Reading Hour

Since this is my first blog post, I want to explain that I read and enjoy a lot of cozy mysteries.  I prefer series that have a hero (heroine) who has a fun or interesting job or hobby (something other than solving murders), plus has a pet or two.  My favorite series have dogs as pets - and my very favorite include activities with that dog (besides playing fetch or putting the dog in the back yard.)

A terrific example my very favorite series are the "Dog Lover Mysteries" by Susan Conant, featuring Holly Winter and her Malamutes Rowdy and Kimi.  Holly writes about dogs (she's a dog writer) and the stories include information about showing the dogs in conformation, obedience, obedience training, backpacking with the dogs, and more.  They are wonderful.

Mysteries with no animal in them, or where the animal is not featured regularly, do not rate as high with me.  My least favorite mysteries have technical errors in them that seem obvious to me.  Those make me question the entire series. (Plus the intelligence of the author and the competence of their editor(s).  I could give a couple example of those, but to be honest, I don't remember the specific titles where the errors occurred. 

Second to that are books where the hero(ine) seems constantly ready to take offense to anything that people say to him or her;  or where over a series of books the same person is accused over and over again of murder and shunned by their community to the point where they might go out of business.  How stupid do you have to be to allow that to happen over and over again, before you pack up your donut maker and move to another town?

My plan is to blog about each of the books I've read, as I re-read them.  I'll go through them series by series.  I will mention the technical errors in an overall review of the series, with specifics in a review of the title(s) where the error occurred.

I'm going to put off the Susan Conant books until later in the review process - I am going to start with a new author whose first book I really enjoyed a lot, and then return to the series that got me caught up in cozies - The Cookie Mysteries.