Aired January 2022
Sheās a talented pastry chefāwith a secret recipe for solving crimesā¦
WELCOME TO THE COOKIE HOUSE
Kate McGuireās life was sweet in Manhattan before she lost her restaurant job and fiancĆ© both. But sometimes thatās just the way the cookie crumbles, and soon she finds herself starting from scratch in the island town of Coral Cay, Florida. It has everything sheās looking for: sunny beaches, friendly locals, and a Help Wanted sign in the bakery shop window. Once she convinces the shopās crusty owner Sam Hepplewhite to hire her, Kate canāt tie on her apron fast enough. Little does she know that trouble, like warm dough, is on the rise. . .
WHERE CRIMINALS GET THEIR JUST DESSERTS
Stewart Lord is a real estate developer with a taste for a different type of dough: the green kind. He knows that he could make a killing by purchasing the Cookie House from Sam, who flat-out refuses to sell. But when Stewart turns up the heat on Samāthen turns up dead after eating a fresh batch of Samās cinnamon rollsāall eyes focus on the townās beloved bakery. When the police arrest Sam for murder, Kate must somehow prove that her curmudgeonly boss is innocent. Enlisting the help of a team of lovable locals, Kate sets out to catch the real culprit with his hand in the cookie jarā¦before someone else gets burned.
Angela: Technology. Yes? There’s always that seven second delay, please YouTube
Ben: Yeah, like, are we on, are we not on?
Angela: What is it? Bueller, Bueller testing 123. Well, I mean, I might as well play. Okay, we are live.
Ben: Yay!
Angela: And so, I was like, we might as well play with a little intro. I was just showing Ben, who is my amazing guest host. Why am I the only one who’s on screen right now?
Ben: I’m on screen.
Angela: Here we go. Okay. All of a sudden it was zoomed in on my forehead as I was looking down, I was like, I apologize. I don’t know what that was. I was going to say, because we have the fun little intros. I was so proud of them, I wanted to make sure I showed them off tonight and welcomed everyone properly to our book club. And so, we also have, as it just keeps going.
Ben: Just looping.
Angela: Yeah. Again with the seven second delay. So you got to make sure, if you’re looking over at streamyard versus the actual YouTube. So tonight we are doing āAnd then there were crumbsā by Eve Calder, and I am so excited to talk about this book with Ben.
Ben: Yes.
Angela: I love that you have your copy ready to go.
Ben: Iām ready.
Angela: I adore him. So I wanted to introduce you, and I did the screen grab because I wanted to make sure I gave you proper credit and people knew where to find you. So Ben is @botany and books across platforms, and I pulled it from his bio. He’s an avid reader and a proud member of the cozy crew, and I love the way you have that in your bio.
Ben is amazing, he talks about cozy mysteries, he’s a sweet human being, follow him, otherwise you’re missing out. So I wanted to make sure that I showed this and see, he even took a photo of our book of the month for his Instagram. I mean, he is on his game.
Ben: Thank you!
Angela: All the shout outs to Ben. So, January is also Ben month. So this is a new tradition, this is official.
Ben: I love this.
Angela: We did our book for January 2021, Ben was the host for January 2021, and it was one of my favourite books, it was killer Chardonnay, and that was probably one of my top reads of the year, and I’m talking about out of all the books that Iāve read, and so it was kicked off on a great note. I think you’re my good luck charm, because I feel like we’re doing that again for 2022 with this book.
Ben: Yeah, weāre just repeating it.
Angela: Yeah, he has to be our guests every new year.
Ben: Killer Chardonnay was one of my favourite books last year too, it was phenomenal.
Angela: I am so happy to have you back, and so I’m so excited to chat with you and everyone with this book and hopefully, okay. So hopefully, my YouTube channel is just showing a different angle. So hopefully if the angle is wrong, we can fix that. This is not accurate because as soon as I go over to YouTube, it’s like there I am and I’m going.
Ben: No I think, I see, I see. Yeah, weāre good.
Angela: Okay. There we go, because we have all these comments and thatās why I wanted to go over to YouTube. So I’m like, please work YouTube. So we have El, Renee. Oh my gosh, the whole gang is here.
Ben: Hello everyone.
Angela: This is so exciting. She posted her photo, you posted your photo on Instagram and she had hers, and she said in her comments, one of the things that you and I had just been talking about, the book does not have recipes at the end, and so, weāre all on the same wavelength.
Ben: Yeah. I looked in the back, I was like, where’s the recipes, but it’s a minor thing.
Angela: Oh my gosh. I love this comment. Let’s see if I can do this over the stream yard, if I can feature some of the comments, because you all are already talking about the book, this is so cool. So, we were talking about this earlier. So, what did you think of āAnd then there were crumbsā by Eve Calder? I’m kicking it over to you first.
Ben: To me first? Okay. Well, I enjoyed it so much, so much, like I was telling you before with a setting in Florida, I don’t see many cozies set in Florida, or I just haven’t read many cozies set in Florida, so it was a nice change of pace. And then yeah, I just enjoyed, you’re seeing Kate start her life off in a new space and meeting new people and all the warm welcoming people, her friend Maxi, who becomes their friend and oh, Oliver is probably my favourite character. I love Oliver.
Angela: I am so happy he is on the book cover and his dog.
Ben: Yeah, heās there.
Angela: Heās so cute. He is adorable. There’s something about cozy mysteries and just authors in general, when you have an animal, and this is not a Homeward bound situation where they have no dialogue, and you love them and they have a personality that is, I mean, I got to give her props for her writing with this book, I was very impressed.
Ben: Yeah, being able to give Oliver so much personality without saying anything really.
Angela: The ginger snaps.
Ben: Yeah, ginger snaps.
Angela: I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to think of cookies the same way again. So I even put through a Panera Bread order because I wanted to make sure I had cookies for tonight. I just, I had to do it. So we have the whole array of chocolate chip because it’s in the book so many times, we have the oatmeal raisin and we learned that one of the boys likes the oatmeal raisin without the raisins, which I fully support.
Ben: I agree with that, yes.
Angela: And then we have the regular macadamia one. I was looking for the almond one that was in the beginning of the book, but Panera didn’t have that, unfortunately. So I have to go looking for that one.
Ben: How about you? How did you like, and then there were crumbs?
Angela: I really enjoyed this book. Again, I truly think you are the good luck charm because this book, I was so happy. It checked all the boxes for me. We have the, we’re going to the new cozy town. We have the protagonist starting with a new new career of sorts, so we have the usual boxes, but then we also have the book club reference. We also have them referencing Agatha Christie in there and then there’s all these food references, she’s baking. And then I love the best friend Maxi.
Ben: Yes!
Angela: She was just a hoot. I loved her dialogue. Anytime sheās in a scene I’m going, I’m going to enjoy this.
Ben: Exactly. She walks out and I’m like, oh, this is a good scene, this is going to be good.
Angela: I’m like, I know you’re a fictional character and I’m a grown woman, but can you adopt me? I want to live in your house too.
Ben: We’ll all just be in the tent in the living room. It’s fine, it’s cool.
Angela: Yeah, I will seriously though. This is the difference, I think with cozy mysteries and the mentality with the sub genres. So if you pick up this book and you have never read a cozy mystery before you’re going, oh my goodness, you are staying above a shop, you’ve never been to, this is going to be a horrible book, like a horror novel, like Stephen King wrote this. Now you’re visiting this woman at her home, like you’re going to be a like a lifetime girl whoās held hostage, but in cozy mystery land, everything is perfect.
Ben: Yeah, itās fine.
Angela: Everything is great. I was so happy with her. I’m sucked in, I already looked it up. There are two more books in the series right now. I wrote down the titles because they’re really cute and I didn’t want to get them wrong. I think one of them was sugar and vice. And then what was the other one? As I had like all of the notes and be like, she’s at the back of the book. It’s that crazy? I mean, if there’s something in particular you all want to talk about tonight, please comment away. So the other one is a tale of two cookies.
Ben: A tale of two cookies.
Angela: So you had some great titles, and with the book too, Evan comes to town to win her back.
Ben: Oh yeah, I’ve been wondering. Yeah, thatās good.
Angela: And then in book three, we have a wedding and that goes awry, and so that seems like a different premise because she has a friend from her old life come back. So I am in it. I need to read books two and three. So, I’ve oh my gosh, there’s so many comments going on. Who else wanted coffee?
Ben: Same here, same here.
Angela: I love that she was Cuban. That made me so happy because again, I said this off camera before, but Iām going, I don’t really know too much about Florida, and I thought of Dexter and I know that they’re always talking about immigrants, and how there’s a lot of things in Florida in regards to the population with diversity and going, thank you for having a Catlett, you know, someone who represents and breaking through, and she’s an amazing character. Eve Calder, if youāre watching, I am making a plea, nothing can happen to maxi.
Ben: She needs to stay safe.
Angela: Her and Oliver, we protect them at all costs. I was like, we cannot. In book two, I read the abstract and so she has to clear Maxi of murder and I’m going okay.
Ben: Sheās okay.
Angela: She’s not the victim. She can never be.
Ben: Yeah, no.Yeah.
