Recently I had a wonderful surprise (well, she told me it was coming so I could watch for it) from Wandering Reader ... a box of books! All cozies from smaller presses! Of the dozen or so books I'd read just one, and one from another series by one author. I happily piled them near my shelf of 'to be read' books ... and then decided that rather than try for any order as I shelved them, I'd just start at the top of the pile. :-) First up was Murder is Fashionable. It is book two in the Dodo Dorchester Mystery series by Ann Sutton. It's 1923 and Dodo is a well known patron of fashion, so much so, that designers want her wearing their clothes to show them off. When one of the models dies during her walk at the fashion show, Dodo jumps in to help the local inspector find who killed her. Now, I'll admit, fashion if far from any of my interests and I probably didn't understand all the details about dress and so on, but the characters were good, the story was good ... and, since the author was smitten with Agatha Christie at 11, there are many nods to her characters in the book (and I assume in the other books as well). It was fun. Warning: I read this in one day.

Oddly enough, the second book in the pile from Wandering Reader also featured a main character out of my comfort zone. Two times over, actually, as she was a hair dresser (owned her own salon) and very pregnant! Easter Hair Hunt is well into the Bad Hair Day Mystery series by Nancy J. Cohen, but there were enough hints about characters and situations and so on that I never felt lost. Marla has attended an Easter Egg Hunt at a historic manor mostly to do her friends hair. Blinky is the one in the bunny suit, and wanted her hair done after the egg hunt and before she went to the more formal luncheon at the manor. However, she does not show up. Marla finds the white bunny face down, and, of all things, a Faberge egg in the grass near by. However, when the body is turned over, it's not Blinky ... it's the head gardener. What (and why) is he in the suit? And where is Blinky? Lots of twists here ... a dead hubby, an estranged son, staff that have worked at the manor for decades, missing/replaced (maybe) works of art ...Marla's husband is a detective and she's been helping him with his cases for some time. This time, though, she is 'with child' which offers challenges she's not faced before. I figured out a few minor twists, some were correct, others were not. :-)

Reading Hermit With Dog