1–What is the title of your latest release?FOUR LEAF FELONY 2–What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book? I finally got my big break! The interview of a lifetime and nothing could stop me from getting there! Not even a dead body that ended up diverting my airplane in an emergency landing to a small town where secrets swept under the rug have found their way out with a few dust bunnies attached. 3–How did you decide where your book was going to take place? I knew she needed to get diverted to a small town where she would end up staying which makes her character grow by realizing her dream was never her true dream. It’s the journey. 4–Would you hang out with your sleuth in real life? A lot! Definitely a few times a week for coffee! She’s really good with gossip. 5–What are three words that describe your sleuth? Determined. Curious. Strong. 6–What’s something you learned while writing this book? I love holidays! All of them! 7–Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done? I wait until I’m totally done. I sprint through the first draft and call that the bones, then…

Kalliope Ballas is a fashion designer with a prissy calico cat, who falls and hits her head, then wakes up able to read minds but only through the power of touch. A nightmare for a germaphobe. Messy Detective Nikos Stevens lives next door with his slobbery saint Bernard. Think Monk meets My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Nik is half Greek and Kalli is adopted by a Greek family. For the meddling mamas, that’s Greek enough. That got me thinking about big crazy families. I’m not Greek, but I am fascinated by their history, tradition, and culture. In my research, I found ten Greek traditions. Epiphany – Catching the cross On January 6th the Greek people celebrate Jesus Christ and his baptism. The priest throws a special cross into a blessed body of water, and the people jump in to find it. The person who finds the cross and gives it back to the priest is blessed for the entire year. Ragkoutsaria On the days after the Epiphany, people wear scary masks to exorcise evil spirits from the city. People passing by give them coins as payment for getting rid of the evil spirits. The whole city then gathers to eat,…

1–What is the title of your latest release? A MATTER OF HIVE AND DEATH out March 29, 2022. 2–What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book? It’s the second in the Oregon Honeycomb Series. For the picturesque town of Oceanview on the Oregon Coast, May brings blossoming fruit trees and the annual UFO festival. As Aunt Eloise tries out alien costumes on their Havana brown cat Everett, Wren is off to meet with a bee wrangler, her go-to guy for local fruit tree honey. But when she arrives, Elias Brentwood is lying on the ground amidst destroyed hives and a swarm of angry bees. The bees didn’t kill him, a blow to the head did. As blue-eyed Officer Jim Hampton investigates and the town is invaded by its own swarm of conspiracy theorists and crackpots, Wren and Aunt Eloise decide the only way to catch the bee wrangler’s killer is to set up a sting… 3–How did you decide where your book was going to take place? I love the Oregon coast and traveled there several times while living in Portland. I knew it had to be featured in a book. 4–Would you hang out with your heroine in real…

Who doesn’t love maps? Sure, they can be confusing, puzzling, and downright impossible to fold, but the adventures they hold are amazing. When I saw the latest release by Peng Shephard, THE CARTOGRAPHERS, I had to check it out. It’s a little bit adventure, a little bit mystery, and a whole lot of intrigue and fun. Peng is definitely a writer you want to keep on your list of go-to of authors, so of course I had to invite her to sit down with us at the Cozy Corner and find out how her heroine, Nell Young, came to life.   Kym:  Welcome to the Cozy Corner, Peng! Peng: Thrilled to be here!   Kym: Maps, I love maps! The art of map reading has been lost on the youth of today thanks to GPS giving them directions and that’s why I loved the premise of your latest release, THE CARTOGRAPHERS. How good of a map reader/folder, are you? Peng: Pretty good, although I definitely got a lot better during the writing of this novel! I spent a lot of time looking at one map in particular, the map which the book is based on—by the time I finished writing the manuscript, I knew the…

Instead of trying to find your perfect match in a dating app, we bring you the “Author-Reader Match” where we introduce you to authors you may fall in love with. It’s our great pleasure to present ACF Bookens Writes: Cozy mysteries full of twists and turns, great friends, a bit of history, good food, and a taste of social justice. About: ACF Bookens loves rural life and enjoys the fact that she can hear the stream near her house in the quiet of a moonlit night. She enjoys hanging out with her pre-school age son at the local playgrounds, where she is continually astounded at the fact that his shoulder doesn’t dislocate on the monkey bars.  When she’s not writing or playing, she loves to cross-stitch, walk with her rescue dogs, and garden. She plans to try salsify in her garden for the first time this year. What I’m looking for in my ideal reader match: My ideal reader for BLOOD AND BACK STITCHES is: Interested in fun, warm murder mysteries. Loves history and the untold stories of our communities. Appreciates friendships that are imperfect but deep and loyal. Has an interest in justice and how we learn to love…

