Hey hey, it’s MJ, 

            I am a devourer of cozy mysteries I have a bunch in my collection, 40 actually, excluding the ones that I haven’t read yet, that span several authors. My mom has a series or two at her house and I have read many of them as well. So I am just going to run through the first’s in the series that I am currently reading and give my recommendations on cozy mysteries if you want to find a few to try out. 

            I am only including series where I have read two or more, I don’t want to base a suggestion on just one book; no matter how much I liked the first book. 

            I am not going to really summarize each series, just give my opinions on them and let you, if you want to, discover their content on your own as much as possible. If you really want to see some of the summaries I did read a lot of cozies last year and you can sift through the books I read last year series if you want to: 1, 2, 3, and 4.

1. The Meg Langslow Mysteries by Donna Andrews. 

The first book is A Murder with Peacocks.

This is one of those series that I have been reading for a little over 4 years now. I have read all of the ones that are out in paperback so far and I am going to be honest it is one of my favorite series to read. I love the world and the characters and watching them all grow and change as time goes on. Some of them are a little hard to find, I know there was a second in the middle of the first fifteen or so that I had to order used and even then they were hard to come by. I hope they eventually rerelease them so they are easier to find because it’s so good.

2. The Hannah Swensen Mysteries by Joanne Fluke 

The first book is Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder

I started reading these after seeing the series on Hallmark and I have read the first several but again, finding them in bookstores can be hard if you don’t start a series pretty close to it’s beginning so I have to order them off the internet a lot, thanks Amazon. I enjoy the series and the characters, again. I also enjoy the cookie and other bakery treat recipes that are sprinkled throughout the book. They are not exactly the same as the TV movie series but I really enjoy them even though I haven’t read one since the middle of last year. 

3. The Fixer-Upper Mysteries by Kate Carlisle

The first book is  A High End Finish

I read the first several in this series over the last year and I have fallen in love with the series as a whole. The characters and the story lines, the world building and the fact that the main character is in construction because you don’t see a lot of ladies in building. Sometimes these are hard to find as well but also it might just be my specific Barnes and Noble that fails me on having books beyond the first one sometimes and maybe the fifth one. 

4. The Cookie House Mysteries by Eve Calder

The first book is And Then There Were Crumbs

I didn’t start this series until late last year but I read both books in like a week and am patiently but not so patiently waiting for the third one which comes out in April, I think. It’s not the same style as others I have read in the past and I love that to be honest. I am looking forward to seeing the expansion of the world and the characters in the future because both books urged me to keep reading even when I knew I should put the book down. 

5. The Nantucket Candle Maker Mysteries

The first book is Murder’s No Votive Confidence

Like the Meg Langslow mysteries I didn’t read the first one first, I read the third one first because it was in a Halloween book box from last year. I read all three in like a week and a half and again I couldn’t put them down. I love candles and used to have a much larger collection than I do now but I do follow some artisanal candle companies on the internet. It takes place on Nantucket, so a small island and that feels like a locked room mystery series to me and I absolutely love it.

6. The Witch City Mysteries

The first book is Caught Dead Handed

I am never against a mystery series that is slightly supernatural, I love the characters and all of the craziness that happens, I have a degree in TV and Radio so seeing a TV personality in a mystery book is never something that bothers me. It’s just slightly magical which is really cool because sometimes authors go overboard with the magical nature of things or it becomes cliché but this series is for sure worth a read.

            For now that’s about it, I know that in the future I will have a second post with more books because I know me, I have enough to read that as I get more series in my book shelf and I need to get the second and third books in series that I have only read one book in so I can add to this list but for now I am giving suggestions on six series that total somewhere around 80 books in total to read so I think that will keep anyone and everyone who wants to read them busy for a while. 

            Alright, this is my first book post of the year and there will be more because I like writing about what I am reading. My first reading post will come out late next month if everything goes well but we will see I guess. 

            So I will see everyone later in the week with a new post and as always I hope that everyone has a great start to the week!

            -MJ