Angela: Oh my gosh. Welcome to your first book club.
Ben: Welcome.
Angela: Oh, my goodness. I’m losing all the, there’s so many comments and I’m going to hop over to, let’s see if I can go back and forth between us, because there are all these different things you can do with stream yard. So I wanted to make sure I referenced this, because I uploaded the image. So every comment tonight, translates to one giveaway entry. After the YouTube live stream, I go back through the comments and I convert each comment to giveaway entry. So more comments, more you have chance of winning and tonight’s giveaway is double shot death, which actually isn’t coming out until April 26th. So Emmeline Duncan is doing this amazing giveaway, so shout outs and credits to her.
So all of these comments that are popping up right now, you guys are entered to win. Just want to make sure I told you guys that at the beginning and I did not forget.
Ben: Going to plug also, the first book in that series is amazing. So definitely worth the read.
Angela: I probably should have thought of it before, we were talking about the Cuban coffee.
Ben: Coffee, it tied in.
Angela: Yeah. I love how Max has abandoned me now. As long as he’s quiet. So, my little guy, my little dog is abandoned, but everyone’s talking about the fur babies with Oliver. He was the town dog, at first I was really worried about him, I’m going, is he a stray? What’s going on?
Ben: Well, no, you see, she walks into town into the downtown and you see all the dog, the water bowls everywhere. So I was like, what is going on here with this? And then you meet Oliver and I’m like, okay, it makes sense. And then his little name tag had had the town. I’m like, oh.
Angela: I mean, again with Maxi, this woman is phenomenal. So she’s a small business owner. Sheās a florist, she owns her own shop. She is a mom of three, and plus she has her own mother living there, her husband, and then her kids always have their friends over, and then she’s also taking care of the little guy. She’s bringing him to the vet, making sure he gets his heartworm medicine, she gives him a bath. Again, we got to protect Maxi because as soon as she said that, all of my usual worries just went out the window and I was able to enjoy Oliver.
Ben: Because heās being taken cared of, yeah.
Angela: Exactly. I was so concerned before I’m going, is he eating out of the garbage, what’s going on with Oliver? Nope.
Ben: He just has free range over all of town, which is awesome. That’s so awesome.
Angela: I mean, they all just know him and I thought it was so cute how he was the one protecting her. He’s the one who alert.
Ben: The break-in yeah, he was alert, he was barking. They said that he never did that before, like he never barked like that. So it’s like amazing.
Angela: I kind of want to know if he stays with her now, like she’s his new home
Ben: I hope so.
Angela: Or if he’s still going to go about town. So I am curious about that.
Ben: Can maybe have best of both worlds, you know, he stays there, but then still kind of roams around town as he feels like.
Angela: I just saw this, raisins should not be in baked goods, in my humble opinion.
Ben: I agree.
Angela: I mean, there was a John Oliver segment one time, where he was talking about raisins in the oatmeal cookies, and he referred to Donald Trump as the raisins, and I was like, it was so funny the way he did it, it just reminded me of that, and he had all these raisins pour down from the ceiling and Iām like, I like raisins as a snack, but when you start throwing them in cookies and sweets, it’s different. Not the same.
Ben: Different.
Angela: Oh my goodness. Oh, you guys are commenting so much, I don’t want to miss anything. It’s always so much fun when I go back and convert them for the giveaways, because I will always see comments that I will not see during the live stream, because there’s just so many of them and I can’t keep up, and then you guys make my day. It’s just so much fun. I love that I get to go through the comments and you guys make sure you give me a reason to read them. You guys are amazing. I just want to give you a shout out. If I don’t notice it tonight, I will be noticing them tomorrow. Okay, so we also have to talk about our fake stalker.
Ben: I love the build-up, I kept on being like, who is this person stalking her?
Angela: The thing I think I appreciated the most. Again, I have all my notes written out, so I don’t know where it is in my notebook, but I know exactly one of the things I wanted to point out was everything in this book mattered and it contributed to the story or the plot or the characters in some way, and same thing with the stalker. She could have totally done one of those writer things where played it off as a joke, just a misunderstanding. I love that she tied it into it. I love that it was a PI who found her because of the ex-fiancĆ©, and then she uses it
Ben: Yeah, she ingeniously. It was like, hey, I need some help too, so letās pull you in here. Youāll still get me from the ex, but you know, I love it.
Angela: Sheās like, Iāll pose for the candid photos.
Ben: Yeah. I love that, I was like, it tied in, again which was nice. It wasn’t like a throwaway, like, oh, this person, and then you never hear from that person again.
Angela: Again, maybe this is because there are things like that in cozy mysteries where that’s what I was kind of expecting. So then when she didn’t do that, I was going, oh, thank you Eve Calder, you upped the writing. Again, I’m not writing things as I go, but I’m like, oh, this was a four star, you’re now a 5 star. It just ups the quality, because there are so many references where they are just sort of like, here’s a red herring that you never see again.
Ben: Yeah, you never hear from this person ever again. It’s nice that everyone’s tied in, it feels like a community itself, like really good.
Angela: Yeah. Oh my gosh. And so Sam, I just saw this comment. He was one of your favourite characters.
Ben: I love that he’s the character that’s usually like maybe a red herring, someone you don’t like necessarily, because heās a cranky old guy, but heās a real sweetheart, which I really loved and youāre rooting for him too, because you hear about his backstory and you’re like, only good things for him.
Angela: Oh my gosh, and I’m glad, I think that this came up. I don’t want to throw any books under the bus, but there was a book where the backstory wasn’t revealed until, I think a quarter of the way in for the character and I was going, oh finally, thank you for explaining that, because there was a detail that was alluded to, and I just didn’t understand, so I was really annoyed.
I was so glad that she was upfront about why it’s called the cookie house, and we’re not serving cookies, because if you did not explain that to me within the next like 10 pages, I was going to lose my mind.
Ben: Well, why is it called cookie house? Yeah.
Angela: I mean, it’s called the cookie house and he doesnāt cook any sweets, he does all baked goods. It’s all bread. And so, if she did not explain that near the beginning of the book, that would have been one of those things like, what’s going on?
Ben: Yeah. So it was nice to know like, okay, now you understand his kind of process, like what’s going on.
Angela: So I love that the characters were authentic and not caricature, except for the incompetent police officers.
Ben: You have to have an incompetent police officer. I mean then Kate wouldn’t have started sleuthing.
Angela: So, I mean, I love the fact that this guy just writes off a break and he was like, yeah, it was kids and then It wasn’t kids.
Ben: I mean, unless it’s happened before, but this is a small town, I donāt think.
Angela: Yeah. I mean, it was also more of an upscale community, in regards to her saying, again, our bad guy, our victim, Stuart Lord, there, he comes with the limo and she has to give the introduction or she has some of those, sort of prelude to it saying, oh, there are a lot of celebrities and rich people who visit the area, but they usually tone it down and him toning it up.You know, it’s very out of character, but you didn’t really get the sense that, you know. I was just pulling up this one, only Oliver owns Oliver
And so, oh my gosh, these guys are right on it. The small community with Oliver and just the community in general, I think that this book just totally touched my heart. I was so happy reading this book, even just something so simple as our leading lady, Kate, they buy her a bed so that she can be more comfortable living above the bakery, and they all contributed, you know, someone gave the duvet, someone else brought the mattress, someone else, you know, occupied her to get her out of the bakery so they can bring it in. So it was an actual town effort to give her this gift and then staying there with Oliver, they’re all taking care of him together.
Ben: Yeah. Their all Oliver fans, you know, take care of his needs. So it’s like, it’s really sweet.
Angela: I love that. I was so happy that the community, so I’m not going to spoil it right now, but I was so happy, like, oh my gosh, these are great characters. Nobody can be the bad guy, I was so upset. There was only one person I was iffy on and he kind of clarified things. It was the wine guy, Harper.
Ben: Oh yeah.
Angela: He had a question, mark, everyone else. I mean, we didn’t really get to meet the doctor or other members of the book club per se, but the characters we interacted with were so great, I’m like, you cannot be the killer. Okay, other people want to see if Oliver stays. Okay. Thank you. I was just sort of, I’m concerned. Max is my baby, if he liked someone else more than he liked me, I’d be devastated.
Okay. I just saw this one pop up, I love the title of this book. It makes me so happy, but I forget where it is. Which one were they reading in the book club? It was an Agatha Christie book, Iām forgetting off the top of my head, but they were reading an Agatha Christie novel and I was so excited. Oh, affair it styles or the curious, that’s the one, the style, curious affair of.
Ben: Yeah, I forget which one they were reading, oh the mysterious affair at styles, yeah.
Angela: Okay, I was so close. A little jumbled. I was going, okay, so maybe it would’ve been too on the nose if they are reading if then they were none, but it’s an Agatha Christie tribute, I’m going to go with it. It’s fine.
Ben: Love it. That would have been actually kind of funny.
Angela: If they’re reading, and then there were none?
Ben: Yeah. There were also Dante references in the beginning too, which I found really interesting.
