I loved this cozy because it is a delight, sort of like those tiny fascinator hats the Brits wear with such aplomb! It has warmth, humor, dogs and puppies, a truly horrible villain and a slightly eccentric Aunt. Plus a clever plot replete with intrique, plenty of horrible suspects and lots of good gossip. Also, it turns the sweetly romantic tone of so many cozies and twists it into an amusing variation. This series features a Yank, Scarlett, living and working in London at her British cousin’s famed hat shop selling her cousin’s creations to fashionable women and now crafting toppers for dogs too (I know it sounds slightly ridiculous but it works!).
Continue reading “Buried to the Brim – A Hat Shop Mystery by Jenn McKinlay”
I love quilts but this is the first mystery I have read where a quilt is an important clue. It was made by a well liked quilting circle member who dies while posing as a living mannequin at Community Quilt shop during the Fire and Ice town festival. Wow that plot could only happen in the north and most likely in the mid-west, yes it’s set in Wisconsin in January.
Fans of Antique Roadshow will enjoy the plot of this mystery which features an expert Book Appraiser famed for his TV appearances who is stabbed during the Valentine’s Day fete at a local mansion. And as the mystery deepens and more suspects come to light the Valentine’s theme is turned upside down, and instead of roses and romance, it’s a story of missed chances, and romances ending in the worst possible ways and is about the other side of ‘happy ever afters’ that color this cozy – not the red of roses but of revenge. The heart of the book is the relationship between Aunt Iphy who owns the popular Book Tea shop and her niece Callie who also works there, they are good friends and since Callie organized the Valentine’s Day event she gets involved with the aftermath of the murder and eventually so does Iphy.