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Advent of Mystery, Day 2: Death Comes at Christmas by Gladys Mitchell
One of my goals for this series is to read new Golden-Age mystery authors, and Death Comes at Christmas is my first attempt to do so. Gladys Mitchell wrote 66 books about Mrs. Bradley, who’s also a doctor and an established psychoanalyst. (You’ll notice the same “human expertise” vibes as Poirot and Miss Marple, but…
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Advent of Mystery, Day 1: The Nine Tailors by Dorothy Sayers
Welcome to the first day of Advent of Mystery! I was first introduced to Dorothy Sayers as “kind of like Agatha Christie, but more literary.” My first Sayers read was Gaudy Night, and I feel in love with her writing style and with Lord Peter Wimsey’s understated wit. Reading the series always feels like returning…
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Introducing the Advent of Mystery: a week of Golden-Age murder mysteries for your winter celebrations
It’s the most wonderful time of the year… Here at The Cozy Owlet, we’re huge fans snuggling up with a great book when it’s cold (and windy) outdoors. It’s a great time of year to appreciate the comforts of a warm home and a supportive community. Of course, there’s no better way to throw that…
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Reading reflections for 2022 (and some challenge commitments!)
This has been really interesting year. I managed to read 140 (!) books this year, and it was around book 100 that I realized I wanted to think more critically about my reading materials. That launched this blog, an experiment: how would my reading experience change if I forced myself to engage with a prompt?…
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A Murder is Announced, Pt. 2: The risks of sensationalism
I have a confession to make. After the last three adaptation posts in this series, I was getting ready to quit. It had started to feel like every post came back to the same points: BBC adapted the plot, iTV adapted the themes, and iTV came out on top. And while I like to think…
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TCO Reviews: The Golden Spoon by Jessa Maxwell
It’s raining today in the Bay – the skies are grey and the wind is blowing the water drops nearly sideways. It’s the perfect day to cuddle up under a warm blanket with a piping hot mug of Earl Grey, accompanied by a great story. And since I’ve been lucky enough to get my hands…
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A Murder is Announced, Pt. 1: Perfecting the pattern
I have to say, when I started this series, I was not anticipating having this many thoughts on the evolution of the Miss Marple books themselves. I genuinely expected that I would write brief overview for each story before jumping in to the adaptations. But here we are, book 4, and I still have Thoughts…