Angela: Again, I almost think we need to have the check mark system of, oh, there’s coffee referenced. We have our cookie reference or baked good reference a dog reference, and so she had a reference for libraries too. This wasn’t even referenced really, it was like, the library is underfunded and she referenced, I mean, she had all of the cozy mystery hallmarks in here. She had the library reference, and then there was something else that was kind of mentioned along the way and Iām going ugh, my cozy mystery.
Ben: Yeah, itās in a bakery so we have baking, we have like cookie whispering magic little there, not really there.
Angela: I was so happy. I love the humour too. So Maxiās son who thought I have a sticker, it’s actually a bandage, just humour with the tone, it was just so light-hearted. I really appreciated that, and then all my notes about Oliver, I’m just keep going back.
Ben: All the notes about Oliver.
Angela: Oh, so one of the random notes, this is not meant to be jumping ahead, but, she broke off her engagement with the fiance, and so her new BFF, Maxie says, everyone in town is going to want to set you up, and then it’s Oliver who brings in the cute vet.
Ben: The cute vet who just moved from Denver, right?
Angela: Denver, yeah.
Ben: Whose name is Jack.
Angela: Which I kind funny, heās a matchmaker, he protects her, heās sleeping next to her as a her little cuddle friend, now heās setting her up on a date with a vet.
Ben: I do want to see how that goes, because I was telling you earlier, when we we are introduced to Gabe, I was like, oh, maybe a Knight in shining armour comes to save her, because for me, the car breaking down at an intersection, worst nightmare ever, and heās there to help her, save her, and then you kind of donāt hear from him again.
Angela: So, I actually liked the fact that she had just broken off the engagement and there wasnāt an instant, oh, this is my new person.
Ben: Yeah, yeah. She had space to come into her own, find her own place, I really enjoyed that.
Angela: I mean, we know what’s coming, we can figure out the cozy mystery hints with the love interest. I mean, I liked that we got a taste of it, and so it kind of satisfied me in that way, but sometimes they jump in almost too quickly.
There was one book where the husband had only been dead a year and all of a sudden two guys are interested in her and she was leading and Iām going, werenāt you just on the couch a minute ago?
Ben: Yeah, it was just nice for her to, she’s in a new town, so she’s enjoying herself. I mean, she’s trying to solve a murder, sheās making friends, sheās on her own, so it was not to have her weighted down with a romance also on top of it.
Angela: Oh yeah, I mean, thereās a lot going on with this book, again, why I was so impressed with the writing. Eve Calder, shout out, because weāre trying to save the bakery, weāre getting introduced to the new town. If you had thrown a love interest in there, the book would have been a lot thicker.
Ben: Yeah. So it was nice it was nice, Yeah, Oliver bringing in possible love interest for next book maybe so.
Angela: Okay. I was just looking, we have the fake stalker comments. Someone referenced it, he was just wearing the same khakis. I like how the, it was Ben. For a second, I almost forgot his name, he goes , do you just wear these everyday? Do you wash them?
Ben: I have five pairs, five pairs of the same one. I love that.
Angela: I actually for a minute was thinking Ben may have been the love interest, because we hear about him before we see him, but I also liked the fact that heās the police officer and sheās not trying to circumvent the police. So often theyāre like I know better, no you donāt, you just confronted a killer. Oh my gosh, everyone seems to be on the same page
Because we hear about him before we see him. Yeah. But I also liked the fact that he’s the police officer and she’s not trying to circumvent the police so often they’re like, I know putter, I’m going. No, you don’t. You just confronted a killer.
Oh, my gosh, everyone has, seems to be on the same page. I love that everyone. Yeah, everyone seems to be enjoying this book. I posted the comments, not comments but the questions on the social media accounts for the Instagram and Twitter and the average, I think was four or five stars.
Ben: Awesome.
Angela: Everyone seems to have been really positive, everyone’s saying how much they enjoyed the book. So I’m thinking I’m going, we started 2022 off right.
Ben: We did it right again, which is always great.
Angela: Okay, yes. We do have to go read the next book to find out about how the girls are doing. So we didnāt really talk about Sam, we sort of referenced him, but thereās s much going on. Heās in jail the whole time.
Ben: Yeah, heās in jail for most of the book.
Angela: I love how they made it his home there, they’re bringing him all sorts of stuff.
Ben: Yeah, everyone’s visiting him, everyone’s bringing him food.
Angela: They brought him magazines, and then I love how he actually got healthier staying in jail.
Ben: Yeah, that reference, when he comes out of the car, sheās like, he looks not so gone and he has a little pink on his cheeks. Iām like aww.
Angela: Itās almost as if he got a vacation by staying in jail.
Ben: Yeah, being in jail.
Angela: I donāt know if there are any other Parks and Recreation fans out there, but Iāve watched that show on Netflix on repeat for a while, and there’s an episode where Leslie Knope is arrested and she’s putting the Eagleton jail and they’re offering her scones and they’re like, oh, do you want this sort of pillow?I mean, that’s what I was thinking.
Ben: Thatās what youāre imagining, like a nice.
Angela: I mean, they were also letting them have all these visitors, talk about a nice jail.
Ben: Small town. I feel like itās just one couple cells.
Angela: Oh my goodness, I just saw this on pop-up. The kids were actually good, nice kids in this one. I think kids are really cute.
Ben: They’re adorable.
Angela: I loved the kid with the bandage. She bit me. I thought that was so funny. I mean, again, the whole, oh, pulling on the pink tails means he likes you and no.
Ben: Yeah, and Kate being like, yeah, I don’t think she’s good either. I know it Jessica, I don’t think she’s good or whatever her name was.
Angela: Yeah, sheās going no, I agree with you. Enjoy your sticker bandage.
Ben: Yeah.
Angela: Oh my goodness. I love how I just had like a random note on some of these pages. Okay. And then I find the mysterious affair at styles note, 28 pages later. So I also think one of the things I was noticing was that there was a little bit of irony for some of the situations. We have the cookie house that doesn’t serve cookies and then we have the wine owner who’s married to an alcoholic.
Ben: Oh yeah.
Angela: So, Harper was the only one I was kind of curious about because he was 20 years her senior but he was giving her a little bit of a flirtatious look. So what did you think a Harper?
Ben: I felt not threatened by Harper. I had some questions, I felt like was maybe a little bit of red herring, because you didn’t really know that much at first, but I felt bad for him. I’m like, yeah, your wife’s an alcoholic, she’s in rehab and now you’re like, what do I do with the business?
Angela: I was just pulling up the other comments. So, some people were suspicious. I love the reference of, I want the food at his house. That’s true. Yeah, the wine and cheese.
Ben: I mean, that’s why they have the meetings at his place, because it’s nice and good food.
Angela: They actually did the murder board.
Ben: The Agathe Christy murder board going on. Yeah.
Angela: Oh my gosh. The Agatha raisin ones make me so happy.
Ben: Like ghost. The picture of ghost. Yankee posted that one specifically.
Angela: I have a screenshot of that one, Iām pretty sure.
Ben: All the random objects that are supposed to be people that she uses too, I just loved that so much.
Angela: She had melons, where she was just naming the people. Then, someone was a random thing and so, Gemma goes, why is this one an apple or something? She’s like, well, I ran out of melons.
Ben: Did you see the Christmas one?
Angela: I know. Oh my gosh. I actually, because I’ve subscribed with Amazon to acorn TV and I need to go resubscribe because I want to watch it. I was so upset that I didn’t have access at first. I thought, oh my gosh.
Ben: You have to let me know how you enjoy it. It was fun.
Angela: Okay, because I want to watch that because I also know once I watch it, I get sucked in.
Ben: So youāve just been watching Agatha raisin, over.
Angela: I have seen those episodes more times than I should admit.
Ben: No, that’s good. It’s such a fun series.
Angela: I love how weāre talking about the murder boards. So, the reason why I’m going, I took a screenshot, a snapshot of that one was, I’ve actually been going back the last time I rewatched the series, because I rewatched it more than once.I was screenshotting the murder boards.
Ben: Yes.
Angela: So I actually have this blog post that is literally just all the images and screenshots. So, someday when I finally have the time I’ll finish and do the little captions of where each episode it comes from.
Ben: I cannot wait to see this.
Angela: Oh my gosh, I have a folder and it’s just called Agatha raisin, and then in that folder, there’s more folders.
Ben: Yeah.
Angela: Okay, so the murder was clever too. So, are we going to go into spoilers?
Ben: Do it, jump into it.
Angela: Okay, so I got a flashback to Psych, there was an episode where the husband killed the wife and the wife killed the husband. So, she electrocuted him and he poisoned her and everyone’s looking for a killer, but they killed each other. And so, I was so happy that all of my townspeople whom I loved were innocent.
Ben: Yes.
Angela: Because I was really worried their kindness was fake, and that was starting to get to me a little bit. I’m going, oh, please, please don’t think, you know? You’re giving her a good deal on the bike. It can’t be you. Oh, you’re being nice to her, it canāt be you.
Ben: Yeah, the bike, because her being British, it was all.
Angela: I was concerned, because I was falling in love with the characters and the community and I saw someone mentioned before how everyone was pitching in and they painted the house. The former cop, he had a couple of moments that were later explained where he already knew Sam was in trouble because the assistant had died from the same poisoning.So he knew why there was a sad face of Sam getting out soon, sad face. I’m going, oh, are we supposed to be suspicious of you? And so, and then we sort of pushed that under the rug because we understood the sad face, but I just, I love them all. I didn’t want them to be guilty.