Hi, I’m Molly MacRae, author of ARGYLES AND ARSENIC, book 5 in the Highland Bookshop Mysteries. The series is about four women from the Midwest, ready for a change, who pool their money, buy a bookshop on the west coast of the Scottish Highlands, and move there to run it. It’s Scotland! The Highlands! What could possibly go wrong?   A is for arsenic – King of Poisons, Inheritor’s Powder, the People’s Choice. Did someone put arsenic in Wendy Erskine’s teacup during Violet MacAskill’s party? R is for red herrings. There are plenty of them. Will the four women of Yon Bonnie Books be able to sort through them before the villain strikes again? G is for guilty. Someone is guilty. Is it the owner of the Mr. Potato Chef food truck? The unidentified woman at Violet’s party who said she was going for help but apparently didn’t? Surely it can’t be Violet’s granddaughter Isobel. Y is for Yon Bonnie Books. The four women who own the bookshop and adjoining tearoom are a clever crew of amateur sleuths but, with this villain, have they finally met their match? L is for the lies being told. Who can the sleuths trust?…

In your latest book, A HALF-BAKED ALIBI, Sherry gets involved in a murder investigation because she wants to clear her friend from being thought of as a suspect. With cozies, there are all kinds of amateur sleuths who have all kinds of reasons for getting involved in an official investigation. I think this is one of the better ones – to help a friend or family member in trouble, as well as when they have to clear themselves from being a suspect. Do you ever find it difficult coming up for reasons for Sherry to be involved in a murder investigation? After six books, and the seventh on the way, thank goodness I haven’t had any trouble getting Sherry involved in murder investigations. Introducing more characters slowly as needed is one way to broaden her reasons for involvement. Another is the fact that she’s becoming known for her amateur sleuthing successes and people are beginning to seek out her skills. She has to want to become involved and that, too, is part of the story. What draws her in isn’t always cut and dry. To repeatedly make the reason be the suspicion of a relative or friend gets old to…

1–What is the title of your latest release? BATTEN DOWN THE BELFRY 2–What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book? When carpenter Whitney Whitaker finds a man dead in the belfry of the country church she’s remodeling into a playhouse, she determines to find out who rang the man’s bell and why. 3–How did you decide where your book was going to take place? I lived in Nashville a few years ago and loved it there. It’s a booming city and there’s lots of home rehabbing going on. It was the perfect authentic setting for a house flipper series. 4–Would you hang out with your heroine in real life? Heck, yeah! She’s smart, brave, and creative. I’d love to talk to her about her design ideas. 5–What are three words that describe your hero? Discerning. Determined. Dashing – both figuratively and literally. Detective Collin Flynn is handsome and he’s a runner. 6–What’s something you learned while writing this book? I never knew that such a thing as a “fish bat” existed until I was looking for a small, hard weapon. The bats are used to hit fish over the head after they’re caught. Yikes! 7–Do you edit as you draft…

Years ago, when my dad was still living, my folks and I always took a yearly ride from their Massachusetts home to visit friends in Vermont. As we traveled through southern Vermont, we passed through a quaint little town I thought would make a perfect setting for a cozy mystery. I tucked the idea in the back of my mind.   Back then, I’d been juggling two ideas for a new cozy series—popovers and grilled cheese. When my niece Ashley paid me a visit, and I posed the question to her: “If you were going to write a culinary cozy mystery set in Vermont, would you choose popovers or grilled cheese?” Her answer came instantly: “Grilled cheese!” Luckily, my wonderful agent agreed and asked me to write a proposal.   Ah, I can do that. Easy cheesy! Or so I thought. I wrote what I believed were three enticing chapters, along with a synopsis. The main character was Marnie, a woman who gets fired from her job on her 40th birthday. As chapter one opens, Marnie stops at the local sandwich shop where her dear friend, a character I dubbed Dumpy (a childhood nickname he embraces!) presents her with a…

1–What is the title of your latest release? MURDER ON AN IRISH FARM (February 22, 2022) How is that for a lucky number?! 2–What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book? What could be more exciting than a wedding, a skeleton in a slurry pit, and a fresh body on top? 3–How did you decide where your book was going to take place? That’s an easy one, all my mysteries are set in Ireland. It all started eight years ago with a call from my editor. He asked if I would be willing to write a mystery series set in England. I told him I didn’t know England well enough to do that. I paused, then said: “But I could set it in Ireland.” I was standing in a parking lot of a grocery store. One of those moments where you remember every detail. It was the start of The Irish Village Mysteries, Home to Ireland series, and the upcoming County Kerry Mysteries. 4–Would you hang out with your heroine in real life? Absolutely! Oddly, the thing I worry most about is– would Siobhan O’Sullivan like me? I think she would even though she’s twenty-some years younger. She’s an old…