Welcome to our weekly newsletter, bringing you items of literary and local interest written by Rio Rancho Library and Information Services staff.
Cozy Mysteries
Fiction books are fun to read, and there are so many genres to choose from! Cozy mysteries are a subgenre of the mystery category. Cozy mysteries typically don’t have grisly details of the murder or crime. They contain little or no violence, few illusions (if that) to sex, and amateur detectives from the small community. The characters seem genuine. The plot is usually a nice gentle story. Some cozy mysteries have even been made into Hallmark movie series such as the Murder She Baked series by Joanne Fluke or the Aurora Teagarden series by Charlaine Harris. Following are three cozy mysteries series you might enjoy that are available in different formats at your Rio Rancho library.
The Amish Quilt Shop Mysteries series starts with Book One called Murder, Plain and Simple by Isabella Alan. It is available as a regular print book or as an e-book on Hoopla. In this first book in the series, we learn that the main character (Angela) has inherited a quilt shop in Ohio. It seems to happen at the right time in her life, so she moves from Texas to Ohio. This cozy mystery wouldn’t be complete without a murder for her to solve. Alan also writes several series under the name Amanda Flower.
Another cozy mystery series is the Cat in the Stacks Mysteries by Miranda James. The books are set in Mississippi. Arsenic and Old Books is the sixth book in the series. An academic librarian, Charlie Harris (and his Maine Coon cat Diesel), receives a collection of diaries from the Civil War time period to archive, but are they worth killing over? The book is available as regular print or as an e-book from Hoopla. The latest book in the series is #13, Cat Me If You Can, which came out in August 2020.
Kylie Logan is the author of the League of Literary Ladies series. And Then There Were Nuns is #4 in the series and is available as a regular print or a large print book. Bea runs a bed and breakfast on a Lake Erie island, but she is fairly new to the community. Ten nuns are on retreat on the island at a different resort, and Bea is providing some meals for them. More than one nun dies. Who would want to murder any of the nuns?
Cozy mysteries can be a nice way to read (and possibly solve for yourself) a murder mystery without having to read all the details of the crime. A helpful website is cozy-mystery.com (the library does not have any affiliation with this website). It has information about the cozy mystery genre as well as book suggestions, author interviews, etc. Another great resource is Novelist which can be found on the library website. You can log on directly or view their suggestions when you use our catalog to look for books. If you’d like to place a hold on a book, please visit the Rio Rancho Public Library website. Love to discuss what you’re reading? Rio Rancho librarians host Literary Musings on the second Wednesday of the month. The theme for our March meeting is “island,” so read any fiction or nonfiction title about islands and register for the Literary Musings discussion that will occur on Zoom on Wednesday, March 10, at 1 pm.