Ben: Yeah, I didnāt want anyone to be guilty.
Angela: Yeah. I wouldāve been so sad if it was one of those, oh, I was so kind to you, but it was only because I was using you.
Ben: Not that it would be Maxi, but I would have been really devastated.
Angela: Oh my God. Yeah. If it was Maxi, I would’ve been sitting here steaming.
Ben: Not wanting to talk.
Angela: I mean, again, I always say I don’t talk about books unless I enjoy them. I mean, I don’t read book club books in advance, but luckily I love cozy mysteries, so I’m usually very happy, but if that was the case, I’ve been like one star.
Ben: But then, it shows how great she wrote her book. Weāre so in love with all these characters that we donāt want anyone to be the villain.
Angela: I was getting so sad because I loved the community, I didn’t want it torn apart.
Ben: And Max agrees, he agrees.
Angela: I think I appreciated the fact that, the murder was done in a way where it was exceptionally clever and it was the bad guy. So it was a bad guy killing a bad guy, and it was not a matter of, oh, a good person who lost their way or felt this, or who had a moment of weakness or something. I’m glad that everyone who was kind stayed kin.
Ben: Yeah, no one was like double crossing, no one was being sneaky. It was, yeah.
Angela: Oh see, even the gingerbread house. I loved the protagonist, everyone was so thoughtful. I kind of got teary-eyed, I got a little emotional with the gingerbread house. Okay, I made the note, because this came up at the beginning and again, I’m giving her extra credit gold star for this writing detail. So we had the red ginger flour, which Sam had done for his wife, and then for the gingerbread house at the end, she put the red ginger flour on the gingerbread house and I’m going, this is the cutest detail ever.
And it was just one of those. It was mentioned, I think it was twice because then the conversation Maxi and her noticing it when she moved in and then at the end with the gingerbread house. So it wasn’t as if, oh, I want to make sure you catch this, I want to make sure you catch this.
Ben: It was kind of thrown in there.
Angela: My heart. I’m trying to like catch up on the comments. Yes. Okay. This book, totally, I want to say she knows the cozy mystery sub genre. She knows what we want and she gave it to us.
Ben: Yeah. She put it in a book for us.
Angela: Oh, my goodness. I’m scrolling down. Okay, everyone else is going to watch Agatha raisin too. I actually saw it and I was tempted to buy it on Amazon, but I’m going, I saw that Queens and mystery has a season two.
Ben: Yes, I haven’t watched that one yet. I haven’t watched that one yet.
Angela: Thatās why Iām resubscribing to acorn TV. I can’t not watch that and Agatha raisin and again we know, once I watch Agatha raisin I’m falling down with the cozy mystery acorn TV.
Ben: You’re doing research for all the other murder boards, so it’s totally justified.
Angela: I can’t do share screen the stream yard. Otherwise I would show you guys the draft I have. It’s hysterical because I actually started to make, it looks like an infographic of them almost like we got this one, we’re going to top 10.
Ben: Iāll bet.
Angela: Okay. So people are understanding my references, this is why everyone’s on the same sleuther network, on the same idea. Okay. Yes. Queens and mystery is amazing. That show was so well done and they left it with a cliff-hanger. So again, once I start watching season two, I’m watching season two, thatās my day.
Ben: That’s all the whole day.
Angela: Oh yeah, if we’re going to be watching, this is why. I know how I am, so that’s the same thing with books that are long series, I’m going, there’s 12 books in that series. If I look book one, I’m in it.
Ben: I’m so bad, I’ll start a series, and then it takes me a while to get back into it, Iām so bad at it.
Angela: I love how just random notes about Maxi just pop up, like instant BFF.
Ben: Yeah. That’s what I thought when Maxie was introduced, I was like, oh, she’s a florist and she’s right next door. I was like, yes, this is awesome.
Angela: So, this is just a random note. Again, they just instantly are just Sherlock and Watson, Sex and the city I was going to, well, I mean, Samantha’s gone and now it’s this weird show. [inaudible 35:53-35:55]. Just imagine, theyāve known each other their whole lives, they just click, but her husband is in the know, Peter. He tells Maxi what’s going on and Maxi says, oh, Peter told me not to tell. So, you can’t tell, he tells her, you can’t tell anyone. I just love the way she trusts her instantly with okay, he told me not to tell, so you canāt tell anybody, but I can tell you. Weāve got an exception to the rule here.
Ben: I just love like the first, she goes for dinner and like itās kind of like, oh, and then I’m seeing it here at the house after Sam’s taken away, it’s just like no questions, sheās all no youāre staying here, youāre not going to a resort, no.
Angela: It was so cute. Again, if this was a lifetime movie, sheād be locked in the shed in the backyard, but in cozy mystery land, sheās got star wars. What was it?
Ben: The Millennium Falcon alarm clock. She has a batman toothbrush, which is awesome.
Angela: The details made me so happy. The kids were adorable too. They were having the best time with her there because they got all the cookies and, I actually listened to the audio book, so I read it and then I listened to the audio because as I’m folding laundry, you know, I want to make sure I’m all prepped for tonight, I don’t forget someone’s name and so, the audio book narrator would do the voices for the kids and the way she made some of the lines come alive and she goes, ācooookiesā. The way she just yelled it, I was so happy.
Ben: Commitment, I love that.
Angela: I don’t know if anyone else listened to the audio book, but the way she did the kids’ voices, it went from just being one of those lines that you read, you know, it’s, it’s cute, you take it in, to oh my gosh, this is amazing. It just ups the reading level. I was going to say, I don’t know the narrator’s name off the top of my head, but she did a great job with that.
Oh yeah. She’s baking at the house. She goes, what was the, there was a line. I’m, I’m totally paraphrasing because I can’t remember it in its entirety, but Kate says something to her along the lines of, oh, I guess I’m going to have to use your kitchen, and Maxi goes, oh, that’s so bad. All those great smells are going to be in my house. Her sarcasm jumped off the page, she was so sassy. Like if youāve watched Golden girls before, she had some of those Dorothy moments, where I was like oh my gosh, thatās hysterical.
Okay, other people did listen to the audio books, okay. So I’m not alone in enjoying this. I was very impressed with the way that she did the different voices and she did the Cuban accent. I was going to say, I think she did a good job with it. I mean, I can’t do accents, so I’m always impressed
Ben: Same here.
Angela: Because she had to do Cuban, English.
Ben: Yeah, she had English accents, yeah.
Angela: Yeah. So, I mean, they must have really had to do some auditions for that one. Oh, we also have landlines again.
Ben: We do, we do, which is always fun.
Angela: She goes to call 911, and there’s no signal. I mean, that was the poor little thing. If someone breaks in and you want to call 911, you should be able to call 911, Oliver has to stay to protect her now.
Ben: No, I don’t have, Iām looking around, I don’t have a landline either.
Angela: That was one of my things. When I first moved to DC on my own and I’m going okay, at least if Iām in the apartment building and I scream, someone will hear me.
Ben: Yeah, I share a wall. So hopefully my neighbours will hear me.
Angela: But she was there by herself and she grabs a bottle of Windex.
Ben: Yes, the giant bottle of Windex. Iām just picturing her just walking, carrying that bottle.
Angela: I was so, again, the details with this book made me so happy because this was relatable. She’s going, oh, if I can just blind him. I mean, again, those are the things that take it from oh, we’re going to enjoy the read. It’s guaranteed for us, or it’d be like five star gold stars, extra. The Windex bottle, just such a random detail, but it made my heart happy.
Ben: Yeah, and also, we start off with my worst nightmare. So, I’m already captivated. Iām like okay, car breaks down, this is going to be good.
Angela: Again, if this were a Stephen King book, very different outcomes.
Ben: Well also, the people honking, impatient, you just felt so bad for Kate in that moment.
Angela: I thought that it was so nice that he, again, sometimes we have the protagonist, where they are the unlikable heroin, or you like them, but you don’t love them. I loved her and right from the get-go, because I really appreciated the fact that here’s this guy who’s clearly got the towing capabilities and she says, I can’t afford to pay you right now, I’m not entitled, I’m not expecting you to help me, if you want to work something out. I just love that she was upfront with him and didn’t expect him to help just because he saw or just because, oh, you know, I need help, help me. I thought she was so upfront and then he just sort of waved it off. like yeah, give me some sourdough bread, weāll be even.
Ben: Yeah, she was very, not approachable, I forgot what the word is, but you connect really well with her, as a person, which I really appreciated. She was grounded, I guess.
Angela: Yeah, grounded. She was thoughtful. I mean, she made the gingerbread house, that was all her.
Ben: So sweet, such a sweet thing to do.
Angela: Again, I was getting emotional at the end with, because I do the thing where if I love a notebook with a cover on it, I will not write in that notebook. That notebook is now put aside, I just leave it there and so, same thing with the gingerbread house. I probably would’ve just put it aside and she goes, no it’s cookies, they’re meant to be in your belly, and the way she said it just gave me a little, teary-eyed going, oh, that’s so cute.
