Cozy Mystery (and Other Favorite) Books, Movies, and TV
Sandra Bretting: Something Foul at Sweetwater (This will be the 2nd in the Missy DuBois Mystery Series.)
Blaize Clement & John Clement: The Cat Sitter and the Canary (This will be the 11th in the Dixie Hemingway Mystery Series.)
Lesley Cookman: Murder on the Run (This will be the 17th in the Libby Sarjeant Mystery Series.)
Great News for Mystery Movie Buffs!
(In case you don’t want to read my entire entry, here’s the relevant part:
Here’s the good news! Hallmark Movies & Mysteries will also be starting (New York Times bestselling) Kate Carlisle‘s Fixer-Upper Mysteries! Yes, that’s right! Singer/actress Jewel will be both starring and executive producing the Fixer-Upper mysteries. Jewel will be playing Shannon Hammer, the owner of a construction company that specializes in restoring Victorian houses.
Great news for all of us who enjoy the Hallmark mystery movies!
It seems like sometimes we hear more about Cozy Mystery Series that have been cancelled than about series that are thriving. So here is a “What’s the Cozy News?” entry that will hopefully bring some good news to most of us!
Ellery Adams (aka J.B. Stanley, Jennifer Stanley, and Lucy Arlington) has announced that her Charmed Pie Shoppe will be closing its doors after the latest book in the series, Breach of Crust. However there’s good news about her Book Retreat Mystery Series – it will be moving from Penguin-Random to Kensington Publishers. Also, Ellery Adams will be starting a new series (The Secret Book and Scone Society) with Kensington in late 2017.
I know a lot of Cozy Mystery readers were upset when Melissa Bourbon‘s Magical Dressmaking Series ended. Well, here’s some great news: Winnie Archer (aka Melissa Bourbon and Misa Ramirez) will be starting a new Cozy Series called the Bread Shop Mystery Series. Kneaded to Death is the first book in the series, and we will be introduced to Ivy Culpepper (our sleuth) who is an aspiring photographer who ends up working in the Yeast of Eden bread shop. The series will be set in a seaside town (Santa Sofia) in California.
Lynn Cahoon is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, which explains why Kensington is planning on releasing more Cozies in her very popular Tourist Trap Mystery Series. Brava!
Good news for Maia Chance fans! The Crooked Lane publishing company will be releasing Maia Chance’s Agnes and Effie Mystery Series, of which Bad Housekeeping is the first. This series will star a “dork” and her great aunt (who happens to have been a fashion model) in a New York town.
The Crooked Land publishers are bringing us even more Cozies! Sheila Connolly (aka Sarah Atwell) has a “snowbound” County Cork Mystery Series that will be coming out soon (Cruel Winter) and … wait for it… there’s at least one more to look forward to after that one!
Here’s more good news! We can expect at least a few more Mystery with Recipes Cozies from Isis Crawford (aka Barbara Block). Yes, that’s right, Kensington has given her series the green light!
A new Cozy series by Maddie Day (aka Edith Maxwell and Tace Baker) is on the horizon. Day’s Cozy Capers Book Group Mystery Series will feature the owner of a bike shop who holds a weekly mystery book group – which exclusively reads Cozies. (My type of reading group!) Murder on Cape Cod is the first book in the series.
Amanda Flower (aka Isabella Alan) has two new Cozy Mystery Series for us to look forward to. Flower’s Forgotten Cozy Mystery Series will feature a florist sleuth who inherits a Scottish Highlands’ cottage. Death at Duncreigan is the first in the series. Flowers is also beginning her Amish Candy Shop Mystery Series which will feature a chocolatier who works at her grandparents’ Swissmen Sweets Amish Candy Shop in Harvest, Ohio. And, yum! Recipes are included in this series. Assaulted Caramel is the first Cozy in the series.
Nancy J. Parra (aka Nancy Coco and Nell Hampton) will be starting her new Wine Country Mystery Series. A Case of Syrah, Syrah is the first in the series. (We can thank the Crooked Lane publishers for this series, too!)
Rose Pressey has been given the go-ahead on book 6 and 7 in her Haunted Vintage Mystery Series. If you aren’t already familiar with this series, it is set in Georgia and features a sleuth with a passion for vintage clothing!
Now this is great news! It looks like Denise Swanson will be kept busy writing Cozies! Swanson (a New York Times bestselling author) will begin a new series – the Chef-to-Go Mystery Series – with at least three books in it. Also, she will be writing the Welcome Back to Scumble River Mystery Series, beginning with book #1, Dead in the Water.
If you’re a Hannah Ives fan, then you’ll be very happy to know that Marcia Talley‘s 16th book in that series (Mile High Murder) will be released.
And last (but by no means least!) there’s terrific Charles Todd news! We can expect more Bess Crawford and Ian Rutledge mysteries! (I told you it was terrific!)
And that’s a wrap!
A while ago, the following question was asked by Margaret StashEmpress as part of a longer comment:
Am I the only one that’s getting a bit tired of seeing so many new series (instead of continuations of favorite old series?) I think at this point a new series has to have a REALLY unique “hook” that grabs me before I’m interested enough to try it (the upcoming Kensington Palace Chef series is one whose premise “grabs” me).
-Margaret StashEmpress
It feels like this has been a more regular occurrence lately than it was in years gone by, so I’ve had some time to think about it more frequently, and thought I’d ask what everyone thinks.
Sometimes there just isn’t any alternative to starting a new series, and that’s understandable. For example, when an author is discontinued by their publisher, they don’t generally have the option to continue writing the same series under a different publisher or as a self-published author as the publisher has significant rights to the series. So they don’t get a choice on whether they want to start over again as it were – if they want to continue writing, they need to come up with a new series.
However, there are other times when it seems like an author just wants to start something new. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing – if classic authors just stuck with the one series they began with, we wouldn’t have many of the classic sleuths they came up with in their later writings! There’s also the issue that some series just get old with time – that sometimes there are only so many stories that can be told about a given cast before books begin to feel very “same-ey”. The unfortunate side effect is that series that we already love can feel side-tracked, ignored in favor of the new favorites.
So, what do you prefer? New series and fresh starts? Or the continuation of tried and true favorites?
