The Cozy Mystery List Blog

Mystery Books that Take Place in Indiana…

August 8, 2012

Here are some fun Indiana facts:

The capital is Indianapolis.
The largest city is Indianapolis.
State motto is “The Crossroads of America”.
State nickname is “Hoosier State”.
State flower is the Peony.
State bird is the Cardinal.

Mystery authors who are found on the Cozy Mystery Site who feature Indiana locations/settings in their books:

Madelyn Alt: Bewitching Mystery Series

Annie’s Amish Inn Mystery Series

Julia Buckley: Writer’s Apprentice Mystery Series

V.M. Burns: RJ Franklin Mystery Series

Vannetta Chapman: Amish Village Mystery Series AND Shipshewana Mystery Series

Kate Collins: Flower Shop Mystery Series

Jeanne M. Dams: Hilda Johansson Mystery Series

Sara Hoskinson Frommer: Joan Spencer Mystery Series

Karen Anne Golden: The Cats That… Mystery Series

Peg Marberg: Interior Design Mystery Series

Ralph M. McInerny (aka Monica Quill): Notre Dame Mystery Series AND Andrew Broom Mystery Series

Jana Lynn Shellman: Poppy Hannah Mystery Series

Please feel free to comment if you see an author from the Cozy Mystery Site who belongs on this list, or if you have any corrections.

♦To access more Cozy Mysteries by Theme click on this link.♦

Mystery Books that Take Place in Alaska…

August 6, 2012

Here are some fun Alaska facts:

The capital is Juneau.
The largest city is Anchorage.
State motto is “North To The Future”.
State nickname is “The Last Frontier”.
State flower is the Forget-me-not.
State bird is the Willow Ptarmigan.

Mystery authors who are found on the Cozy Mystery Site who feature Alaska locations/settings in their books:

Vicki Delany: Klondike Mystery Series

Susan Froetschel: Alaska Grey

Sue Henry: Alaska Mystery Series

Christopher Lane: Inupiat Mystery Series

Dani Pettrey: Alaskan Courage Mystery Series

Dana Stabenow: Kate Shugak Mystery Series AND Liam Campbell Mystery Series

Barbara Vine (aka Ruth Rendell): No Night is Too Long

Please feel free to comment if you see an author from the Cozy Mystery Site who belongs on this list, or if you have any corrections.

♦To access more Cozy Mysteries by Theme click on this link.♦

August Is Here, and It’s Bittersweet for Me!

August 4, 2012

Wow! It’s August already!

At the beginning of the summer I wrote about our daughter coming home for the summer to study for the Bar. She took the three-day exam at the end of July, and then immediately started the process of moving. It’s been a big summer for her!

We have spent the last week moving her to her first “official” job, – although as some of you know through this blog, she interned every summer during both her college and law school years. Our house has looked like a storage place since she came home to study. We had all of her bins from school out in our living room, with new bins upstairs that she used to pack her “childhood” things into. We had her rowing machine in our family room, and our dining room table housed her breakable things, in short, we have been in a sort of transition stage.

I woke up two days ago with this epiphany: This is it! She is moving on with her life, and from now on, she will simply be “visiting” us… a wonderful accomplishment for her, but not so great for me as her mother! Her bedroom here now houses only has personal mementos: high school newspapers from her years as a reporter and editor, U.I.L. awards, fiction she wrote, history and science papers and projects, all things that probably mean more to me than they do to her. (She’s still young, with the passing of time she may just find that those things do indeed matter to her!)

Her life is going just as she planned. She will be working in a job she truly wants, she’ll be able to see her college roommate who will still be in Austin for another half year, and she will be living close enough to our home that she can visit when she wants, but far away so that we can’t just drop in when we want. (She hasn’t said the last part of that sentence, but I’m not so old that I can’t remember what it was like to be her age!)

So, with her moving out – and on with her life – it will be a time for the rest of us to adjust to our new family structure. My husband and I will slowly convert into the role my parents held all the years since I graduated from college and moved on with my life. It’s a cycle that is inevitable, one which I would much prefer reversing, but unfortunately, in all things related to time, cannot.

Cozy Mystery Books Recommendations – July 2012

July 29, 2012

It’s really difficult for me to grasp the fact that it is already the end of July. But, it is!

I have tried several new authors because of your monthly recommendations. I have enjoyed most of them, and as I have told you before, added some of them to my “favorite authors” list.

Please tell us about a few of the authors you read this past month (July 2012), only those authors who you really, really enjoyed. And, as usual, please tell us WHY you enjoyed the author(s). (Please, do not tell us about the authors you tried reading who you did not like.) I will add the recommended authors to this entry as they come in.

What Cozy Mystery book (or author) have you read during July 2012, and why did you enjoy it (or him/her)?

Here are the current authors who some of you have read this past month, and wanted to tell the rest of us about:

Ellery Adams (aka J. B. Stanley, Jennifer Stanley, & 1/2 of Lucy Arlington): Charmed Pie Shoppe Mystery Series

Kate Atkinson: Started Early, Took My Dog

Elizabeth Bailey: Lady Fan Mystery Series

Lorna Barrett (aka L. L. Bartlett & Lorraine Bartlett): Booktown Mystery Series

Lorraine Bartlett (aka L. L. Bartlett & Lorna Barrett): Victoria Square Mystery Series

Heather Blake (aka Heather Webber): Witchcraft Mystery Series

Robin Blake: A Dark Anatomy

Janet Bolin: Threadville Mystery Series

Melissa Bourbon (aka Melissa Bourbon Ramirez & Misa Ramirez): Magical Dressmaking Mystery Series

Rhys Bowen: Lady Georgiana Mystery Series