Tag Archives: Cozy Mystery

Writing in the In-Between

I’m sitting in a tiny art gallery on a cold, grey, rainy day that feels more like November than May. The lights are dimmed to showcase delicate tapestries that cast shadow portraits on the clean, white walls. Six pairs of hands tap away at keyboards while I try to keep my allergic sniffling (the only indication that it actually is spring) to a minimum. It always feels a little like we are part of the exhibit, we small group of almost-strangers who gather here twice a year to spend twelve hours filling blank pages.

The Last Devil to Die (Richard Osman)

The much-loved gang of pensioners is back, but this time, they’re hoping to investigate something less serious than murder – perhaps just the simple case of a new resident of the retirement village and his almost certainly fraudulent online beau. Nothing doing. An old acquaintance turns up dead, and the four take on the case.

The Marlow Murder Club (Robert Thorogood)

With PBS Masterpiece soon to release The Marlow Murder Club as a series, Judith Potts could be our generation’s Miss Marple. She’s clever, feisty, eccentric, and has a totally relatable desire to live her best life untroubled by the interference of others (read: men).

The Twist of a Knife (Anthony Horowitz)

The Twist of a Knife is the fourth book in a series where author Anthony Horowitz writes a version of himself into the book as he and fictional detective Daniel Hawthorne solve murders “together” and collaborate on true-crime books about them. “It’s amazing, really, the invisible process that can turn complete strangers into friends.” AContinue reading “The Twist of a Knife (Anthony Horowitz)”

September 2023 Editing Update

As I sat in the delicious air-conditioning, reading through a draft I hadn’t opened in nearly two years, I was struck by something I had not been expecting: It was good. It was actually pretty darn good, and I was getting excited about the story again.

March 2023 Editing Update

I’m not thrilled that I’m a leave-it-to-the-last-minute kind of gal, but I am who I am, it is what it is, and that’s where we are. If I can manage to finish this round of edits by end of day Friday, I plan to pass the manuscript off to my beta readers and forget about it for a while.

The Bullet That Missed (Richard Osman)

It’s jam-packed full of adventure, intrigue, humour, and genuine heart—and darned if it didn’t have me crying big soppy tears by the end. I’ll avoid the spoilers, but let it be known that Osman hasn’t shied away from the more heart-breaking side of aging, either.