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Cozy Mystery Book Recommendations – December 2019

December 30, 2019

We’re just about at the end of December, so it’s time to discuss our favorite Cozies that we’ve 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 Vivien Chien’s Noodle Shop 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 December? 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 during December 2019 that you want the rest of us to know about, and why did you enjoy it?

Isabella Alan (aka Amanda Flower): Amish Quilt Shop Mystery Series

Donna Andrews: Meg Langslow Mystery Series

Bree Baker (aka Jacqueline Frost, Julie Chase, & Julie Anne Lindsey): Seaside Cafe Mystery Series

Stephanie Blackmoore: Wedding Planner Mystery Series

Alan Bradley: Flavia de Luce Mystery Series

Mollie Cox Bryan: Buttermilk Creek Mystery Series

Vivien Chien: Noodle Shop Mystery Series

Cate Conte (aka Liz Mugavero): Cat Cafe Mystery Series

Krista Davis: Paws & Claws Mystery Series

Elizabeth J. Duncan: Penny Brannigan Mystery Series

Carola Dunn: Daisy Dalrymple Mystery Series

Bella Ellis: Bronte Sisters Mystery Series (first entry The Vanished Bride)

Amanda Flower (aka Isabella Alan): Amish Candy Shop Mystery Series

Eva Gates (aka Vicki Delany): Lighthouse Library Mystery Series

Sally Goldenbaum: Seaside Knitters Mystery Series

Fiona Grace: Lacey Doyle Cozy Mystery Series (first entry Murder in the Manor)

Martha Grimes: Richard Jury Mystery Series

Tony and Anne Hillerman: Joe Leaphorn & Jim Chee Mystery Series

Jody Holford: Britton Bay Mystery Series (first entry Deadly News)

Katherine Bolger Hyde: Crime with the Classics Mystery Series

Julie Anne Lindsey (aka Jacqueline Frost, Julie Chase, & Bree Baker): Cider Shop Mystery Series

Faith Martin: Hillary Greene Mystery Series (first entry A Narrow Escape)

Jenn McKinlay (aka Josie Belle & Lucy Lawrence): Library Lover’s Mystery Series

Sara Rosett: High Society Lady Detective Mystery Series

Karen Rose Smith: Daisy’s Tea Garden Mystery Series

Denise Swanson: Forever Charmed Mystery Series

Terri Thayer: Quilting Mystery Series

Charles Todd: Bess Crawford Mystery Series

Lea Wait (aka Cornelia Kidd): Mainely Needlepoint Mystery Series

[If you click on the author’s name (blue) link, it will take you to his/her page on the Cozy Mystery site. The pages have all of the authors’ books listed chronologically.]

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.

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Vivien Chien: Noodle Shop Mystery Series

December 28, 2019

Death by Dumpling: A Noodle Shop Mystery First off, I want to wish everyone a happy holiday! I’m having a good holiday myself – definitely enjoying my daughter’s visit. (I don’t have time to read much around the holidays, so this is actually a post I wrote a few weeks ago. So I might still be a bit slower on approving comments for a while longer.)

So, the Cozy I read this month was the first entry in Vivien Chien‘s Noodle Shop Mystery Series, titled Death by Dumpling.

In many ways, I would call this a very traditional modern-style Cozy. Half-Taiwanese, half-English Lana Lee has recently come off of a bad breakup, as well as quitting her job that she wasn’t happy at, and is spending time working at her family’s noodle house until she can pull her life back together. Though she hadn’t seen herself working there in her late twenties, she’s making the best of things until the area’s landlord is found dead – apparently killed by an allergic reaction caused by the dumplings she brought to him for his regular lunch delivery.

Naturally, there’s an irritating-but-hunky detective investigating the case, many neighbors all with their own theories (and varying levels of eccentricity), and unusual behavior on the part of the bereaved family and many others in the community.

So far, no doubt this all sounds like very familiar ground. Fortunately, what really helps make this book feel different from the many other Cozies like it is the interesting and unusual backdrop for a Cozy in Cleveland’s Asian Village.

While I still love the traditional quaint villages of England and New England alike, every so often it is nice to see a slightly different backdrop for otherwise comfortable Cozy elements, and setting the story in an area that feels culturally different feels like something of a breath of fresh air.

At the same time, many of the useful conventions of the Cozy genre can still apply – while the community might be part of a “big city” like Cleveland, the residents of the Asia Village have their own distinct community that an outsider (like the police, investigating the death of one of the residents) might find harder to penetrate.

Altogether, Death by Dumpling brings together a mystery that has a unique setting for the Cozy genre, one that (at least to me) feels as authentic as the Amish villages, New England fishing towns, and English countryside communities that are more often the hallmark of the Cozy subgenre. At the same time, it retains enough of the “Cozy” elements that I know we’re all looking for to help relax with a good book. If you’re looking for a familiar Cozy with an interestingly different sort of backdrop from the usual Cozy village, then I think that you’ll find something to like in Death by Dumpling.

