Blog · Genre Guide
Three Cozy Mysteries Set on the Coast
· Blue Signal Press
A tearoom in Maine, a lobster festival, and a spice shop by the sea. Three cozy mysteries from Blue Signal Press with small towns, sharp heroines and a body nobody expected.
A cozy mystery is a murder story you can read with a cup of tea. The violence happens off the page, the sleuth is an amateur with a day job, and the small town is as much a character as anyone in it. The puzzle is real, but the book is on the reader's side.
Our three cozies all sit on the edge of the sea.
A Death Most Steep by Clara Weatherstone
Nora Calloway arrives in Harborwick, Maine, with a divorce behind her and her grandmother's Lighthouse Tearoom in front of her. Six weeks later the man who has been trying to buy the building out from under her is dead in the tearoom's wingback chair, with a cup of the house blend cooling beside him. Book One of the Lighthouse Tearoom Mysteries. Read more.
The Gilded Leaf by Margaret Quill
Forensic accountant Sylvie Rowan comes home to Fog Harbor, Maine, for the annual Lobster Festival and finds a neighbor poisoned with foxglove in her morning Darjeeling. Someone in town has been cooking more than the books. Read more.
A Pinch of Poison by Violet Mallow
Maren Holt inherits her aunt's spice shop in Saltwick-on-Sea and plans to sell it. Then the Craft Carnival opens, a body turns up, and her knowledge of herbs makes her either the best amateur sleuth in town or the most obvious suspect. Read more.
Where to Start
If you like a slow pour and a full cast of locals, start with A Death Most Steep. If you want a heroine who reads a balance sheet the way other people read faces, try The Gilded Leaf. If you like your mystery with a little chaos, A Pinch of Poison.
The first chapter of every one of them is free. Pick yours here. All three are sold direct as DRM-free ebooks.