Cozy Craft Mysteries can be read in any order. A funny whodunnit series, full of charming characters and mysteries that will keep you guessing to the very end.
A wedding is a cause for celebration. Not only do dressmakers Penny and Izzy get an invite to the big day but they have an unusual dress commission to complete for one of the guests.
It seems Penny’s only problem is deciding which potential boyfriend to take as her plus-one guest — practical handyman Aubrey or cultured fabric expert Oscar.
But bigger problems arise when the maker of the wedding cake is found dead in the grounds of the stately home where the wedding is to take place.
And when another key individual in the wedding plans is also murdered, it seems like someone has deadly plans to prevent this marriage.
Can Penny and Izzy unravel the mystery and solve this crime before the big day is fatally ruined?
If your ideal book features mystery, friendship, cute romance, crafting and a charming rural setting then this is the book for you.
Cozy Craft Mysteries can be read in any order. A funny whodunnit series, full of charming characters and mysteries that will keep you guessing to the very end.
Things are going great for Penny Slipper. Running a sewing shop in the middle of the English countryside is like a dream come true and she’s got her colourful cousin Izzy and her corgi, Monty, to keep her entertained.
Her grandma’s eightieth birthday is coming up soon and Penny and Izzy are busier than ever, making fancy dress costumes for the party guests.
However, Penny’s dream life is thrown into chaos when a murdered woman is found in the bathroom of her cosy flat above the shop. With the doors and the windows all locked, no one can understand how this mystery corpse got there.
But things take a further sinister turn when a local shopkeeper is also killed. There’s a murderer on the loose and no one is safe!
Can Penny and Izzy uncover the answers and unmask the criminal in their midst?
If your ideal book features mystery, friendship, cute romance, even cuter animals, crafting and a big slice of birthday cake then this is the book for you.
Thanks to Rachel for organising this blog tour and to the author for my copy of this book.
In this Cozy Craft mystery, Penny gets home from a trip to London to find a dead woman on the loo and an incriminating note from Izzy. Meanwhile the stitch and natter group must be dealt with and a water leak controlled. The police are eventually called when Izzy returns and the pair realise there was a bit of a misunderstanding. It seems the building was locked up tight, and they have nothing worth stealing, so why was the woman on the toilet? How did she get in and who killed her?
Since they can’t stay in the shop, Penny and Monty go to stay with Izzy and her parents. They have a small house and a surprisingly large garden, but Monty doesn’t like the upheaval and starts misbehaving. Izzy meets a potential boyfriend when she finds a way to deal with Monty’s outbursts.
Nanna Lem is having a birthday party and Izzy’s dad, Terry King wants an Elvis costume. Everyone else wants costumes too, so Penny devises a ‘family discount’ chart to help Izzy say no to cousins who expect freebees. To get some inspiration, the pair visit a neighbour who specialises in musical memorabilia. He has just the thing to inspire them.
Eventually, Penny, Izzy and Monty get back in the shop but there’s an awful mess and Aubrey has to do an assessment for the insurance company, while Darren the plumber suggests a cheeky fiddle. There’s a couple of questionable characters hanging about outside, and Stuart Dinktrout starts moaning about the fabric of the building.
Izzy and Penny do some sleuthing and both have realisations about the crime as the man down the road is found dead on a golf course. The police are rather annoyed by Izzy and Penny.
At Nanna Lem’s party, the criminals are revealed, the hows and whys are answered, and there’s an Elvis competition. Izzy invites her dog trainer to the party while Penny is still torn between Aubrey and Oscar.
This is the third book in the series and once again we find the creative pair getting into and out of some odd situations; the dead woman on the loo is just the start of it. We meet some of Izzy and Penny’s other family and learn more about Nanna Lem’s past. Izzy is clearly from a highly creative family, but you wouldn’t want to live next door to them. Penny and her Aunt Pat seem like the sensible ones.
Penny’s dilemma about how to start a relationship is understandable. Oscar is very forthright about his feelings but is fine with friendship; Aubrey says lovely things but doesn’t ask directly, leaving Penny confused about both of them. She could carry on with both of them as friends, or one friend and one boyfriend. Can’t see why she can’t have two boyfriends, personally, so long as everyone knows and consents to it.
Monty once again points the reader in the right direction and I think he’s a useful doggy ex machina, as well as a fun character. Dogs are always a good excuse for wondering about places you’re not meant to. Or just generally wandering about. (Yes, I am using the correct wondering and wandering – thing about it).