Again, I get emotional talking about that, but the way it was written was just made me like Kate, she was a good protagonist. Oh my gosh, we got Francine Junior junior
Ben: Francine, oh.
Angela: Sam, oh Sam.
Ben: That was such a touching moment too.
Angela: The back stories, I’m kind of curious how she came up with all of them because she was able to interweave them seamlessly because we ended up finding out Sam gave the sourdough to another couple, because I think the guy said it was him and his husband had started the restaurant and they were like, yeah, you know, if you need a little bit weāll send it to you, weāll do it free of charge, overnight delivery.
Ben: Yeah, it was so sweet, it was like aww
Angela: All the characters were so amazing, this is why none of them couldāve been the killer. I was very happy with the outcome.
Ben: Me too, I was reading and I was like, oh yeah, well hopefully none of these people.
Angela: So did you solve it?
Ben: No, I feel like I never solve it, so it’s okay. I like to be surprised.
Angela: I was concerned about this one, because again, I was loving these characters. I didn’t want anyone to be guilty. There is some characters where I’m like, oh, I don’t like you, if you get killed off in the next book, fine. I’m not going to miss you.
Ben: Which is funny because Sam is the character, usually, I wouldn’t care for him, we learned about him, but he’s the old cranky guy, youāre like, oh, whatever, but he’s so sweet that I’m like, okay. Yeah, I’m concerned.
Angela: At the very end when he saw what they did with the cookie house, with the painting and the fresh flowers
Ben: Yeah, he comes out of the car and
Angela: Got all emotional, he had to put the sunglasses on so nobody could see his teary eyes.
Ben: Exactly.
Angela: He wanted to make sure that he preserved that curmudgeon.
Ben: Yeah, heās like, people can’t see me emotional.
Angela: Yeah. I just thought that was so cute, and he had to take a minute. They were all expecting him to get out of the car and he just stayed in the car.
Ben: It was so drawn out. I was like, oh gosh.
Angela: Oh, random note. I appreciated the fact that the assistant who was killed off earlier in the book, before we get into the story, I’m glad that we actually included her death because some of the time in mysteries, you’re like, oh, and this person died and youāre going, okay, like no justice, no funeral what’s going on?
Ben: And it goes back to the point, Eve tied everything really well with this book. Nothing’s really a throwaway thing, it’ll come back, which I appreciate.
Angela: I was just looking at the comments. Okay, so made sense it wasn’t some random person. There was a book we read one time for the book club, and again, I’m not throwing any book under the bus, but it was an accidental death and because it was a nice character and he goes, oh, I didn’t mean to stab him. And I’m going, I can’t play the who done it game if it was an accident.
Ben: Yeah.
Angela: And so I’m glad that the bad guy was the bad guy. So would you like to explain what I mean by that?
Ben: Well, so our dear friend Stewart Lord, Lord Stewart Lord. So he was a real estate developer and he really wanted to buy up all of a coral K Florida, and so he got a survey report of the whole town and had, it was fudged up. So it made it seem like there was a sinkhole and there wasn’t a sinkhole, and so he was trying to buy up places of real estate so he could buy the whole town up, and his assistant is the unfortunate person who died before Kate came into town and he killed her.
Angela: Yep.
Ben: So he poisoned her. So he was the person that broke into when the first the break-in happened, and he had switched the rum with the poison rum, hoping that Sam would drink it because everyone was talking about how much he was drinking, and it was made before the cinnamon rolls. It was a secret ingredient, and he bought those cinnamon rolls, unknowingly.
Angela: He killed himself.
Ben: He killed themselves.
Angela: I was like, karma.
Ben: It was really perfect. I’m sad that the assistantās diabetic, but it was really perfect the way that he got what came to him.
Angela: Again, with killer Chardonnay, I’m going to reference it because our protagonist, she calls herself out for this. She wasn’t sure about one of the characters and he made her food, and she ate it and going, oh my gosh, our victim was killed by the poison and I just ate the food of the guy Iām suspecting.
So this guy poisons the rum in a bakery and then eat some of the baked goods. If you have poison somewhere, would you actually eat something?
Ben: I wouldn’t eat anywhere. I would’ve been like, ugh, we’re good, but he was being rude because Sam wasn’t throwing the back, because Sam was busy all day, he was tired. He was like oh, I made these for us to eat, which thankfully they didnāt.
Angela: Exactly. I think again, the irony of the situation, I think we got to give her some props to the irony which was in this book. He wanted to provoke him, he wanted to get him upset. He wanted to make him want to go drink, he wanted to infuriate him and instead Sam didn’t want to get upset, and so he goes, okay, fine, I’m going to get rid of you and Iām going to give you the most recent thing I baked, which happens to be the poisoned rum. If he hadn’t gone in and been the instigator, he would have eaten the poison.
Ben: Yeah, Sam and Kate would have eaten those and had died.
Angela: And then in the book would have been over very quickly, it would have been a little snippet, but because he had to go the extra mile and be the bad guy, it’s his own fault. I mean, of course it was going to be his fault, with the whole poisoning, but I thought that was great.
Ben: It was, it was perfect.
Angela: Oh, my goodness. And then again, with the writing, giving her props, Oliver is so helpful. This little guy with his peanut butter toy, I thought it was so cute how, she did this thing where I felt as if I had sort of a, I could picture it in my head as if I was watching a movie or watching a TV episode. I could picture Sean making the connection on psych, I could picture monk having the realization. So we have the moments of he’s playing with a toy, trying to get something out of it, and she looks down at the charm bracelet and goes, oh, maybe I can get something out of the charms, and then same thing at the end, where Maxi refreshed the cup of coffee
Ben: Yeah, yeah.
Angela: And she didnāt realize it, and she goes, oh, why is this hot? This has been sitting here, and then she has the realization epiphany moment. I love things like that, that is the writing, you know, elevating it, I love things like that. It gave me the TV show, monk, psych, Agatha raisin vibes where everything fits into place.
Ben: You see her physically connecting the dots, which is awesome.
Angela: Comeuppance, that’s a good way of saying.
Ben: Oh Lord, Stewart Lord.
Angela: Yeah. I mean, I felt bad for the assistant because this woman, this almost gives you that whole cake got out just in time sort of vibe of, okay, this is why you should live your dream and shouldn’t stay in a job you dislike. I mean, maybe thatās the moral of that story, but she had just realized she wanted to live there, she wanted to do the right thing.
Ben: She appreciated the whole town and she didn’t want to see it levelled off forever, whatever he was doing could do with it. It was sad.
Angela: I just realized yeah, I was going, he made the cinnamon rolls. I mean, that’s one of those, I’m glad I didn’t make a profit on those.
Ben: I’m glad they didn’t need them. I was like oh, cinnamon rolls sounds good.
Angela: I know, right. If that had been one of the recipes, if there was actually recipes in the back, I mean, I could have skipped
Ben: I would have laughed and made them.
Angela: That would have been hysterical. Again, weāre going for irony here. I also liked the fact that she recognized this scent, I thought that was a unique way of identifying the break-in, usually it’s oh, we’re trying to match the colour of the hair, oh, we’re trying to get a DNA sample. I just thought that was again, one of those, she was doing the senses of, we heard the shoe.
Ben: Yeah, you heard the shoe.
Angela: You smelled the cologne, the cigarette smoke.
Ben: Yeah.
Angela: Eve Calder did a good job. Iām going to say, sheās joined us in a previous cozy corner chat, I’m going to have to ask her back for another one, and I’m going to have to write out all my questions after having read the book and go, like, how did you learn to write? How many practices do you do?
Give me examples. How did they? Because I mean, this book was just so well done.
Ben: Yeah, everything tied up so well, it’s just amazing.
Again: Okay. So I’m like, there’s so many things in this one. You guys have questions or comments about characters or something?
Ben: Yeah, please let us know.
Angela: Yeah, I’m just skipping around now with the notes, because I have randomly, like I liked the pacing, which we already talked about.
Ben: I appreciated the cookie whisper moment, which was, I like a little bit of fantasy in mine. So having that little Herb Gaben element was amazing, it was a little touch, which was really nice.
Angela: Did you say who your favourite character was or youāre going Maxi?
Ben: Itās going Maxi, itās between Maxi and Oliver, I can’t pick between both of them, I love them so much.
Angela: I’m kind of curious if we’re going to have a cat in books two or three, because I love, because this is something that I would say about Max, my first baby, I’ll be like, okay, I got to do grocery shopping for Max. I mean, yes, I need milk and bread and eggs in the house too, but I have to go grocery shopping and make sure he has food. So I loved it when our PI was going, yeah. I need dog food for my beagle.
Ben: Oh, and Manny and his dog. What was the beagle’s name? Oh, I didn’t write it down.
Angela: John Quincy.
Ben: John Quincy, yeah. It was so cute, I was like, and he was showing the photos to her. She goes look.
Angela: Thatās what I do. If you didn’t know Max was a dog and you heard me talking about him, you would assume I gave birth to him, you would just assume naturally, because I do the same thing too. He’s the background on my phone.
