The Cozy Mystery List Blog

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

I Will Offer No Excuses….

Good grief! Where has the time flown?!? I have been very busy these past few days. I am guessing that most of you have been busy, too…. Rushing around getting things accomplished before December arrives.

My husband and I are so lucky that both of our grown children can be with us during the holidays. We had a terrific Thanksgiving visit…. And, I was actually able to see my college roommate during this past week! She was visiting her niece in Austin, so I drove up and we had lunch. You know the sign of a great friend… someone you haven’t seen in over twenty years, yet you are able to resume your conversations as if you had seen each other a day ago. (Of course, now that we have e-mail and cell phone capabilities, we actually are connected, even though physically we are distant… me in San Antonio and she in Iowa.) It was wonderful to see her again… Next time she is in Texas, it will be for a vacation… not because of a family emergency. She has an open invitation to stay with us…

I have been busy getting my Christmas preparations started. I have been listening to seasonal music, trying to get myself motivated. And, I am just about finished with M. C. Beaton’s Kissing Christmas Goodbye. I have really been enjoying this book… it reminds me of Beaton’s earlier Agatha Raisin books.

Well, I just wanted to write a quick blog… It has been a while since I last blogged… and I don’t know where the time went!

Happy Thanksgiving… Kissing Christmas Goodbye…

Happy Thanksgiving! (Actually, I am writing this the day before Thanksgiving… since I know I will be busy enjoying my family AND not enjoying the kitchen duties!)

Well, I am going to have to take a break from my Who Killed Father Christmas? novel (by Patricia Moyes) in order to read my Kissing Christmas Goodbye (by M. C. Beaton). I finally got my eighteenth Agatha Raisin novel, and I am so excited about reading it that I am almost giddy!

I know that I have written about this before, but here it is in a nutshell!

I first discovered M. C. Beaton through her Agatha Raisin books. I thought that they were absolutely delightful. In fact, I enjoyed the Agatha novels so much that I didn’t want to read the Hamish Macbeth series, in fear that I wouldn’t like it… since, how many authors can have two wonderful series going at the same time?!? Anyway…. I stayed with solely Agatha until after the (+/-)tenth book of the series. For some reason, I became a little disillusioned with some of Agatha’s antics. That is when I decided to try Beaton’s Hamish books. How glad am I that I did that!!!!?!!!?

I love Beaton’s Hamish series… I still continued to really like the eleventh through fourteenth Agatha novels, but, when Beaton dropped the "Agatha Raisin and the….." part of this series’ titles, I started thinking that at any time, I would stop reading the series… I thought that perhaps the series had seen its final chapters (as far as I was concerned). I got very tired of one of the characters…James (not to worry… I won’t go into details since I don’t want to write any spoilers. But, I can say that it was one of the few times in my reading experiences that I wished the earth was flat so that James could simply walk off the side… never to be heard of/from again!)

Anyway, I have continued with the Agatha Raisin series since I still enjoy the novels… but not as much as I used to. And, since I love holiday-theme cozy mysteries, I think that I am going to enjoy this book.  The cover is absolutely beautiful, but I’m hoping that Agatha is back to her delightfully wicked ways!

On a totally different topic… My husband sent me  a notice about Amazon having a day after Thanksgiving sale (better known as Black Friday Sale). We were totally unaware of that Amazon had a Black Friday Sale in the past….

Cozy Mystery Book Releases for December 2007:

In case you are looking for more books to join your other TBR books already at home>>> here are some “Mostly” Cozy Mystery Books that will be released during December 2007. I already have them posted on the site, but thought that maybe I should bring them to your attention… just in case you are a fan of one of the authors and think that you are caught up with all of their releases. (There aren’t too many authors with whom I am caught up!) I actually have two shelves full of my TBR books…. and that is two packed/jammed shelves. I have the books on each shelf crowded into three rows, one in back of the other. And, of course, since I am obsessed with order, they are alphabetized by author and then chronologically ordered by date of publication. I guess that it’s safe to say that in case of a quarantine (Do they still have those?), I am “set to go” with my reading!

Miranda Bliss….. Dead Men Don’t Get the Munchies

Sammi Carter….. Peppermint Twisted

Barbara Cleverly….. Folly du Jour

Kate Collins….. A Rose from the Dead

Lonnie Cruse….. Fifty-Seven Heaven

Monica Ferris: Knitting Bones

Lee Goldberg….. Mr. Monk in Outer Space

Sue Grafton….. “T” is for Trespass

Sarah Graves….. The Book of Old Houses

Ellen Hart….. The Mortal Groove

Kay Hooper….. Blood Dreams

Roberta Isleib….. Preaching to the Corpse

J. A. Jance….. Hand of Evil

Leslie Meier….. St. Patrick’s Day Murder

Charles Todd….. A Pale Horse

Marilyn Todd….. Blind Eye

♦To go back to the Cozy Mystery New Releases page click here♦

Who Killed Father Christmas?…. Christmas Mysteries

I just finished a Patricia Moyes novel from her Inspector Tibbett Mystery Series. Henry is the Chief Superintendent of Scotland Yard, and his wife, Emmy, is his sort of "side-kick" in the series. As much as I like this Moyes series, I have only read the first three books… out of the possible nineteen. I know that this may seem silly, but when I like an author a lot, I try to space his/her novels and use them as a sort of "reading treat." I already have all of the novels in the series, so it’s not like I am too lazy to get them. By the looks of it, though, I have spaced them too much!

Anyway…. Now that we are approaching Christmas, I have decided to read another Moyes book… Who Killed Father Christmas? and Other Unseasonable Demises. It is a compilation of short stories, all written by her. Since I just started it last night, I haven’t gotten far…  the story that I did read, I liked. As the title says… there are Christmas and non-Christmas stories. But, that’s all right with me…. since, it’s not yet Thanksgiving. (I will probably try to save the Christmas stories for December reading.)

As I said in the first paragraph… I have only read three of the Inspector Tibbett novels. But, I can say this: If you’re looking for an author who writes "classic, British" mysteries, you should definitely try a book by Patricia Moyes. The first novel in the series is Dead Men Don’t Ski, and after reading it, I was hooked on Moyes!

MENU