by Sunny Frazier

Details at the end of this post on how to enter to win a copy of Thin Ice by Paige Shelton which was featured in a past Coming Attractions.

Start your 2020 with two new series and many favorites cozies while you sip hot chocolate by the fire. Or the heater. Or whatever makes you cozy.

There’s a New Witch in Town named Abby Odell. She’s just bought a cottage in the charming Southern town of Holiday Hills. Abby lives with a cat named Cooper and ghostwrites a mystery series for a well-known author. Her mom was a local celebrity with a snarky parrot. Before she died, she informed her daughter that she’s a witch. Now Abby is stuck with a talking cat, witchy powers, and a knack for finding dead bodies. This is the first Holiday Hills Witch Cozy from the wand of Carolyn Ridder Aspenson.

Kate Collins introduces a new series called A Goddess of Greene Street Mysteries. After a divorce, Athena Spencer came home to coastal Michigan to work at her Greek family’s garden center. She’s caring for her son as well as a wild raccoon while she fends off her nagging family. Alone in the center one night, she’s confronted by a stranger who claims he owns a statue Athena’s grandfather bought at an estate sale. The family who sold the statue is threatening to demolish the shops of “Little Greece” to build condos. Now the recent death of the rich patriarch seems suspicious in Statue of Limitation.

Have a Deadly New Year by enjoying Lynn Cahoon’s fourth Farm-to-Fork mystery. Chef Angie Turner owns the finest farm-to-table restaurant in Idaho called The County Seat. Her crew is hired to cater a party for a famous band and will stay at the singer’s house in Sun Valley for a week. The vacation turns sour when a member of the band is found with a drumstick in his chest. Angie and fellow foodies need to solve the case before the killer does an encore.

In Longely, New York, sisters Bernie and Libby Simmons do catering from their business, A Taste of Heaven. They are reunited with a distant relative who wants them to cater a New Year’s event. That’s not all—she thinks her father and his business partner were murdered long ago. Now she plans to read from a diary found in an attic and expose the killer. Before she can do that, a guest drops dead and in the confusion the diary disappears. A Catered New Year’s Eve (see KRL’s review and giveaway of this book in this issue) is number fifteen in the Isis Crawford Mystery With Recipes series.

How can I ignore a book where I share my name with a character? In Victoria Gilbert’s Blue Ridge Library series, Amy Webber is the director of the Taylorsford Public Library. Her friend Sunny Fields is running for mayor. While many politicians have skeletons in their closet, Sunny has a real one. Her parents ran a commune in the 1960s and now human remains are found on their organic farm. Forensics reveals they were murdered. Amy puts her wedding plans aside to help clear the family name. But as former hippies die one by one, Amy needs to find out who is killing the flower children before there are flowers on her grave. Bound for Murder is the fourth in the series.

Just in time for Sherlock Holmes’s 166th birthday on January 6, Vicki Delany shows us There’s Murder Afoot in this fifth Sherlock Holmes Bookstore mystery. January is a slow month for the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop and Emporium, as well as Mrs. Hudson’s Tea Room located in West London on Cape Cod. Gemma Doyle and friends decide to attend the Sherlock Holmes convention in London. It also gives Gemma a chance to visit her parents. Her dad spots his brother-in-law, who disappeared thirty years ago after stealing a valuable painting from his own parents. Gemma’s father is a retired detective from Scotland Yard and warns the man to stay away from the family. When the man is found dead, the police think Dad did it.

We’re still in London for the Pets and Wellness Society’s annual dog show, with her fiancé’s aunt showing her corgi, milliners Scarlett Parker and Vivian Tremont decide to create hats for the dog and his owner. It’s a doggone good time until the dog food sponsor is found dead, and the aunt is the prime suspect. Now Scarlett and Vivian will take the runway to walk the dog in Jenn McKinley’s Buried to the Brim, #6 in her Hat Shop mysteries.

After a mass murder in Israel, renown investigator from the Ministry is called in. Experts think something supernatural caused the atrocity, but Vince Ramsey finds an artifact that leads him to the Antiquities Authority. Teaming up with a historical specialist, they discover the artifact is linked to an ancient secret society founded by a famous Greek philosopher. Hunted down by assassins, they finally encounter the villain controlling a powerful force from the Book of Revelation. Author James Pike dares you to go into the Realm of the Unknown.

Best of the Rest

Ellery Adams—The Book of Candlelight Secret Book & Scone Society #3

Julie Anne Lindsey—Careless Whiskers Cat in the Stacks Mystery #12

Sheila Connelly—Fatal Roots County Cork Mysteries #8

Denise Swanson—Come Homicide or High Water Welcome Back to Scumble River #3

Sarah Fox—Much Ado About Nutmeg Pancake House #6

Lynn Cahoon—A Field Guide to Homicide Cat Latimer Mysteries #6

Kaitlyn Dunnett—A View to a Kilt A Liss MacCrimmon Mysteries #13

Catherine Lloyd—Death Comes to the Nursery Kurland St. Mary Mystery #7

Debra Sennefelder—Silenced in Sequins Resale Boutique Mysteries #2

Carlene O’Connor—Murder in an Irish Pub Irish Village Mysteries #4

Amanda Lee—Hex Type Thing Moonstone Bay Mysteries #5

Sam Cheever—Milk & Croakies Enchanting Inquiries #5

Lily Harper Hart—Ghostly Charms Harper Harlow Mysteries #4

Annabel Chase—Cloaks and Daggers Spellbound Ever After Paranormal Cozy Mystery #6

To enter to win a copy of Thin Ice by Paige Shelgon, simply email KRL at krlcontests@gmail[dot]com by replacing the [dot] with a period, and with the subject line “ice” or comment on this article. A winner will be chosen January 4, 2020. U.S. & Canada residents only, and you must be 18 or older to enter. If entering via emailed please include your mailing address in case you win-it will be deleted once the contest is over. You can read our privacy statement here if you like.

Check out other mystery articles, reviews, book giveaways & mystery short stories in our mystery section. And join our mystery Facebook group to keep up with everything mystery we post, and have a chance at some extra giveaways. Be sure to check out our new mystery podcast too with mystery short stories, and first chapters read by local actors.

Or click on this link to take you to Mysterious Galaxy’s website where you can purchase any of these books & a portion will go to help support KRL:

Sunny Frazier worked with an undercover narcotics team in Fresno County for 17 years before turning her energies to writing the Christy Bristol Astrology Mysteries. Based in the San Joaquin Valley of California, the novels are inspired by real cases and 35 years of casting horoscopes.

Disclosure: This post contains links to an affiliate program, for which we receive a few cents if you make purchases.