Ben: Yeah, and itās cute little touches like that. Iām glad that Manny became a character.
Angela: I also loved how he goes, I need my pockets, I need to put things in there.
Ben: He had five pairs he wasn’t wearing the same one.
Angela: I mean, so what did you think about the ex-fiancƩ hiring a PI?
Ben: I feel like if he was cheating or whatever, and she broke it off, I feel like he would be like, okay, whatever, he wouldāve moved on. I don’t know why he was really so set on keeping tabs on her, I guess maybe he came to the realization that she was the one, but he could have easily gone down there too, because he doesn’t have a job.
Angela: That was the other thing, Maxi called him out for it. It’s one thing if you have money, but it’s another, if you have money and don’t do anything, just like you have to do something.
Ben: Yeah. I’m like he could have, but I mean, you said the second book. So I mean, we will find out what happens there.
Angela: He could’ve been a volunteer, he could have been an organizer. He couldāve worked just because he loved his job. I mean, what does Evan Thorpe doing with his life? I have questions.
Ben: He could have gone to down there and have seen first-hand.
Angela: Okay. I see other people are talking about the beagle. I just thought of this, this isn’t a note, but he was the cadaver dog and he picked up two bodies on his first day, that’s so coming up in a future book, that has to, he has to find a future body. If he doesn’t, I’ll be so disappointed.
Ben: Will Manny move in, and then Quincy and Oliver can be best friends? I hope so.
Angela: That would be adorable, they would be their own little dog pack.
Ben: Yeah, yeah.
Angela: I mean, Oliver can have the leash in his mouth and be walking himself. I mean, I loved it when he came over with the leash and Kate was like, does he have a leash? Where did this come from?
Ben: I’m just thinking where Maxie was in the garden, he’s like running around her and then like, she was like, oh, is he helping digging? And she’s like, the only thing is, he can’t stop once he starts digging, which I’m like aww.
Angela: Okay I’m seeing the comments come back about the ex hired, itās creepy, crazy ex.
Ben: Yeah.
Angela: Yeah. That was a little much for me. Ouu this one, heās used to having other people do things for him, that’s very true.
Ben: True. True. So it would make sense to have a PI.
Angela: I mean, I’m going to go with the, we only met him in one scene and it doesn’t take much to outdo this guy, Iām going with that. The bar is really low right now.
Ben: The bar is really low.
Angela: Itās not hard to beat Evan in my mind right now.
Ben: No.
Angela: He cheated, heās hiring someone to stalk her.
Ben: No, weāre good, weāre good.
Angela: Because if I saw a guy following me, I would not have been as calm as her.
Ben: No, she was, I think maybe she just thought like, you know, maybe it was all in her head, but I would have been not as calm as her.
Angela: Again, she actually stayed in a new location by herself. I mean, I would have had something more than the Windex.
Ben: I mean, it was a big Windex .
Angela: Yeah, it was a huge bottle of Windex. You just want to make sure that it works as the mace and actually does blind him.
Ben: Just switch the top off very quickly and just throw it.
Angela: But I mean, I also, again, with me appreciating Kate as a character, I liked that she thought about Maxi and her children and said to her, there’s this guy following me and I don’t want to put you in danger, and she told her that and she was upfront.
Ben: She was upfront.
Angela: I appreciated that.
Ben: Yeah. It just really grounded her as a character, and I totally would just grab whatever if I heard a noise, just grab whatever, and then I’m like, I have a Salsa bottle, I don’t know what weāre going to do with this, but we’re committed to it.
Angela: I just got this flashback, itās been so long since I read the books, but it was a series of unfortunate events, and then I think it was probably one of the earlier books, three or four, one of the guardians, because they went through 20 million of them in that series. One of them would put soup cans behind the door, so that if a burglar came in, they would knock over the soup cans and she would be alert thereās a burglar because they knocked over the soup cans, for some reason I thought of that with this book. I donāt why.
Ben: Itās the process, itās there, it makes sense.
Angela: Oh my gosh, this is another great reference. The dad in my big fat Greek word, that is so true.
Ben: The Windex.
Angela: Itās for everything. Oh, interesting, the ex-girlfriendās involved in real estate, the one he cheated with.
Ben: That makes sense.
Angela: That’s a good guest too. I mean, again, she’s the cheater, she knew he was engaged. With cozy mysteries, itās got to be a bad person, and I was loving these people too much. I wouldāve been devastated if it was one of them, I couldnāt have dealt with it.
Ben: Yeah.
Angela: Yeah, I mean we liked the stalker. How often does that happen in a cozy mystery? We ended up liking the guy, creeping you out.
Ben: I’m like, I want more money. So it’s like, come on, bring him in.
Angela: Yeah. If he shows up in books, two and three, I’m not going to mind. I mean, I don’t want him killed off though.
Ben: No.
Angela: Iāll be kind of sad if he was a victim.
Ben: Poor Quincy, no, we canāt do that.
Angela: Heās been through enough. Heās found bodies, heās traumatized, we have to protect him. I think those are all my notes as I like just flip through. There’s so much to unpack, to talk about. I mean, it was so detail oriented and just all of the lines and the way it was written, I was a happy little cozy mystery reader, I really was.
Ben: Same.
Angela: I mean, sometimes I’ll be doing a book club read and I’m going, oh, it’s not a bad book, but it’s not my book. I have those things sometimes where, oh, this is a good book, but this isnāt one I would choose myself or, oh, this isn’t my trope or this isn’t my character. This book just really resonated with me as a reader, I was really happy that this book one. I don’t think it was, I want to say January was our second chance poll, of all of the books that came in second or untied and then lost in the runoff, and so this book was on the list and people had wanted to read it, and so it won the second chance poll and so I had put this book aside and I hadn’t read this before, so I’m going, you guys have really good taste, whoever voted for this book, you guys did a good job. Credit to you, it is deserved. I’m going, you guys have good taste, thank you.
Ben: I was kind of into reading some, so it’s great to be reading. I’m like excited now, I’m like, now I’m going to read more and now I’m going to request the next book from the library. It hit all the spots, all the checkpoints.
Angela: I mean, exactly. This is the type of book that gets you excited about cozy mystery or gets you excited about reading, and let’s be real, it hasn’t been easy these couple of years and this book made me laugh, it made me smile. It had the light-hearted tone that cozies are meant to have. So I was really happy that this was how we’re kicking off 2022.
Ben: Same here, and Iām excited. Now I have another book too, for all my friends who don’t read cozies, because I’m always hesitant for anything too fantasy or too each, this is a great approachable book, along with killer Chardonnay too. Those have been my request ones I’ve been telling friends.
Angela: I haven’t checked the Google form after 12 days of cozies, but for 12 days of cozies, I had everyone’s sleuther profile on the website, and it was so funny because everyone’s favorite cozy or recommended cozy, killer Chardonnay was referenced so many times in those bios.
Ben: I’m glad to hear that.
Angela: That was the most referenced cozy mystery. I was so happy and impressed. I’m going, I agree with you. It was just so cute because everyone was referencing it as a book they would recommend or a book they themselves enjoy or that’s the book that got them into cozies, so every other bio, there was a killer Chardonnay reference.
Ben: You love to see it.
Angela: That was actually how I broke them up at one point, because it was just like killer Chardonnay, killer Chardonnay. Its not alphabetical in case you’re wondering, so I was able to move it around. Let me do that, give it a little bit of a space, but yeah, killer’s Chardonnay is definitely a good recommendation. If you guys haven’t read that, Kate Lasing, very, very talented. I think she’s actually, okay, this one is St. Martins.
Sheās in Berkeley. I was going to say if they were in the same publishing house, that would have been very, very cute, that would have been cute, but I have the list here. So, we have our check mark for this one. February is cake and punishment. March is the Cracked Spine, and then April is on a borrowed crime. So you have three more books that are currently selected and please visit the Twitter because we currently have the poll going on for the May read.
Ben: Yes.
Angela: This is where we stood as of couple of hours ago. So the votes may have changed, the numbers. There’s always a book that can come back from behind.
Ben: Yeah, itās never too early to call it.
Angela: Thereās no guarantee. So if you want it to be the secret and scone, oh my gosh. Secret book and scone society, vote for it.
Ben: Itās a mouthful.
Angela: Yeah.You also have to love how they cap the polls, and so, I couldn’t do spaces or have the word and.
Ben: Oh, thatās why.
Angela: And so, yeah, there was literally no characters left so I could barely get it in. I almost had to get rid of this,
Ben: The first comma? Yeah.
Angela: I almost had to get rid of it. I was so excited I lost the second one too, I couldnāt do it, it was devastating. So, whichever book, as Iām pulling it back up again, āTrouble on the Booksā āTo Killa Mocking Girlā or āThe bodies in the libraryā vote for whichever one you want, because thatās coming up.
I asked you all on Instagram and Twitter, if you wanted to continue to do the quarterly ones, or if you wanted to just do the whole year TBR, I was kind of curious about that. So if you guys have any thoughts or you want to cap it at August or something, I was just curious because I’m a planner, and I was thinking about how some people mentioned the long-term library releases and being on the wishlist and waiting lists. So that’s why I was curious about that, and plus, if all of the books are planned, there shouldn’t be any overlap with other things. So I was kind of curious if you guys had any opinions or requests in that regard?
