The Cozy Mystery List Blog

Cozy Mystery Book Recommendations – March 2024

March 29, 2024

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 Susan Wittig Albert’s Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter 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 2024 that you want the rest of us to know about, and why did you enjoy it?

Susan Wittig Albert: Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter

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

Kelley Armstrong: Haven’s Rock Mystery Series (first entry Murder at Haven’s Rock)

Verity Bright: Lady Eleanor Swift Mystery Series (first entry A Very English Murder)

Vicki Delany (aka Eva Gates): Sherlock Holmes Bookshop Mystery Series

Amanda Flower (aka Isabella Alan): Farm to Table Mystery Series

Victoria Gilbert: Blue Ridge Library Mystery Series

Mia Gold: Ruby Steele Cozy Mystery Series (first entry On the Rocks)

Darci Hannah: Beacon Bakeshop Mystery Series

Lark O. Jensen: Alaska Untamed Mystery Series (first entry Bear Witness)

Dale Mayer: Lovely Lethal Gardens Mystery Series (first entry Arsenic in the Azaleas)

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

Amita Murray: Arya Winters Mystery Series (first entry Arya Winters and the Tiramisu of Death)

Carlene O’Connor: Irish Village Mystery Series

Marcia Rosen: Agatha, Raymond, Sherlock & Me Mystery Series (first entry Murder at the Zoo)

Eryn Scott: Murder at the Morrisey Mystery Series (first entry A Body in 3B)

Joyce Tremel (aka Joyce St. Anthony): Cider House 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.

Four New Cozy Mystery Authors Added to the Site

March 26, 2024

It’s been a while, but I’m adding four more authors to the site!

First, Elizabeth Penney is a former consultant and nonprofit executive. She grew up in Maine, but now lives in New Hampshire, where she operates a small farm. She is the author of two series, the Apron Shop Mystery Series, and the Cambridge Shop Mystery Series.

Amy Pershing is a licensed master social worker, an academy of certified social workers graduate, the founder of a treatment program for binge eating disorder, and the clinical director of the Center for Eating Disorders in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She is the author of the Cape Cod Foodie Mystery Series.

Rosemary Simpson lives near Tucson, Arizona, and was educated in both France and the United States. She is a member of Sisters in Crime, the International Thriller Writers, and the Historical Novel Society. Her Cozy series is the Gilded Age Mystery Series.

Kate Young lives in a small town in Georgia with her husband, three kids, and her dog. In addition to writing, she also cooks and reads. She is a member of Sisters in Crime and the Guppy Chapter. She has two mystery series, the Marygene Brown Mystery Series and the Jane Doe Book Club Mystery Series.

March 25th to March 31

March 24, 2024

Here is the list of new releases for March 25 to March 31! Short list this week.

Nancy Coco (aka Nancy J. Parra and Nell Hampton): Three Fudges and a Baby (12th in the Candy-Coated Mysteries)

Maria DiRico (aka Ellen Byron): The Witless Protection Program (5th in the Catering Hall Mysteries)

Amanda Flower (aka Isabella Alan): To Slip the Bonds of Earth (1st in NEW Katharine Wright Mysteries)

Karen Rose Smith: Murder Marks the Page (1st in the NEW Tomes & Tea Mysteries – spin-off of Daisy’s Tea Garden)

Susan Wittig Albert: The Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter

March 21, 2024

Not for the first time, I am going to feature a series and book by Susan Wittig Albert. Only last April I discussed Susan Wittig Albert’s China Bayles Mystery Series as part of my continuing series where I talk about the most popular and recommended Cozy Mystery Series. This time I have read (or rather, re-read) the first book in her Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter Series, The Tale of Hill Top Farm.

The Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter Series is quite a different cozy mystery series. First, the mysteries presented tend to be much more gentle than even the coziest of murder mysteries. In The Tale of Hill Top Farm, for example, there are several mysteries, including perhaps a murder, (as usual, no spoilers here!) but the main character, a fictionalized Beatrix Potter, can hardly be called a sleuth. Her main preoccupation is getting to know the people of Sawrey, the small town where she is going to live in her recently acquired farm.

Second, the main character is a real historical person — Beatrix Potter is none other, of course, than the best selling author of the Peter Rabbit stories first published early in the 20th century. She really did buy a farm in the small Lake District area of England. And, she really did have a diverse set of animals as pets, just as Beatrix does in the book.

The third thing that makes these stories different is that the animals talk to each other. In fact, the animals are probably more the main sleuths in the books than is Beatrix herself.

Anyway, in The Tale of Hill Top Farm, the story begins with Beatrix arriving to Sawrey for the first time after she has purchased Hill Top Farm. Using the money she has been making from selling the Peter Rabbit stories, Beatrix has bought the farm in order to try to begin to establish her independence from her rather domineering parents. Against their wishes, she is planning to move, one day, to Sawrey and be a kind of gentlewoman farmer.

Beatrix had visited the Lake District several times with her parents and had gotten to know Sawrey and the Hill Top Farm area quite well. She had literally fallen in love with the charming village and the farm itself.

Susan Wittig Albert paints an enchanting picture of the ideal cozy settings of the village of Sawrey which is set by the side of the largest lake in England. It is no wonder that Beatrix Potter bought a farm there and set up Hill Top Farm to be her home when she was looking for somewhere to be away from her parents. And, her animals, and the animals of Sawrey provide some gentle humor that is quite in line with the cozy setting.

If you are looking for a cozy book series that is very different from the typical murder mysteries that you will usually find by reading my blog and the Cozy Mystery site, The Tale of Hill Top Farm would be as great place to start!

If you’d like to see other entries about some of the most recommended Cozy Mystery authors, be sure to check out the Most Popular and Recommended Cozy Mystery Series page on my site.

P.S. Many years ago now, Susan Wittig Albert kindly consented to be interviewed by me. Click here to read the interview.

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