by Maddie Day

Maddie Day

Let’s talk about triangles. A lovely geometric shape that occurs in nature; it can provide stability for a stool or a tripod, and more. But that’s not the kind of three-pointed shape I’m talking about.

I mean love triangles, specifically in cozy mystery series. I’ve read in reviews of other authors’ books and heard from fans the message: “No long-lasting love triangles, please.” One particularly famous author with a long-running humorous series has lost readers (including me) because the triangle never gets resolved.

When I started my Cozy Capers Book Group Mysteries with Murder on Cape Cod, bike shop owner Mackenzie Almeida has already found love with handsome baker Tim. In my popular Country Store Mysteries, Robbie Jordan started off dating one guy in Flipped for Murder, but by book two there were complications, and another man came onto the scene. Readers, Robbie married Other Man (Abe) in No Grater Crime, book nine, and their series is renewed through book thirteen, with number eleven, Four Leaf Cleaver, releasing in January.

In the Cozy Capers series, I had to decide if Tim was the one for Mac, or if I would complicate her life by throwing Another Man into the works. But Mac has other complications in her life. She’s borderline obsessive-compulsive; that is, she’s a serious neat freak. She prefers everything just so. Mac lives in a tiny house behind her bike shop, where everything has a place, and it’s easy to keep clean. Except Tim, who loves her, begins trying to convince her to settle down with him. Combine households. And start a family. Long story short, Mac has enough challenges. I decided to free her from also dealing with a love triangle.

Mac is nothing but family-oriented. Her parents, her tiny grandma, her brother, and her little niece Cokey all live near her in Westham on Cape Cod. But, the thought of pregnancy and childbirth freaks her out, big time. Still, she comes around. She’s in her late thirties and doesn’t have all the time in the world to safely conceive a child or two.

In Murder in a Cape Cottage, she’s about to marry Tim when a shocking discovery really complicates the five days before her New Year’s Eve wedding. I hope you love the story!

Readers: What are your thoughts about love triangles? Or share a wedding mishap tale. I’ll send one commenter a signed copy of the new book!

Murder in a Cape Cottage ‘Tis the day after Christmas, following a wicked-busy time of year for Mac’s bike shop. It’s just as well her Cozy Capers Book Group’s new pick is a nerve-soothing coloring book mystery, especially when she has last-minute wedding planning to do. But all pre-wedding jitters fade into the background when Mac and her fiancé, Tim, begin a cottage renovation project and open up a wall to find a skeleton—sitting on a stool, dressed in an old-fashioned bridal gown.
?As Mac delves into the decades-old mystery with the help of librarian Flo and her book group, she discovers a story of star-crossed lovers and feuding families worthy of the bard himself. Yet this tale has a modern-day villain still lurking in Mac’s quaint seaside town, ready to make this a murderous New Year’s Eve.

“She’s handcuffed to the wall,” I whispered. “The poor thing. Somebody seriously didn’t want her to get married.” My heart broke for her, but this was also feeling like a horror movie. My own wedding was only days away.

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Maddie Day pens the Country Store Mysteries, the Cozy Capers Book Group Mysteries, and the new Cece Barton Mysteries. As Agatha Award-winning author Edith Maxwell, she writes the Quaker Midwife Mysteries and short crime fiction. Day/Maxwell lives with her beau and cat Martin north of Boston, where she writes, gardens, cooks, and wastes time on Facebook. Find her at EdithMaxwell.com, wickedauthors.com, Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen, and on social media: Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Disclosure: This post contains links to an affiliate program, for which we receive a few cents if you make purchases. KRL also receives free copies of most of the books that it reviews, which are provided in exchange for an honest review of the book.