My Cozy Kindred Spirit

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The City:   Atlanta

The Date:   11 August 2015

I’ll simply blame it on my husband, Jeff and be done with it.  And in this case it’s the absolute truth.  When I was filming an episode of Sleepy Hollow in North Carolina back in early November, the front desk of the hotel I was staying in told me I had a package.  Even though Jeff knows I never go anywhere without ample reading material, when he saw the third title of this series, The Legend of Sleepy Harlow, he felt he just had to buy me the whole series.   I couldn’t start the series then and from November until about 10 days ago, I have had plenty of reading material and, to be honest, I was ambivalent about starting another series.  Also, as much as I like select kitties, I always have another ambivalence about series who insist on featuring cats on the cover.    Well … I should have known that being that resistant to something was a bad omen or I guess not so bad because ten days ago, I finally caved in and began reading, Mayhem At The Orient Express, the first title in the League of Literary Ladies series by Kylie Logan and boy did I find a true cozy kindred spirit.  It was love at first read.  OMG!  In the over 30 cozy series I follow, no writer has ever made me laugh out loud … and so often.  Moreover, with each page of each of the three current titles, I felt like I really had found a kindred spirit in Ms. Logan.  Let’s see … where do I begin?  The main character, Bea is an only child – like me.  In her acknowledgements for The Legend of Sleepy Harlow, Ms. Logan says her favorite holiday is Halloween.  Well, Christmas Eve is my favorite day of the year, but All Hallows’ Eve is my very next favorite; I wait for it all year long and our home is one large All Hallows’ orange glow and I’ve written an All Hallows’ Poem every year for almost 31 years.  To top it all off ... my favorite writer of all time is Dickens.  I am a past president and lifetime member of the Dickens Fellowship of New York and  I’ve performed Dickens's public readings for nearly 30 years – A Christmas Carol  most often.  So of course, Ms. Logan goes and names one of her titles,  A Tale of Two Biddies!  How much more proof do I need that something a little odd is going on?  Honestly, I find myself feeling like the kooky character Chandra with her tarot cards and ritual cleansing of bad energy because it's all just a little too wicky wicky.   

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By the time I finished all three books, A League of Literary Ladies, jumped to among my top ten favorite series.  As I said before, I don't recall laughing out loud so often in any series which I attribute to Ms. Logan's wonderful sense humour. There is an edge to her wisecracking commentary akin to the kind of perfect timing good actors have when delivering lines. She is probably one of both the best storytellers and best writers of the cozy mystery genre and that's no easy feat considering how large the writing playing field is. Her writing is tight and concise and her plots are engaging and wonderfully surprising.  I am completely in love with all of the literary ladies and have already pre-ordered the next title in the series, And Then There Were Nuns, to be released 1 March 2016.  

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Now, for the many cozy writers whose series I follow faithfully, quite a few have heard from me over time about the love interest angle in their books.  Therefore, I implore Ms. Logan not to drag out the big moment between Bea and Levi.  I, for one, have had enough foreplay and am ready for the big hook-up. Personally, I think it would be most inappropriately appropriate for this to happen in And Then There Were Nuns.

All three titles, Mayhem at the Orient Express, A Tale of Two Biddies  and  The Legend of Sleepy Harlow are all totally worth reading.  This is a series that absolutely will not disappoint any true red-blooded cozy addict.  Run - don't walk - to the nearest bookstore and grab these books.  Ms. Logan writes a couple of other series as well and I hope you'll take a moment to visit her very wonderful website:

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http://www.kylielogan.com/default.aspx

As always, I'd love to hear from my fellow cozy addicts.  Should you wish to know more about me, please visit my website:

www.gregorynassifstjohn.com


I have a couple of titles of new cozies waiting for me to devour that I will be writing about as soon as I've digested them.

So until then happy cozying!