Reading right now:

            Rose Pressey, “All Dressed Up and No Place to Haunt.” With this second book in the Haunted Vintage mystery series, vintage clothing expert, ghost whisperer, and amateur sleuth Cookie Chanel provides vintage clothing for a film being shot on an historic plantation locally. When Cookie finds the leading lady drowned in a pond, she is driven to find the killer. 

On hold right now:

            Juliet Blackwell, “Spellcasting in Silk.” In this seventh book in the Witchcraft mystery series,vintage clothing store owner Lily Ivory is pulled into investigating the death of a woman who jumps off the Golden Gate Bridge under suspicious circumstances. “Secondhand Spirits” was the first book in this series with witchy Lily who owns Aunt Cora’s Closet and has the ability to sense clues to the past from clothing and jewelry.

                       

Other mysterious things:

            Cozies are a mystery subgenre in which violence and sex are downplayed. Cozies usually take place in a small town or village in which the residents play an important part in the story. The heroine is usually an amateur who either works with local law enforcement or is considered a busybody by them. The amateur detective is usually a bright, strong, observant woman who is successful in her area of expertise. Most cozies are part of a series and within that series there is an important theme that runs through the books such as herbs, gardens, cooking, florists, witches, psychics, hotels, yarn, sewing, bookstores, museums, knitting, firemen, dogs, cats, and so on. Agatha Christie counts as one of the most famous cozy mystery authors. Some great cozies come out in July include: “Magic and Macaroons” by Bailey Cates (fifth in the Magical Bakery series), “Peaches and Scream” by Susan Furlong (a new series called Georgia Peach series), Victoria Hamilton’s “Death of an English Muffin” is the third in the Merry Muffin series, “A Charming Fatality” by Tonya Kappes (the seventh in the Magical Cures series), “Sense of Deception” is Victoria Laurie’s thirteenth book in the Psychic Eye series, and finally the eighth book in the Renaissance Faire series comes out (“Fatal Fairies by Joyce and Jim Lavene”).