By Carol J Perry
If you don’t know about cozy mysteries – get ready for some awesome, effortless, readernip! Cozy mysteries are usually cheap (like $7.99), they keep you occupied without a lot of brainpower (like Netflix), and they are usually series, so once you get into one, you don’t even need to learn a lot of new characters.
I started this, the first of the Witch City series, because I needed something easy in these quarantine times, I like a touch of magic in books, and I like cats in mysteries. I blame my grandmother for letting my read all of the Lillian Jackson Braun Cat Who… series at an impressionable age. Those books are great too, btw!
And that’s pretty much all you need to know – these are all pretty formulaic, but that is part of the draw and charm. It’s a formula that works. Lee Barrett moves back home for a TV reporting job after the death of her NASCAR driver husband. (A character background I haven’t encountered before, I must admit.) Her hometown happens to be Salem, Massachusetts, where the wiccan descendants of “those” Salem Witches are still thriving and the town bilks tourists with tea leaf readings and palm readings.
She finds a body at her job interview, and away we go! She discovers she has a long suppressed psychic power, more bodies, the beginnings of a love interest, and the reader has plenty of time to figure out the murderer before she does. Orion, the large marmalade cat along with her Aunt Ibby, retired librarian, steal the show. Easy, breezy, mystery – no need for any of my other normal sections.
