The Cozy Mystery List Blog

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

Carlene O’Connor: Irish Village Mystery Series

I just finished reading Murder in an Irish Village the first book in the next series that I am highlighting as one of my posts about the most popular and recommended Cozy Mystery series.  This book, written by Carlene O’Connor, follows Siobhán O’Sullivan, the young (she is in her early twenties) and beautiful heroine sleuth. Siobhán (pronounced Shi-vahn according to the very useful “Pronunciations and Glossary” provided at the beginning of the book), has been the adult guidance for the rest of the O’Sullivan six — her brothers and sisters — since her parents’ untimely death in a car accident that happened a year before the story begins. Her brother James is older but for various reasons is not the guardian of his and Siobhán’s younger siblings.

The story is set in the small Irish village of Kilbane, County Cork. The O’Sullivan clan runs a small bistro that is open for breakfast and lunch. Siobhán has given up (at least temporarily) her dream of moving to Dublin to pursue her higher education because somebody needs to take care of her younger siblings.

Soon after the story begins, there is a body found in the bistro. James is quickly determined to be the main suspect, and the sleuthing begins with Siobhán following every lead in her attempt to discover the murderer and clear her family’s name.

If ever there were a cozy setting for a mystery series, the small village of Kilbane is it. This is a truly small town. Everybody knows everybody else and has done so all their lives. But, as Siobhán discovers in the course of her sleuthing, despite having known just about everyone in the town for her whole life, almost all of them harbor a secret or two that may or may not be relevant to discovering who the real killer is.

In the story, Siobhán is romantically pursued by two handsome young men. One is the local policeman (garda), and the other is a mysterious stranger from America. This element of the book is treated rather lightly — the romance is more potential than real and it never dominates the storyline (which I, at least, appreciated).

Our intrepid sleuth finds herself in quite a few difficult situations since she insists on turning over every rock in the village and discovers so many secrets her fellow townspeople have been keeping. Some of these situations are quite funny — when she is investigating the local undertaker, for example, there is a scene where I just had to laugh out loud. 

I really liked Murder in an Irish Village and I can’t recommend it highly enough if you are looking for a modern Cozy set in a picturesque location with a real page-turning and satisfying mystery and with some very likable characters.

I have to warn you all, however, that the book contains a bit of strong language and some (non-graphic) adult situations.

By the way, as I just mentioned in a post the other day, Carlene O’Connor is starting a new series, also set in Ireland, the Home to Ireland Mystery Series.

You can see the other entries I have written about the most popular and recommended series here.

New Releases – March 16 to March 22, 2020

Here is the list of new releases for March 16 to March 22! Well, neither of these is really “Cozy”, but both are definitely very popular mystery authors…

Harlan Coben: The Boy from the Woods (This will be a stand-alone non-Cozy thriller.)

Kathy Reichs: A Conspiracy of Bones (This will be the 19th in the Temperance Brennan Mystery Series.) (This non Cozy mystery is a return of the series after a five year hiatus.)

One New Cozy Mystery Series Coming April 2020

There will be one new series starting in April 2020 by an established site author.

Carlene O’Connor will be starting the Home to Ireland Mystery Series with Murder in Galway. Tara Meehan is going to Ireland for the first time to honor her mother’s last requests, that her ashes be returned to her brother in Galway. Though she has never met her Uncle Johnny, she will find herself embroiled in a mystery when she arrives at the location of architectural salvage business and stumbles upon a corpse that turns out to be that of her uncle’s biggest client. Tara will need to help unravel this mystery if she is to complete her mother’s last request, and to locate her missing uncle. Carlene O’Connor is also the author of the Irish Village Mystery Series, which stars Siobhán O’Sullivan, the owner of a bistro in Kilbane, County Cork, in Ireland.

For more new Cozy Mystery Series, check out the New Cozy Mystery Book Series page on the site.

Cozy Mystery News – March 2020

Well, this is a good month for Cozy Mystery News – I’ve got four pieces of good news for announcements by established site authors!

First up, Kate Carlisle has announced the names of a few of her upcoming mysteries – Little Black Book, which will be an entry in the Bibliophile Mystery Series and focused on a copy of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, and Dressed to Drill, which will be an entry in the Fixer-Upper Mystery Series.

 

 

 

Sofie Kelly (aka Sofie Ryan & Darlene Ryan for Young Adult) will be releasing at least two more entries in the Magical Cats Cozy Mystery Series, which will bring the series to a total of at least thirteen entries. Kelly is also the author of the Second Chance Cat Mystery Series.

 

 

 

Leslie Meier has announced the name of one of her upcoming mysteries, Easter Bonnet Murder, which will be at least the 27th in the Lucy Stone Mystery Series, and presumably an Easter mystery. This will be the second Easter mystery in this series – not a surprise as many of this particular series have been holiday entries over the years.

 

 

 

Finally, Valerie Wilson Wesley will be starting a new series after more than a decade away from mysteries, which will star a widowed realtor named Dessa Jones, who possesses a bit of an unreliable sixth sense. The first entry in this particular series will be titled A Glimmer of Death.

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