Ben: I appreciate it, being able to plan it out and being able to request, because I use the library a lot. So being able to request it or if I see there’s a long wait, I’m like, okay, I’m going to request it now, in a couple of months, it’ll be there. So I really appreciate being able to plan out my whole year, so that’s my 2 cents.
Angela: I am a planner, you guys have seen that, you’ve witnessed that. So I would very much probably lean towards let’s vote on them, because this way too, there’s no rushing when it comes to the votes.
Ben: Yeah.
Angela: What I was more concerned about too, because I’ve been keeping track of your recommendations and I have the notebook. I actually had to start getting sticky notes, and so now there’s sticky notes. I’m going to have to get a new notebook very, very soon and transfer all the pages. Luckily, the notebook I have has the three hole punches, so Iāll make it a binder at some point, just go for it full on out.
Yeah, I’ve been keeping track of everything and I want to make sure that everyone’s recommendations and all the polls get the proper credit that they deserve, that there’s no rushing or overlap or trying to get in under the wire because I leave the polls live for the full week. So I leave them. That’s the longest you can do for a Twitter poll, seven days. leave it open for the full seven days, and so I don’t want anyone to miss it. That’s one of my biggest things, if there’s a poll, I want to make sure you know, it’s there. So that’s why I was also thinking, putting them all out in advance and this way you can check in every so often and be like, oh yes, there’s this poll, instead of being like, I missed it. Oh my gosh, I didn’t know that this existed.
Ben: Yeah, yeah.
Angela: So once you know that it’s coming, you’ll be aware and be like oh yeah, I have seven days to check in or I have a couple of weeks now. So that was also on my mind when I was thinking of putting it for the whole year.
Ben: It’s so considerate for everyone too, because everyone has busy lives, they’re doing things, and so itās really thoughtful to be able to plan ahead.
Angela: Okay, so people are saying. You guys are making me happy, this might be a good idea.
Ben: Yeah.
Angela: Okay, that makes me feel better. Okay, so a lot of, this is why we like cozies. Theyāre the library cozies, I forget which month it is, but one of the months that, again, I looked through it before I brought it up. I have all the categories and I put them aside for the holidays and the seasons. So, one of the categories is library cozies, so Iām referencing libraries. I have a category for library cozies, it was meant to be.
Ben: We love a good library cozy, so yeah.
Angela: Okay. So it seems as if the majority like the idea for the whole year, I can do that. Plus two, that gives me a reason to post. Another thing I get to post about on Instagram and Twitter. I went to my local cafe that does the latte art, and I have all my new photos. I’m excited. I have new cozy mystery photos to share, so things to actually post in the caption. I’m always posting in the captions, but you know what I mean. I get to actually be like, yes, this is whatās going on. Sometimes it’s just what I’m reading or books that I’ve gotten, but I have more things to share. Okay. other people are planners too.
Ben: Yeah.
Angela: Okay. If there’s something else, I don’t want to miss any comments. Okay, everyone’s, I will do the full year that is what we will do. We have a consensus. So, was there anything else about the book or any other questions as I hold it upside down? If there’s any other comments about the book, if you have something you want to talk about characters, schemes, dialogue. If there’s a book club question, or Max is just making noise this point.
Ben: Aww Max has something to say too.
Angela: Heās been so good, I donāt think Iāve had to hold him up so far.You guys haven’t seen the little fluffy face. He’s overdue for his grooming, so it looks like he has bangs and I keep pushing them aside and so he looks as if he’s bigger than he is. When you go to pat him, the little fluff, it goes down.
Ben: Itās just all hair.
Angela: Itās all fluff. I mean, he’s five pounds, right now he looks fuller. I gave him a bath a couple days ago, oh my gosh, he looked like a little white rat. It was hysterical.
Ben: Yeah. I made a reference about foodies because Kate had mentioned that coral K has been on her radar for awhile because of the food scene from our foodie friends. I thought that was interesting too.
Angela: Which one?
Ben: It was on page 125. She said that she’s been hearing about coral K, kind of the reason why she had picked coral K.
Angela: Yes.
Ben: Yeah. So she had been hearing about it from friends for years. I’m like, oh, that’s cute, it was meant to be.
Angela: So I love the fact that she’s having the conversation with the new BFF and Maxi asks her, if you could be anywhere, where would you want to be? And she goes here, this is really where I want to be.
Ben: She was like, nah, not Paris? She was like nope, this is where I want to be.
Angela: In Paris or Rome, here actually. For real? Kate nodded vigorously. Itās so cute, my little reading heart.
I was looking down at one of the comments and so yes, Vivian Chang, she has a book out today, I believe. Oh my gosh, one of our 12 days of cozies author, whose name Iām blanking on right now, she has a book. I retweeted it to the, retweeted obviously, tweet, twitter. So I retweeted it to the Twitter page. So I know that there were a few books that came out today. Today’s been a pretty busy day for cozy mysteries all around. I was going to say the last Tuesday of the month, it was meant to be, books coming out, things going on. I like this one, you wouldnāt mind living there. I donāt think I would mind
Ben: It would be kind of nice.
Angela: I mean, it would be a very cute little cozy mystery community of readers and just happiness.
Ben: Yeah, and no one was the killer. So it wouldn’t had been, no, I mean, none of the nice people were the killer.
Angela: Right.
Ben: So I appreciate that.
Angela: So whoever dies, you canāt miss them, youāre not gonna mourn over them in case they die, you get to move on and fall in love with the other characters. So it was a bad guy who died, and it was the bad guy who killed himself. .It wasn’t meant to be suicide, but it was he still murdered himself somehow. I don’t know how to categorize that.
Ben:Oh, juist some good justice there.
Angela: But I was so happy that my characters, I get to still enjoy them. So, if they’re one of the bad people in book two, I’m going to be very, very sad. Book three, it seems as if there’s going to be outsiders coming in. Itt seems as if there’s a film crew and all this other stuff going on, but that happens in cozy mysteries. Agatha raisin, I was talking about that show before, she has characters come in all the time. She’s the party planner, so she’s going to different [inaudible 12:06], so Iām totally fine with that. If they want to have an outside killer, fine by me.
Ben: As long as Maxi and Oliver are fine, we’re good.
Angela: They must be protected at all costs. I just got this picture of, oh my gosh. I’m I know itās Gollum when he’s done this[inaudible 1:12:25]
Ben: Is that you, with them?
Angela: Yeah Oliver, heās precious. Okay, youāve read books two and three, okay.
Ben: Okay good, glad to hear it.
Angela: I know we already have the buddy read going for hashtag Sherlock hamsters for the library lovers mystery series, but I am game for books two and three, because I really enjoyed this one.
Ben: I am going to read them next. It’s going to happen.
Angela: And if there’s any other, I’m just looking down. If there are any other questions, comments, I was looking down. because I made the overlays. So I’m going, if there’s something else that I was going to reference, I think that we touched on them, also follow Ben, we have his little insert. So I’m just going to give you the shout out too, and just thank you for joining me tonight. I am so happy that I get to chat with you. He is just a bright little ray of sunshine and I adore him, and he has really good taste in cozy mysteries, if you havenāt noticed.
Ben: I appreciate you having me on, I remember the first time, I was so nervous and then we talked for a couple of minutes before it happens and I was like, I’m at ease, this is like a friend Iāve known forever, it just feels so natural and I donāt feel so nervous. I just appreciate that.
Angela: It’s so funny with the way technology is. We haven’t met in real life, but when I finally do meet you Sunday or eventually whenever that happens, with travelling or whatever, or we’re at a cozy mystery event, I’m going to be running up to you and giving youa hug.
Ben: Yes.
Angela: We know that is
Ben:Same here, weāre going to be like ahh.
Angela: I’m also going to have to buy you a Dorothy Funko pop or something. I mean, I sent you, I think the Jessica Fletcher one.
Ben: Yes, which I appreciate so much.
Angela: Weāre going to have to have a little funko pop collection, but I’m so happy that you joined me tonight.
Ben: Thank you!
Angela: Because every year, because every year is going to be, January is Ben’s month.
Ben: I’m just going to mark it, it’s going to be done.
Angela: I’m not kidding you, you are January. I think Colleen dressed up for October in her little witch’s costume. So I’m going okay, October Coleen and I are going to have to do some costume coordinating. Both of you have your own months, yours is January and Colleenās October.
Ben: Weāre set.
Angela: Theyāve taken over. I mean, you are also welcome back anytime because I just adore you so much.
Ben: Thank you, thank you.
Angela: Okay, I just saw that pop up. I was looking if there was anything else that I missed before we say good night. Oh, you guys are so sweet.
Ben: So sweet.
Angela: I love how theyāre thanking me, because yes, thank you.
Ben: Thank you for being here everyone.
Angela: I want to have one of those soundboards, that can give the applause and the
Ben: Ohh
Angela: Oh my gosh, thank you so much for jpoimning tonight. Oh, I’m so glad you were able to join, that makes me so happy. I have to admit, it’s been a weird January, in regards to either motivation or inspiration, and so, today was the first day I was just so excited and I was like itās book club day, and we’re talking about the book, so thank you guys, because that definitely brightened my day.
