Our guest today is Julie B Cosgrove, author of the Word Play Mysteries, talking about her series and why she writes in the cozy genre.
Leaving a comment makes you eligible for a paperback of your choice of any of Julie's thirteen cozy mysteries. If the winner is not in the USA, Julie will email a $15 Amazon gift certificate to purchase one paperback or several eBooks (hopefully hers!).
A church member
recently asked me why, as a Christian author, I wrote mysteries. Good question.
At first glance it may seem faith and mystery are polar opposites. Good versus
evil. Love versus crime. Saint versus sinner.
I write cozy
mysteries for several reasons. First, it is my favorite genre. From an early
age I would lie in front of our black and white TV totally absorbed in the
Sherlock Holmes and Charlie Chan mysteries.
I did read some of the Nancy Drew books from my elementary school
library but found them to be too predictable. I figured out I didn’t want to
read about her, I wanted to be her! The late British author Mary Stewart
hooked me on her novels. Young,
intelligent single women travel to exotic places, then find themselves in the
midst of danger once they get too close to whodunnit. And of course, each ended
with the dashing slightly older gentleman coming to the rescue. Sigh. It pumped
my preteen heart!
I still prefer to
read cozies, but many of the secular ones are not as innocent as they once
were. Foul language, out of marriage relationships, paranormal, and witchcraft
have inched into the plots. Hmmm, not for me. But there are still some clean,
secular cozy writers out there. Mary Daheim has been my favorite since the late
1990’s. She still writes, by the way. I love her wit and her characters. To
state I was thrilled when she endorsed my first cozy mystery novel, Dumpster
Dicing, back in 2016 is an understatement.
Secondly, cozy
mysteries are less about the crime itself and more about achieving justice by
solving the mystery and making sure the bad guys are caught. Micah 6:8 states,
as the as the answer as to what a faith-living person should do: “Do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with God.” As
a Christian cozy writer, I try to show my characters live out the faith in
their everyday lives and interactions. They are fallible but they keep trying
to achieve all three. Thus, each mystery has a central message – God is there
and He cares.
As one five star
reviewer wrote – “What I didn’t expect was such an encouraging message to
come in the middle of a cozy mystery. Sometimes authors shove a Christian
message in between crime scenes and car chases. However, Cosgrove seamlessly
threads her message throughout the book."
So far, I have been
contracted to write three mystery series. The first, The Bunco Biddies
Mysteries, were four novels written between 2015-2018. They feature Bunco playing ladies in a
retirement community. The first won Best Cozy Mystery set in Texas by the Texas
Association of Authors in 2017. Then Write Integrity Press took me on as an
author but the editor in chief wanted a more “Hallmark” formula. So, I wrote The
Relatively Seeking Mysteries involving three thirty-something church
friends who sought out lost relatives and found themselves in danger as they unveiled
family secrets. One Leaf Too Many (the ACFW book of the month in August
2019) and Fallen Leaf have the inklings of romance with the detectives
on the case. The third, Leaf Me Alone, finalist in the Christian
Literary Awards in 2021, showed the gal who was already married but
whose marriage was being tested by hard times. Working through the mystery helped
the couple realize the strength of their marriage and their faith.
Then I convinced
Write Integrity Press to let me return to writing about senior sleuths. I
combined my two loves—mystery and word games—and molded them into The
Wordplay Mystery Series. Wanda, the
main character, is a widow raised in the small, fictitious town of Scrub Oak,
Texas. Her almost life-long friend is a retired schoolteacher, also widowed,
named Betty Sue. Her next door neighbor
is Evelyn, who devours cozy mysteries and even has them catalogued by sleuth,
crime, and author. Wanda’s nephew, Todd—who the town recalls as the wayward
teen whose parents went through the most scandalous divorce in Scrub Oak
history—grew
up, graduated from the police academy, and now has returned to Scrub Oak as a
policeman.
Word Has It involves a Scrabble game revealing clues to not only a current mystery but two previously hidden in the past. It won the Distinguished Cozy Mystery award in the Spring of 2021. In Word Gets Around, random words left on windshield may hold the answer as to why an up and coming reporter has gone missing. In Other Words focuses on palindromes spray painted on local businesses when the vandalism soon explodes into organized crime. In Hang on Every Word, Wanda is assigned to create a weekly Hangman and a Find-Words-in-a-Word puzzle for the local newspaper, but the clues seem to spur robberies around downtown. People begin to think Wanda may be orchestrating it all to gain more glory. Now, though handcuffed, she must solve the mystery and her reputation!
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Unlike Scrub Oak,
the setting for Away with Words is real. It is a wonderful cabin where I
was invited by some local church ladies in West Monroe to lead a retreat
several years ago. It was one of the most enjoyable retreats I have led. Therefore, when the opportunity arose, I jumped
at the chance to set my next mystery there.
