Carrie Kennersly tries to help her veterinarian boyfriend when he’s under suspicion of murder…Is he a keeper, or should she let him go off-leash for good?

As a technician for a local vet and the owner of the Barkery & Biscuits dog bakery, Carrie Kennersly is excited to host a rescue animal adoption event. She’s also excited to be in a relationship with veterinarian Dr. Reed Storme, despite his pleas for her to butt out of the murder cases she keeps finding herself involved with. Yet when Reed is accused of killing his former veterinary colleague, he seems a lot more agreeable to having amateur detective Carrie butt back in. Can Carrie clear Reed, or does she care too much for a killer?

Includes recipes for dog treats and people treats!

Cozy Mysteries and Me

Hi, everyone.  I’m Linda O. Johnston, and I’m delighted to be here as a guest poster on Bibliophile Reviews.  I’m currently on a Great Escapes Blog Tour to let people know about my latest book release: Pick and Chews, the fourth in my Barkery & Biscuits Mystery Series.  And yes, there will be a fifth.

I love writing cozy mysteries.  In fact, in addition to the Barkery & Biscuits Mysteries, I previously wrote three other cozy series.

So what differentiates a cozy mystery series from other kinds of mysteries?  According to Wikipedia, cozy mysteries are a “subgenre of crime fiction in which sex and violence are downplayed or treated humorously, and the crime and detection take place in a small, socially intimate community.”  Check that out at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cozy_mystery. I consider that a good general definition although nothing it says is engraved in stone. I’ve seen some cozies that are sexier or more violent than others, for example.  Plus, my first two cozy series took place in Los Angeles, not a small community.

But cozies pretty much all involve amateur sleuths who are dragged into solving at least the first crime–which is almost always murder–because she or a close friend or family member is the primary suspect.  And yes, I said “she”–most protagonists of cozies are female.

Cozies tend to run in series, so the amateur sleuth solves more than one crime over the course of time.  And one enjoyable thing about them is that there’s almost always an underlying theme to each cozy series: a certain type of handicraft or aspect of cooking, for example.

Mine all involve dogs.

Sometimes there are other pets, too, but I adore dogs and love writing about them.  My Barkery & Biscuits Mysteries are about a veterinary technician, Carrie Kennersly, who  buys a friend’s bakery and turns half into a barkery, where she gets to bake and sell the healthy dog treats she developed.  She has a dog named, appropriately, Biscuit. She gets to sell treats to owners of dogs as well as people treats for humans. And she also still works part time as a vet tech.

I’ve also written the Kendra Ballantyne, Pet-Sitter Mysteries and its spin-off Pet
Rescue Mysteries, as well as the Superstition Mysteries.

In all of my cozies, my protagonists develop love interests, some more intense than others.  But if they wind up in bed with their guy-friends, that part is off the page.

And if they happen to see the murdered body there may be blood around, but the description is never extremely graphic.

So, yes, Carrie has a love interest in the Barkery & Biscuits series.  His name is Dr. Reed Storme, and he’s a veterinarian she works with. And he just happens to become a murder suspect in Pick and Chews.  He’d begun telling Carrie to back off her amateur sleuthing in earlier books, for her own safety.  In Pick and Chews, he’s less vehement about her backing off since he can use her help… but he’s still concerned about her safety.

I hope you will pick Pick and Chews as a new mystery to read!