And so hopefully I can channel this day and positivity into tomorrow and the day after that. So, you guys definitely brightened my January with this live stream. So thank you for joining and talking about this, that makes me happy. So thank you guys. I get a little teary eyed.
Ben: I mentioned earlier, my reading motivation has been down. So this book just helped me catch back up and like, I’m excited to read now.
Angela: It’s been a bit of, there’s something about this month so far, where I don’t know if it’s just because of Covidās been going on for so long or whatever. Maybe because everything, you know, you wake up in the dark, you go to bed, itās just
Ben: Yeah, thatās seasonal.
Angela: But this is definitely the first time I was going, so excited, so positive.I even have cookies for after the live stream as a reward.
Ben: I’m glad you thought ahead and got those cookies.
Angela: I was just looking down, my little reminder. So if you guys post a photo of the book of the month, so there’s also a, I have the breakdown. So if you post four months in a row, I have a pen and I have stickers and stuff. So the more you post, I’m offering. Apparently, I am getting tired because I’m mixing my words, but basically I wanted to mention and remind all of you that if you post a photo of a book of the month on Instagram or Twitter, tag me, let me know, and as a thank you, I have some sleuther bookmarks.
Ben: Sleuther bookmarks.
Angela: As a thank you, and just so you have the bookmark to go with the book that you’re showing the photograph of. So we have, I just wanted to remind you that there’s this. So that’s my little thank you to you because I know that you just mentioned tonight was your first book club night, and you might not know that yet.
So, one of the things is if you post a photo of the book, I want to thank you for being a member of the book club. So this is my little thank you gift. And so I actually, the reason why I was stumbling before is I can’t remember how I broke it down, but if you post four months in a row, I believe there’s a really cool pen that I have, that has this sort of diamond look on top, and then I have the stickers of Perlock Holmes , our mascot.
Ben: Yeah.
Angela: I believe the holographic one, and then, we also have Casey, who’s the cozy corner chat penguin mascot. So I believe it’s Perla and Casey for what is it? Eight months, and then 12 months with the book club logo on it. So there’s the levels of it. So keep track and tag me because I want to make sure if you guys are participating, you know how much I appreciate you. So just wanted to make sure that I mentioned that before we say good night for the evening.
Ben: Yeah.
Angela: I’m so glad you like that, thank you. I’m glad you liked the swag. I try to make it as appealing and again, I love you guys so much and I appreciate you joining. I want to do a good job for you, so I’m glad you like what I’m doing because it is all for you.
Ben: Yeah. We have little mascots for each little kind of section of the book of the cozy mystery book club, which I appreciate.
Angela: I just finished making the brackets.So, we have a new cozy companion who, he’s yet to the named, he’s an otter, but we have to name him. So now we’re going to have to be voting off on the name. So we’re going to have names going up against each other. I just finished the little image with the Canva, because again, I get very perfectionist when it comes to the lines with the brackets, they had to even.
Ben: I love it. Exactly.
Angela: And theyāre colour coded too, so, it had to be perfect, but that is all ready to go. So we have another cozy companion that we’re naming. So, he’ll be a little future swag, a little future sticker of some sort. So he has to be named though, before that happens. Oh, thank you for joining. You guys are so great and a huge shout out and thank you to Ben again, I just adore you, you are welcomed back anytime. January is your month.
Ben: Yes, Iām marking on my calendar for every year now.
Angela: You don’t have to wait until January 2023 though.
Ben: Okay.
Angela: Follow him on all platforms, at botany and books. He is so sweet and so thoughtful, and he’s a member of the cozy crew, which is in his Twitter structor bio, and I’m going to be posting the additional polls on at cozy mystery club forr Instagram and Twitter. I have it here, yes, writer at heart, I wanted to amke sure before I said it, it was there, so thatās my personal one. So, please stay up to date with what’s going on with the book club, because I’m going to be posting the polls.
You guys said you liked the idea of planning for the year, so I want to make sure that you know to follow up, because sometimes I get messages at least once a week, where people are asking me where to find things, where can we look for the reading list or where can we see these things? So I want to make sure that you’re aware that this is going on. So that would be the
Ben: And the newsletter too. Don’t forget the newsletter.
Angela: Oh yes, thank you.
Ben: It used to be the very first day of the month. Now I’m giving myself the first week of the month. So the first week of the month, I’ll be sending out the newsletter, which will have links to the YouTube videos, the upcoming giveaway news, the authors for the cozy corner chat, and I always include additional. Yeah. I mean, I work really, really hard on things, so we have the adult coloring pages.
Angela: Love those.
Ben:I made the calendar for y’all, so you can mark out the dates for future book club events, and I’ve also started doing the month. I got really into this, with the funky holidays that you don’t know about.
So today was national bubble wrap day. So I made a calendar of all the fun events in January. I was going to do the same thing again for February of all the fun days and mark on th ecalendar, which days are book club days. So all the fun extras in the newsletter, there’s always something in there. Plus you can subscribe.
I love it when people find things that have been in existence and I’m going, yeah, I forgot I did that. So someone stumbled upon because she didn’t realize that this existed and I just got this random DM and it made me so happy because I was able to brighten her day. She goes, I didn’t know you had all these things on the website. So, if you subscribe to the newsletter, there’s a secret page just for you, with all the coloring book pages, all the archive emails from 12 days of cozies from last year and this year, it also has all these coloring book pages and mazes and all sorts of extras and memes, and gifts and stuff that I make for that page that are not shared anywhere else, and apparently some people didn’t realize that, but it’s there.
So again, I do all these things and then I go onto the next thing and I forgot to mention thethings I worked really hard on it.
Ben: Well, we appreciate, we appreciate it so much.
Angela: Well, same thing with international sleuthers, some of you wanted bookmarks, but again, I mail out the thank you gift myself, but mailing internationally can get expensive. With this, I can use the forever stamp and all is gooid with us in Canada, but what I did was, I made a page just for international sleuthers. If you post a photo of the book of the month and you still want to bookmark, there’s a page just for you with bookmark designs and extras, and I also have the Etsy store. Again, I’m not looking to make a profit. this is just my way of knowing who wants what.
Ben: Yeah.
Angela: Also, if you want additional things, the shipping is covered and Etsy handles all that, but basically, I’m going to stuff that envelope with extras. I mean, if you order a sticker, you’re going to be getting multiple stickers.
Ben: Right. You know it’s an envelope from Angela. You feel the weight of it.
Angela: Yeah.
Ben: I mean, thereās going to be extras in there. There’s gonna be a vinyl. Let’s say there’s going to be so many extras in there. So if you put it through an order for one item, you’re going to be getting more than that, but I basically just did that because I didn’t know who wanted what, and this way you’re not waiting for a giveaway or something, because some people want things right away or they want multiple things. I just got an order, it was so cute. She wanted multiple of the Perlock stickers, and Iām like. you like Perlock, that makes me so happy. So that’s just my way of knowing who wants what really.
So if you want a place that, please don’t feel pressure. I’m always doing giveaways. There’s a future giveaway coming up just for stickers with Casey. And that was probably why he was on my mind because there’s national penguin day. Again, you have my random holidays and I’m going, okay. I can give away sticker of Casey for that day. So there’s always something going on, so dont feel pressured. I’m not trying to pitch or anything, I’m not making a profit. I think it was what was it? I think it’s what, I made $7 and I was like, oh, well, I spent 50 to have the stickers made.
Ben: Itās out of love, itās out of love for the community.
Angela: Itās just my way of knowing who wants what, thatās really all it is. I think thatās it though, I think I went over all my notes. Post a photo, get a bookmark So if you guys have a, ohhh, she, I was going to day, during 12 days of cozies, she did print off the bookmark and show me. It made me so happy, because again, I do all these things and I dont know if itās being enjoyed, or if itās just goung out into the void of the internet. So to actually see things being used makes me very, very happy. So, thank you for showing me that my little time on ProCreate , thatās what itās called, thatās the name of the app, ProCreate. My mom thought I said something weird.
Ben: Oh.
Angela: ProCreate, like a ProCreater, so yeah, my little time on the app was well spent. So, Iām glad you enjoyed them, but I think thatās everything, as I went off on a little tangent, but , thank you so much for joining and thank you guys for being here and being a part of the cozy mystery book club.
The last Tuesday of the month, every month, we’re going to be talking about our book of the month. So we have, the second Tuesday of the month is cozy corner shot night, and authors will be tweeting live on Twitter. So your favorite and soon to be favorite cozy mystery writers. The third Tuesday is just a goal date of the library lovers mystery series, but you can talk about it any time using the hashtag Sherlock hamsters.
So don’t wait just for that date. people are asking me about that, but it is just a goal to be read, but the last Tuesday a month is always YouTube livestream day. So there are plenty of things going on to keep you cozy. So no matter what is happening, there’s always going to be a little bit of brightness and sleuthing fun going on.
So I just wanted to say thank you again, and please stay safe and healthy, and I hope you have fun reading and sleuthing Good night, everybody.
Ben: Good night everybody.
