But when the whole town throws her a surprise bridal shower, she’s too embarrassed to tell the truth. Instead, she finds a fake fiancé to help her navigate through the lies and holiday festivities.

Friday – December 10, 2021
Holiday in Santa Fe
Siblings Tony (Mario Lopez) and Magdalena (Aimee Garcia) run a family-owned business that makes holiday décor, inspired by Mexican Christmas traditions. An executive (Emeraude Toubia) at a large greeting card chain, sees an opportunity to acquire them.

Saturday – December 11, 2021
The Holiday Fix Up
When Sam (Jana Kramer), the designer behind a popular home renovation show, returns to her hometown during the holidays to help renovate the Bell Harbor Inn, she gets paired with Coop (Ryan McPartlin) as her lead contractor – the guy who broke her heart.

Sunday – December 12, 2021
Blending Christmas
The Hacienda de la Sierra is Emma’s (Haylie Duff) favorite place to spend the holiday season and her boyfriend Liam (Aaron O’Connell) has been secretly planning to propose to her there, surrounded by both their families.

Monday – December 13, 2021

Maps and Mistletoe
Welcome to Paradise Ranch, where city slickers get to be cowboys and cowgirls. Merry (Melissa Joan Hart), who owns the ranch has been unlucky in love, but that’s about to change when a single father, Mark (Duane Henry), books the ranch for Christmas week.

Tuesday – December 14, 2021
Ghosts of Christmas Past

Wednesday – December 15, 2021
The Enchanted Christmas Cake

Thursday – December 16, 2021
Christmas by Chance

Friday – December 17, 2021
Mistletoe in Montana

Saturday – December 18, 2021
Toying with the Holidays

Sunday – December 19, 2021
Under the Christmas Tree

Monday – December 20, 2021
Candy Cane Candidate

Tuesday – December 21, 2021
The Christmas Ball

Wednesday – December 22, 2021
It Takes a Christmas Village

Thursday – December 23, 2021
Rebuilding a Dream Christmas

Friday – December 24, 2021
Hot Chocolate Holiday

Saturday – December 25, 2021
Writing around the Christmas Tree

Make sure you set up your DVRs or watch the movies live on your favorite “watching-TV” chair/sofa, put your feet up, and relax. Enjoy the Christmas cheer!

P.S. If you want some more Christmas movie ideas, take at look at these two pages on my Cozy Mystery site:

Christmas : Favorite Classic Holiday Movies: Old, Black & White… and a Few In Color (not mysteries)

Christmas : Favorite Holiday Movies – More Recent, In Color (not mysteries)

Or visit the TV and Movies page for more TV-watching ideas: Cozy Mystery TV and Movies

Elizabeth Daly: Henry Gamadge Mystery Series

Unexpected Night At long last, I decided to read the first Henry Gamadge book by Elizabeth Daly, Unexpected Night.  I read a long time ago that Elizabeth Daly was Agatha Christie’s favorite American mystery author, and ever since then I have been meaning to read her books, but with one thing and another, somehow I had never gotten around to doing it until now. Boy was I wrong to wait! Anyway, Unexpected Night is the next book in my series of posts discussing some of the most popular and recommended Cozy series.

Elizabeth Daly published the sixteen books in the Henry Gamadge series way back between 1940 and 1951. I have to admit one of the most attractive things about Unexpected Night is the setting that seems to be from a whole other age — and of course, it was. Set in a resort hotel in Maine, and populated by a young heir, his sister, mother, cousin, aunt, and uncle, (among other characters), the air about the characters and the setting is almost British just as you see in old British movies. Of course, old American movies also show this old-time gentility with “dressing for dinner” and other customs that are now long gone. With their formal dress and formal way of speaking, the whole ambiance is very different from the modern Cozy, and yet at its heart, Unexpected Night is, in a lot of ways, a model Cozy.

Set in 1939 Maine, the story begins with the arrival of sickly heir Amberly Cowden and his family at his Aunt and Uncle’s cottage on the outskirts of Ford’s Beach, a small summer resort. Amberly is set to inherit a large amount of money (a million dollars or so) upon his 21st birthday which is only an hour or so away. If he doesn’t survive until he is 21, distant French relatives will get the money. Luckily for his immediate family, Amberly survives long enough, and he and his family check into the local resort hotel just around midnight. Soon, though, there is a murder, and Henry Gamadge, a rare book authority (and amateur detective, as it turns out) helps the police unravel the mystery.

As with Agatha Christie’s books, the plot in Unexpected Night is intricate. I’m tempted to say “convoluted”, but I think that word holds too negative a connotation. There are quite a few characters in the story, and it is very interesting to see how Elizabeth Daly weaves the various plot elements (including several murders) together to create a mystery that is difficult to solve but which has enough clues sprinkled about that I was constantly thinking that I almost had figured it out only to learn that there was one more twist that didn’t quite fit my theory.

Reading this book was just old-fashioned fun! It required some thinking to keep the characters and the plot straight, but putting in the effort was really rewarding. If you are in the mood for something different — an old-fashioned mystery book set in a much different era, I wholeheartedly recommend Elizabeth Daly’s Unexpected Night.

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.

November 15 to November 21, 2021

Here is the list of new releases for November 15 to November 21!

Emily Brightwell: Mrs. Jeffries and the Midwinter Murders (This will be the 40th in the Mrs. Jeffries Mystery Series.)

Alexander McCall Smith: The Joy and Light Bus Company (This will be the 22nd in the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency)

Thomas Perry: The Left-Handed Twin (This will be the 9th in the Jane Whitefield Mystery Series.)

One New Cozy Mystery Series Coming December 2021

December won’t feature any holiday-themed Cozies, but it will have one new mystery series debut by an established site author!

Laura Bradford (aka Elizabeth Lynn Casey) will be putting out A Plus One for Murder, the first in her new Friend for Hire Mystery Series. Former travel planner Emma Westlake needs a new career as her former clients are starting to become more and more internet savvy, driving down the demand for her current job. Consulting an older friend, she gets the suggestion that she should try to hire out as a hired companion to social events and similar activities. Unfortunately, this new job seems to have its own share of unusual dangers – when a writer hires her to applaud at the end of what he expects to be an unpopular reading, he ends up dropping dead before he can even begin! Bradford is also the author of the Amish Mystery Series, the Emergency Dessert Squad Mystery Series, and (as Elizabeth Lynn Casey) the Southern Sewing Circle Mystery Series.

For more upcoming Cozy Mystery Series, check the New Mystery Series page!

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