Tag Archive for: cozy mysteries

Summer Reading List

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Lazy summer days are perfect for ready a drop dead excellent mystery. Cozies are my favorites. I definitely go through phases, and I’m in one now, devouring as many books as I can, using my time to enjoy new authors and reacquaint myself with old favorites.


Here’s a list of some great cozy mystery authors to dive into when you have a lazy summer day.


Agatha Christie = Mystery



Agatha’s the goddess of the the murder mysteries. Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot are two of the most recognizable sleuths in fiction and live on even today. Of course I have fond memories of Tommy and Tuppence, too, as my mom named two of our cats Tommy and Tuppence.


Cat Among the Pigeons was one of my favorites (I spent my entire high school career holed up in a math classroom during lunch reading Grand Dame Agatha’s books… no dances, no dates, no prom, just mysteries!).


All of her books may not be traditionally cozy, but she’ll always be my favorite.


Other authors I’m loving at the moment are:



Wendy Lyn Watson and her mystery ala mode books (book 2 will be out in September!). Ice cream and mystery, what’s not to love?

















Heather Webber and Truly, Madly, not to mention Deeply, Desperately. Matchmaker mysteries? LOVE them.

















Juliet Blackwell and her Witchcraft Mysteries. Now, I am in the middle of this book and I am really enjoying it. It has la Llorona in it! I wrote a romantic suspense that centered on la Llorona, so I was destined to love this.













Annette Blair and her Vintage Magic Mysteries. Vintage clothing store, ghosts, and small New England living. Just my cup of tea.














Charlaine Harris and her Aurora Teagarden and Lily Bard Mysteries. I haven’t tried Harper Connelly… any thoughts?




These are just a few of the many, many books on my tall, tall stack.


I’d love other suggestions, though, so I know what to move to the top (stiletto books excepted, as the high-heeled lady’s books already some of my faves!!).


Go ahead, help me craft my summer reading list!



~Misa


And check out Word Filled Writer’s Workshop Wednesday!! ( you can still play along, even though it’s Thursday, now! )

Cramming a Ton into One Weekend

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What a whirlwind weekend. First, I have to say, I LOVE CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA!!! There’s something about that city that speaks to me. I have city lust, big time. Don’t know if I’ll ever live there, though one of my dreams is to own a pretty house near the water.


Tonya Kappes, fellow Goddess at The Naked Hero, and I were invited to give a workshop at the Lowcountry RWA chapter meeting. Any excuse to visit Charleston! We flew in Friday, did our workshop Saturday–followed by a book signing set up by the fantabulous Amy Fagley of the Lowcountry chapter. Shout out to Amy, Sharon, Sharon Marie, Tina–who’s not actually a Lowcountry member, but who is awesome!!–Florina, Nina, Dorothy, and the rest of you fun gals!




Tonya did a running blog about our adventure (which you can see here and here). Our workshop was on Stripping Down the Hero Archetypes. A totally interactive, mutli-learning modality experience which everyone LOVED (you can see snippets of the workshop videos here).


I wrote so much on the plane ride there and back that I want to take a plane trip every week just to up my word count.


Then, icing on the cake, Tonya, who used to own a bead company (sold it for beaucoup $$$$ so she could write… OMG!) taught me how to bead! Got home, took my daughter to the bead shop in a nearby city which was closed, headed to Hobby Lobby, which was also closed (they don’t care to do business on Sundays apparently), and ended up at Michael’s spending WAY TOO MUCH $$$ on beads.

BUT we each made our first bracelets yesterday and we’re hooked on beading. Or should I say toggled on beading? Strung on beading? Whatever. WE LOVE IT!



To top off the weekend, I finished the chapters of my cozy proposal! That is to say, I finished the first draft of said chapters. Still have to revise, but that’s okay. I love revisions. I can dig into revisions. The meat is there, and it’s all gravy now.


Icing on the cake was record numbers of people visiting and entering to win FREE BOOKS over at Books on the House (and the kids/teen site). This week, Brenda Novak, gearing up for her online auction which begins MAY 1st (to benefit diabetes research) is giving away totes of books and gift certificates for the auction. My son has the disease and I’m thrilled to help Brenda however I can. The Stiletto Gang has donated signed books, too!


All in all, it was a great weekend (minus the hour+ I spend unsubscribing from all these email lists I somehow managed to get on…no, for the last time, I DO NOT NEED VIAGRA, and I’m a writer and DO NOT WANT A CAREER CHANGE TO MEDICAL TRANSCRIBING!!!


Food for thought: How do we get ON these email lists in the first place? Are you a beader? Been to and love Charleston? Have great productivity on an airplane? Enjoy interactive workshops?


Let’s hear it!


