Mid-Month Mysteries: Spring Themes

 

 

 

 

Spring officially arrives next week, although it usually takes another month or so around here for the weather to turn fully spring-like. Spring is my favorite season, so I thought this month it would be worth looking at cozy mysteries set in spring. There are already a couple of cozy mystery sites that have created lists of spring-themed mysteries, particularly Cozy Mysteries Unlimited and April Hayman's Pinterest board. I'll try to focus on books I've read.

One series I would recommend is The Great Witches Baking Show by Nancy Warren. It's a takeoff of The Great British Baking Show, but the protagonist is a novice witch competing on a baking show set in a British small town. The show is filmed over several weeks in the spring. (I think the series starts in April and ends in June, though I'm not 100% sure about that.) This means that the entire series takes place in the spring, as opposed to a series that may stretch out over a couple of years and many seasons. Nancy Warren writes likeable paranormal protagonists and weaves a mystery well, so her books are automatic buys for me.

Another writer who is an automatic buy for me is Louisa M. Locke and her Victorian San Francisco Mystery series. As advertised, this series is set in San Francisco in the late 1880s, and it explores the lives of working women (there are a surprising variety of jobs available for women in this era). The focus is Anne Fuller, who runs a boarding house; occasionally, some of the boarders and servants get their own stories in this series. Scholarly Pursuits is the sixth book in the series, but it can be read as a stand-alone (though you get more out of the story if you're already familiar with the characters). The previous books are set in the fall and winter, so I think this is the first novel set in the spring. There may be some short stories in the series that are set in spring 1880, but I haven't read all of them yet. 

I'm Facebook friends with Vicki Lemp Weavil, who writes under the pen name Victoria Gilbert. Her Blue Ridge Library series includes the book Past Due for Murder, where the inciting incident takes place at a spring bonfire. If you love books and libraries, don't miss this series.

As for my Abigail Ritter series, the first book, Murder at Magic Lake, takes place in mid-winter, and Restaurants and Revenge is set in very early spring. (Of course, since the series is set in Wisconsin, that doesn't mean the weather is that good yet.) It's not until we get to the third book, Bubble Tea and a Body, that we get to experience the full glory of late spring. I'm still editing Restaurants and Revenge, but I've written about 14,000 words for Bubble Tea and a Body. 

What's your favorite season? Feel free to share in the comments.