It’s hard to pick the best mysteries of the past year, especially when I’m limited on space. I don’t feature a book I don’t love, so if you’ve seen it on the Cozy Corner, you know I adored it. Yet each year I torture myself by trying to list the best mysteries, and considering I never come close to reading all of the books in my to-be-read file, it’s an impossible task. What if the best is still at the bottom of that pile?! This year the challenge seemed even more difficult and my pile even bigger, which led me to choose books that resonated with me, for one reason or another, throughout the past twelve months. I hope you enjoy my picks for 2017’s best mysteries. ON HER MAJESTY’S FRIGHTFULLY SECRET SERVICE ON HER MAJESTY’S FRIGHTFULLY SECRET SERVICE by Rhys Bowen Royal Spyness Mystery #11 In the new Royal Spyness Mystery from the New York Times bestselling author of Crowned and Dangerous, Lady Georgiana Rannoch juggles secret missions from the Queen, Darcy, and her mother. But it’s all in a day’s work when you’re thirty-fifth in line to the British Crown. When Darcy runs off on another secret assignment,…

Is it hotter than Hades everywhere? Sweltering heat that makes the pools feel like bathwater, and the lakes a petrie dish for bacteria? We’ve had blistering heat that won’t relent, so this week I decided to step into the shade and enjoy what the shadows bring. I wanted to test the darkest corners and see what little monsters I could find—embrace every deadly kiss the shadow man delivered. And boy did he deliver! For a taste that will chill the blood flowing through your veins, check out these four mysteries this summer. THE DARKEST CORNERS by Kara Thomas There are secrets around every corner in Fayette, Pennsylvania. Tessa left when she was nine and has been trying ever since not to think about what happened there that last summer. She and her childhood best friend Callie never talked about what they saw. Not before the trial. And certainly not after. But ever since she left, Tessa has had questions. Things have never quite added up. And now she has to go back to Fayette—to Wyatt Stokes, sitting on death row; to Lori Cawley, Callie’s dead cousin; and to the one other person who may be hiding the truth. Only the…