The reality of small towns – knowing everyone and being distantly related to half of the long-term residents, bossy town officials, gossip and nosiness – is admirably demonstrated, as is the reality of being a creative sector professional; everyone thinks they can ask for something for free because they know you but don’t actually value your time, skills or the materials costs. I totally understand the frustrations of being asked to ‘rustle up’ something that’ll take days to make and cost a fortune, by people who want it for free. If I make you something as a gift that’s one thing, but I’m charging for my time and materials otherwise.
I can see Penny and Izzy building an investigative relationship with DS Chang, the police officer who has turned up in all three books so far. He’s not imposing on the plot much at the moment, but his appearances have become more important in this novel. Tariq the enthusiastic young journalist is another character I can see being important as part of their ‘famous five sleuthing’ as Aubrey puts it at one point in the story, as a recorder of events, especially with his camera.
The Cozy Crafts Mysteries have fairly straightforward plots, set in a familiar setting, just like many Golden Age crime novels, especially Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple novels. They have red herrings and quirky main characters, with the police only tangentially involved. From me this is not a criticism – I enjoy Miss Marple stories, and I like the modern cosy mystery that has evolved from the same tradition. These ones are easy to read and entertaining. You’re halfway through before you know it.
Need the odd bit of editing though. I noticed a few mis-used words and a chapter change that wasn’t formatted correctly.
Right, on to number 4 – The Swan Dress Murder, which I have already started reading.
Giveaway Prize – The Wonderland Murders, a cross stitch book, a floral notepad, a note writing set and a grass bunny.
Author Bio – Millie Ravensworth writes the Cozy Craft Mystery series of books. Her love of murder mysteries and passion for dressmaking made her want to write books full of quirky characters and unbelievable murders. Millie lives in central England where children and pets are something of a distraction from the serious business of writing, although dog walking is always a good time to plot the next book.
There’s something very wrong at the Otterside care home.
When Sam Applewhite tries to help a friend who’s lost a beloved pet she finds that it’s just the first in a series of seemingly unconnected deaths. Is it her imagination, or do all of them somehow point back to the same residential home for seniors?
Sam’s skills are in demand elsewhere however, as she must orchestrate a safety drill with animal actors, cook dinner on an abandoned oil rig and keep an eye on those vikings who are building a longship.
When the police don’t see the pattern, it’s all down to Sam, and the closer she gets to uncovering what’s going on at Otterside, the more danger she’s in
When a client tells Sam Applewhite she’s seen ghosts in the nearby graveyard, Sam dismisses it as the ramblings of an old woman. She’s got bigger things to worry about — Keeping on top of her job at DefCon4 Security Services isn’t easy – particularly since her manager is a cactus and no one will tell her what her job actually is.
But when the ghost-spotting client goes missing and only Sam suspects foul play, she is compelled to dig deeper.
Aided by her retired stage magician father and the owner of the most outlandish junk shop on the sea front, Sam dives into a mystery involving psychotic seals, unexploded air force munitions, DIY foot surgery and a corpse that just won’t quit.
Boring. Going nowhere. That was Tarah’s life in the UK, before she moved to Fuerteventura to start a new adventure. But things came unstuck quicker than she’d planned. A dead guest on the holiday complex she manages threatens to pull apart her hoped-for dream life.
If she wants to keep her job and save the reputation of the business, she’s got to find out what happened to Patrick. Did he die of natural causes – or was he murdered?
Tarah’s pet guinea pig, Mr Bob, has a knack for sniffing out trouble and he suspects foul play. The mission is on: Who Killed Patrick?
With the assistance of Mr Bob and Diego, a local plumber, Tarah turns amateur sleuth to find out the truth.
Can Tarah and Mr Bob find the murderer before it’s too late? Will they be able to save the business and protect their blissful new life?
A young German woman, thinking she can escape her memories of wartime Berlin, moves to London in 1954 under her new name of Charlotte Brown. The offer of a prestigious job at the National Gallery leads her to believe that she can establish a new life in a city itself emerging from the ruins of war.
With her new identity, Charlotte hopes she has left Eva Schlessinger far behind . . . but when her job brings her into contact with a ruthless set of art dealers with dubious wartime connections, she fears they can see behind her facade. Priceless masterpieces start appearing at auction, stolen from murdered Jewish families by the Nazis, and she herself is implicated. At this point, Charlotte makes a solemn promise – one that will take her a lifetime to fulfil.
Blue Skies Over Berlin is a novel about secrets and guilt in an uncertain time, balanced by friendship and enduring love – and ultimately the need to make amends for just standing by.