If you want to read some of the other entries about highly recommended Cozy Mystery series, you can see them on the Most Recommended Cozy Mystery Series page.

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Happy Holidays!

December 25, 2019

Hello everyone – I just wanted to wish you all a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy New Year, or any other assorted Happy Holiday!

Once again my personal close family has managed to reunite this year – myself and husband, son who lives in town, and daughter who visits from Washington D.C. This year, we’re also joined by our son-in-law, who is likewise visiting from D.C. And of course our own darling three year old puppy, Cocoa.

I’ll be back in a few days, so, Happy Holidays!

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Cheap Kindles – December 2019

December 23, 2019

Well, I haven’t done one of these in a while… Here’s another list of Cheap (inexpensive) Kindles. Some of these might be temporary sales, so make sure you check prices before buying!

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Ellery Adams (aka Jennifer Stanley, J. B. Stanley, & 1/2 of Lucy Arlington)
BOOK RETREAT MYSTERY Series:
Murder in the Mystery Suite (book #1)
Murder in the Reading Room (book #5)

BOOKS BY THE BAY MYSTERY Series:
A Killer Plot (book #1)

CHARMED PIE SHOPPE MYSTERY Series:
Pies and Prejudice (book #1)

SUPPER CLUB MYSTERY Series: Originally released as J.B. Stanley
Carbs and Cadavers (book #1)
Fit To Die (book #2)
Chili Con Corpses (book #3)
Stiffs and Swine (book #4)
The Battered Body (book #5)
Black Beans & Vice (book #6)
Pasta Mortem (w/ Rosemary Stevens) (book #7)

ANTIQUES & COLLECTIBLES MYSTERY Series: Originally released as J.B. Stanley
A Killer Collection (book #1)
A Fatal Appraisal (book #2)
A Deadly Dealer (book #3)
A Treacherous Trader (w/ Parker Riggs) (book #4)
A Devious Lot (w/ Parker Riggs) (book #5)
A Killer Keepsake (w/ Parker Riggs) (book #6)

HOPE STREET CHURCH MYSTERY Series:
(originally written as Jennifer Stanley – rewritten as Ellery Adams – basic plots of the books are unchanged, however Adams’ intent was to make the books “crisper, cleaner, more engaging”)
The Path of the Crooked (book #1)
The Way of the Wicked (book #2)
The Graves of the Guilty (book #3)
The Root of All Evil (w/ Elizabeth Lockard) (book #4)
Fate of the Fallen (w/ Elizabeth Lockard) (book #5)

Judith Arnold
LAINIE LOVETT STILL KICKING MYSTERY Series:
Still Kicking (book #1)
Kickback (book #2)
Dropkick (book #3)
Kick the Bucket (book #4)

Sandra Balzo
MAGGY THORSEN MYSTERY Series:
Uncommon Grounds (book #1)
Grounds for Murder (book #2)
Bean There, Done That (book #3)
Brewed, Crude and Tattooed (book #4)
From the Grounds Up (book #5)
A Cup of Jo (book #6)
Triple Shot (book #7)

MAIN STREET MYSTERY Series:
Running on Empty (book #1)
Dead Ends (book #2)

K.K. Beck
WORKPLACE MYSTERY Series:
The Body in the Volvo (book #1)
The Body in the Cornflakes (book #2)
We Interrupt This Broadcast (book #3)

IRIS COOPER & JACK CLANCY Mysteries:
Death in a Deck Chair (book #1)
Murder in a Mummy Case (book #2)
Peril Under the Palms (book #3)

JANE DA SILVA Mysteries:
Amateur Night (book #2)
Electric City (book #3)
Cold Smoked (book #4)

Mike Befeler
PLATFORM TENNIS MYSTERY Series:
Court Trouble (book #1)
Paradise Court (book #2)

PAUL JACOBSON GEEZER-LIT MYSTERY Series:
Retirement Homes Are Murder (book #1)
Living with Your Kids Is Murder (book #2)
Senior Moments Are Murder (book #3)
Cruising in Your Eighties Is Murder (book #4)
Care Homes are Murder (book #5)
Nursing Homes are Murder (book #6)

MILLICENT HARGROVE MYSTERY Series:
Unstuff Your Stuff (book #1)

Julie Moffett
LEXI CARMICHAEL MYSTERY Series:
No One Lives Twice (book #1)
No One to Trust (book #2)
No Place Like Rome (book #3)
No Biz Like Showbiz (book #4)
No Test for the Wicked (book #5)
No Woman Left Behind (book #6)
No Room for Error (book #7)
No Strings Attached (book #8)
No Living Soul (book #9)
No Regrets (book #10)
No Questions Asked (book #11)
No Money Down (novella after book #2)

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Just a reminder >>> be sure to check prices to make sure that these sales are still in effect!

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