The Cozy Mystery List Blog

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

Laura Childs Giveaway Winners

Congratulations to Kay H, Karen S, Hillary DR, and Joan G!

I have forwarded your contact information and you will soon be receiving your inscribed copy of either Steeped in Evil or Eggs in a Casket from best selling author, Laura Childs!

As a lot of you know, I just had my first giveaway on the Cozy Mystery site. I’ve had this site for eight years and finally decided it was time to try one. I want to publicly thank Laura Childs (again) for making this possible. She’s been really great to work with.

Thanks to everyone who participated in the Laura Childs Giveaway. There were hundreds of entries. This went so well that I hope to arrange for another giveaway soon.

P.S. Don’t forget to check out the interview I did with Laura Childs!

 

My Bags Are (Almost) Packed, I’m Ready to Go…

mountainWe are heading out to visit my mother tomorrow. As usual, our son will be taking care of our house, which I so appreciate! I cannot stress how much stress this takes off my shoulders. And, every little bit of help is appreciated.

Whenever I look back at all of our family visits up to Colorado Springs, I have such wonderful memories of when our children were little and absolutely could not wait to see Gramps, Maija, and their uncle. Our children absolutely loved visiting them, and of course, seeing Aspen (my father’s Cocker Spaniel) was the frosting on the cake.

Our trips always included a welcome-back lunch that consisted of Margo’s Chicago Style hotdogs – which my father would pick up from a food truck down in Old Colorado City. We would sit out on the patio, gazing up at majestic Pike’s Peak, and enjoy the lazy summer days.

Hmmm… A lot has happened since those happy days when going to Colorado Springs was the yearly family vacation that all of us looked forward to. My father has been gone for a while, as has Aspen. And, my mother is not the same energetic, fun-loving person she used to be.

Instead, our “vacation” trips up to Colorado Springs are spent taking care of business and making sure my mother is well-cared for. We share all of our family time with one of her 24/7 caretakers. She depends on them for everything and I guess I do, too! Without those wonderful ladies to take care of her, she would have had to move from her home, which she repeatedly says she does not want to do. (With an emphasis on the NOT!)

I will continue to post entries that I am in the process of writing right now, since we will be pretty busy taking care of things. It’s a nine hundred mile drive, so  I’ve got our books loaded on my MP3 player. We’ll probably start with one of John Mortimer’s Rumpole mysteries. A little humor never hurt anyone!

Happy Mother’s Day!

Happy Mother’s Day to all of you! 
You know, I just assumed that all over the world, today was being celebrated as Mother’s Day. I was quite surprised to find that while many countries (including Canada) celebrate Mother’s Day on the second Sunday in May, there are quite a few that have different days for this celebration. Here are just a few:
Norway in February
Ireland, United Kingdom, & Egypt in March
Mexico on May 10
Kenya in June
Thailand & Costa Rica in August
Argentina in October
Russian in Novemeber
Panama in December
So, regardless of whether your “hometown” country is celebrating Mother’s Day today, or not,

Happy Mother’s Day to ALL of you!

Hmmm… Which is More Important: “An Excellent Mystery” VS Sleuth Who Is “Smart, Savvy, and Successful”?

Not very long ago, MJ sent in an interesting comment about female sleuths. I have to admit that most of my favorite authors write series which feature female sleuths, so I’m pretty familiar with a whole gamut of them.

MJ:

I like a female protagonist in the cozy mysteries I read to have what I call the “3 S’s” – smart, savvy, and successful. The sleuths in my recommendations meet those criteria.

I read a cozy this past month where the main character/protagonist was weak and not the brightest bulb on the block. In fact there were NUMEROUS inexplicable stupid situations, both in this character’s background and within the story (I don’t want to give too much detail here).

This author wrote an excellent mystery. I sent an email to the author suggesting the main character be given some savvy and smarts in future stories. It would take little effort to do some tweaking and add these attributes to this character. The author wrote back and stated if this dimension was added to the character, she (the sleuth) would be totally ‘out of her element’ in a cozy mystery. I sent another email listing several authors whose female protagonists are smart, savvy, and successful and their books ARE considered cozy mysteries (also very popular ones).

I think we all have different ideas of what makes up an interesting/engaging main character. This just happens to be what I prefer in a cozy.

MJ, I totally agree with you. I don’t stay with a series if I don’t like the sleuth. I could almost venture to say that the main sleuth is my number one reason for following an author’s series. Obviously, the writing, setting, other characters, and mystery are right up there, but a sleuth I don’t like: No way!

I read the first mystery in a VERY popular Cozy Mystery series that I could absolutely not believe was a top-selling series. The main sleuth was a total ditz: as the first person at the scene of a crime, she actually found clues and kept them from the police. (I wrote an entry about this a while back. That’s how much it irritated me!) I broke my 50-page rule, and finished the book because I knew so many people think the series is absolutely wonderful, but I was so irritated throughout the rest of the book that I wondered how this ditz became such a popular sleuth.

As for the author who wrote to you saying the sleuth would be totally ‘out of her element’ in a Cozy Mystery: Yow! I probably shouldn’t say this, but huh? Does this mean that this author thinks all female sleuths in Cozy Mystery books are ditzes? (I’m not even sure that’s a word…) Hmmm… Does this author think Miss Marple is ‘out of her element’  in the Cozy Mystery books that Agatha Christie wrote? Does this author think that all of us Cozy Mystery readers are reading Cozy Mystery books which feature ditzes as their sleuths?

What do you all think? If you had to pick one as being more important than the other: Do you like your female sleuths to have the (as MJ says) “3 S’s” (Smart, Savvy, and Successful) or do you think the quality of the mystery is more important? As MJ said: “This author wrote an excellent mystery.” so she/he delivered on that.

P.S. When writing your comment, please do not post the names of the authors/sleuths who you do not like. Let’s discuss this without naming names in a negative way.  Thank you!

MENU