Born and raised in North London in 1952, John still lives in the city with his wife and three children. Privately educated, John left school after ‘A’ levels and completed a business diploma in what is now the University of Westminster, before entering banking.
He started training as an accountant but did not complete the course, choosing a position in his family’s furniture manufacturing business instead. John started his own mergers and acquisitions business in 1987, which he ran for almost 20 years before quitting to become a full time writer in 2007.
John has co-written and produced comedies for the stage and has created a series of books for children. “Previously, I had only been interested in comedy and finally started to write down the things I said or thought of. That led me to co-write and produce a play, In the Balance, and then W for Banker – which appeared at the New End Theatre, Hampstead. It was then I decided to quit the world of business in favour of writing full-time, and move toward more serious subjects. My first novel has taken two years to write and is the first in a series of books I am calling the ‘Steinberg Stories’.”
Our third cover reveal of the month is for Liz Davies and her romance of the internet age.
The Cottage on Wildflower Lane
Esther’s life isn’t perfect (whose is?) – but she’s happy enough living in her little flat with her boyfriend, Josh.
But that’s about to change.
Bored out of her mind in work, she wishes that something, anything, would happen to liven her life up.
Unfortunately, her wish comes true when Josh calls her from the airport to tell her he’s going to work in a bar in Spain, and she’s not invited, Esther is devastated, and her unhappiness is compounded when she discovers she can actually view the bar via a webcam link and watch him chatting up other girls.
But when she inadvertently clicks on a link to another webcam which shows a pretty cottage and the rather hunky man who lives in it, her interest is piqued and she wishes she could get to know him.
Today, I’m taking part in the Rachel’s Random Resources Cover Reveal Tour for this book. But first, the book details.
The Cottage in a Cornish Cove
A heart-warming tale of discovering all you never wanted is exactly what you needed.
Orphaned as a baby and raised by indifferent relatives, much of Anna Redding’s happiness as a child came from the long summer holidays spent with an elderly family friend, Aunt Meg, in the quaint village of Polkerran.
With Aunt Meg’s passing, Anna is drawn back to the West Country, relocating to the Cornish cove where she was once so happy. Filled with memories, she hopes to perhaps open a B&B—and perhaps cross paths with Alex Tremayne again, a local boy she used to have a major crush on and who only had to walk past Anna to make her heart flutter.
Settling into her new life, and enjoying her work for the older, reclusive and—to be honest—often exasperating Oliver Seymour, Anna is delighted when Alex reappears in Polkerran and sweeps her off her feet.
The stars are finally aligned, but just as Anna thinks all she’s ever wished for is within reach, a shock discovery brings everything under threat, and she finds herself living a dream that isn’t hers.
Can Anna rescue the new life she has made for herself and, when the testing moment comes, who will be there to hold her hand?
The Cottage in a Cornish Cove is the first in an uplifting series of romances from Cass Grafton. Get to know the locals, wallow in the quaintness of Polkerran, and fall in love with romance all over again.
Frankie: The Woman Who Saved Millions from Thalidomide
Thalidomide:
patented in Germany as a non-toxic cure-all for sleeplessness and morning
sickness. A wonder drug with no side-effects.
We know differently
now.
Today, thalidomide
is a byword for tragedy and drug reform – a sign of what happens when things
aren’t done ‘the right way’. But when it was released in the 1950s, it was the
best thing since penicillin – something that doctors were encouraged to prescribe
to all of their patients. Nobody could anticipate what it actually did: induce
sleeping, prevent morning sickness, and drastically harm unborn children.
But, whilst
thalidomide rampaged and ravaged throughout most of the West, it never reached
the United States. It landed on the desk of Dr Frances Kelsey, and there it
stayed as she battled hierarchy, patriarchy, and the Establishment in an effort
to prove that it was dangerous. Frankie
is her story.
High priestesses are few and far between, white ones in Africa even more so. When Diane Esguerra hears of a mysterious Austrian woman worshipping the Ifa river goddess Oshun in Nigeria, her curiosity is aroused.
It is the start of an extraordinary friendship that sustains Diane through the death of her son and leads to a quest to take part in Oshun rituals. Prevented by Boko Haram from returning to Nigeria, she finds herself at Ifa shrines in Florida amid vultures, snakes, goats’ heads, machetes, a hurricane and a cigar-smoking god. Her quest steps up a gear when Beyoncé channels Oshun at the Grammys and the goddess goes global.
Mystifying, harrowing and funny, The Oshun Diaries explores the lure of Africa, the life of a remarkable woman and the appeal of the goddess as a symbol of female empowerment.
Everything Is Better With Dragons 