Particularly in these strange times, they need that escape. Readers who enjoy cozies often tell me they read them to escape from the real world. Take a look at the covers below, and I bet they have that effect on you! The covers and the titles of cozies themselves are intended to bring a smile to your face. And the handsome man is, well, handsomer.
The nosy neighbour is nosier, the ditzy friend is ditzier, the mean girl is meaner. A cozy mystery tells a story that attempts to be entertaining, that’s about people much like us (or like us if we were prettier, or smarter, or younger!) and our friends and family.Ĭozy mysteries are about real people living real lives (except for that pesky murder bit), although writ large. And a murder of course.Ĭozy mysteries are not trying to make an important statement about the human condition, or hoping to change the world. Just people with friends and lovers and community. You won’t learn many lessons about the human condition, no one is suffering from angst or threating to kill themselves because of depression. Writing humour, I’ve found, makes me smile.Ĭozies are intended to be nothing more than an entertaining read. Not all cozies are humorous, but I hope mine are. They should be fun for the author and fun for the reader. The word I often use for the cozies I write is FUN. I approach every day (well, almost every day) excited to get back to the computer and the story. I write the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop series, the Year Round Christmas series, and the Tea by the Sea books as Vicki Delany, and the Lighthouse Library series is still ongoing under the pen name of Eva Gates.
One thing led to another and I’m now writing FOUR cozy series. I gave it a go, got the contract, and I’ve never looked back.īecause I found that writing could be fun again. Then I was asked by Kim Lionetti of Bookends if I’d like to try my hand at the Lighthouse Library series work-for-hire Berkley was offering. Tough stuff, even fictionally, is difficult to deal with sometimes. I can’t really say why, maybe I wasn’t having fun with it any more. Why the change?Ībout six years ago, I was starting to get a bit… shall we say burned out? I was seriously thinking about giving up writing.
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