~Misa

Cozies versus Suspense/Mysteries

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I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the difference between a traditional mystery verses a suspense (or hybrid suspense/mystery) and a cozy mystery.

For me, understanding the differences has been key as I craft a proposal for a new cozy series. I’m the type of person who needs to really process through things and understand the foundation, and once I have that firm foundation, I can build the house, making changes as I go. If the foundation is strong, then changes as I go won’t make the house collapse.

Here are the key differences as I see them:

Mystery (cozy) verses suspense (or hybrid suspense/mystery)

  • Narrow World View

or

  • Larger World View

By this I mean that the detective in a mystery focuses on a smaller community, a collection of suspects, unraveling the secrets and lies within that community, in order to get to the truth.

In a suspense the action leads the hero to a larger, sometimes international, world which is where the clues lead.

  • Traditionally, the detective is not the center of the drama or action

or

  • The hero/heroine is the at risk him/herself and that is at the center of the drama

Especially in the mysteries of old, the detective doesn’t have personal growth or, put another way, he/she doesn’t go through a hero’s journey. More contemporary mysteries, particularly cozies, do have sleuths who undergo change or growth.

In a suspense, the center of the story is the hero/heroine. He/she is the one in danger and that is what drives the pursuit of justice (or the defeat of the villain). The hero/heroine is not on the periphery as the sleuth often is throughout a big portion of the cozy.

  • Who committed the crime? Will the puzzle be put together

or

  • Will the hero/heroine survive against a smart villain?

This is fundamental. In a mystery, will the detective put the pieces of the puzzle together in time before another death (sometimes the sleuth by this time) occurs? In a suspense, the question is really based on tension that is built from the danger the hero/heroine is in. Whether or not the villain will win is the driving force of the story.

  • Keeping the detective ahead of the reader.

or

  • Keeping the reader ahead of the hero/heroine.

In a mystery, the detective must be smarter than the reader! The puzzle has to be complicated or crafted well enough to fool the reader and keep him/her guessing, yet not too complicated or convoluted. In a suspense, or hybrid, the reader is really ahead of the hero/heroine because we know the danger that’s coming and we’re on the edge of our seats hoping that the hero/heroine is as smart as we are.

I’ve realized that I prefer the cozy model better. For starters, I don’t like to be on the edge of my seat in a heart-pounding scary way.

Blair Witch Trial?

NO WAY!

Hercule Poirot?

DEFINITELY!


So I’m curious, which type of mystery speaks to you? Do you like being ahead of the game as in a suspense, or a few steps behind the sleuth, hoping to put together the puzzle by the end?

~Misa

Now that I Know, What Should I Do?

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My mother used to say, “just because everyone is jumping off the bridge, you don’t have to.” Actually, my mom, the original Evelyn, never said that. She would just give me her patented stare, which was far more effective and conveyed the same sentiment. I always got the message loud and clear, or to put it another way, “my momma didn’t raise no fool.”

My point?

I plunged into despair when I read the Sisters in Crime report of the Publishers’ Summit (and btw, everyone, and I mean everyone, should join Sisters in Crime, whether you’re a writer or a female). Yes, I can be a drama queen, but I confess to a bit of a moment when I read that one publisher had firmly pronounced that the cozy mystery was dead (pun intended).

This same publisher also opined that thrillers and paranormal books were flying off the shelves.

So after I finished weeping and wailing, gnashing my teeth, and checking the wants ads to see if there were any jobs for cozy mystery writers, I took a deep breath and tried to figure out what to do next. And then I recalled a second adage. My mom didn’t say this one either, but I’m pretty sure she would have given me another of her Evelyn looks which translated to mean, “duh, of course that’s right.” (Needless to say, at no time in my mother’s life did she ever say, duh.). In any case this pithy bit of truth is from Christopher Columbus Kraft, NASA’s first flight director. He said, “If you don’t know what to do, don’t do anything.”

How does this apply to the current authors of Murder Off the Books, and the forthcoming Murder Takes the Cake (and hopefully even more in the Sullivan Investigation Series)? It means that just because someone believes that the cozy mystery has passed its expiration date doesn’t mean that I have to change what I write. Look, as I said, my momma didn’t raise no fools. So of course I think it’s important to understand the current marketing trends. But if I start writing to the fad, rather than writing what I do best, then it will please no one.

As it happens, the Southern half of Evelyn David and I have been kicking around a story for more than two years that features a sleuth who talks to ghosts. But, and here’s the kernel of truth that I’ve learned, it’s all about the characters. If they’re believable, you can capture an audience. If they’re not, then it doesn’t matter if they talk to your mother, you won’t buy the concept.

To paraphrase Mark Twain, “reports of the cozy mystery death have been greatly exaggerated.” I’m not ready to don any sackcloth and ashes just yet.

Evelyn David
www.evelyndavid.com