Hello, it’s me, filling in for our Mrs. Lady Snark who sadly is not feeling well.
So, as the headline suggests it’s been a while since I posted a Night Owl.
How long specifically?
Well, according to the Word Press Post dashboard, Saturday will officially be one year ago…
Anyhoo…
I don’t really have deep content to share, but…
A few weeks before Christmas I drove my daughter and her friend so they could get their nails done for the holidays. I was not invited to nail time so I decided to go visit my local library as it had been over a year since I’d been there.
I grabbed some books; they are cozy paranormal mysteries–escapism at it’s finest.
Well, I read most of the books I checked out–one I’m still trying too but it’s so slow…
Anyways, as I was reading one of the books, I noticed it wasn’t the first book in the series.
I try very hard to avoid that if I can, I’m a purist when it comes to that stuff, usually.
In searching my libraries website for a copy of the first book, I discovered “hoopla” an app where I can E-read and listen to audio books.
You probably aren’t aware of this, but I’m a fan of the audio book. I like that I can “listen” read while I do other things.
I did not as it happens discover a copy of the first book I was looking for, I did however find a box set of audio books called the “Vampire Knitting Club” by Nancy Warren.
Here is the synopsis of the first book as provided by author Nancy Warren.
At a crossroads between a cringe-worthy past (Todd the Toad) and an uncertain future (she’s not exactly homeless, but it’s close), Lucy Swift travels to Oxford to visit her grandmother. With Gran’s undying love to count on and Cardinal Woolsey’s, Gran’s knitting shop, to keep her busy, Lucy can catch her breath and figure out what she’s going to do.
Except it turns out that Gran is the undying. Or at least, the undead. But there’s a death certificate. And a will, leaving the knitting shop to Lucy. And a lot of people going in and out who never use the door – including Gran, who is just as loving as ever, and prone to knitting sweaters at warp speed, late at night. What exactly is going on?
When Lucy discovers that Gran did not die peacefully in her sleep, but was murdered, she has to bring the killer to justice without tipping off the law that there’s no body in the grave. Between a hot 500-year-old vampire and a dishy detective inspector, both of whom always seem to be there for her, Lucy finds her life getting more complicated than a triple cable cardigan. The only one who seems to know what’s going on is her cat…or is it…her familiar?
Nancy Warren Author.com.
The box-set from hoopla included:
The total listen time for all three books is 17 hours and 27 minutes; this includes the opening and closing credits. The book is read by Sarah Zimmerman. I also checked out the fourth book Stockings and Spells. This is also the point where I discovered with hoopla I can only check out 5 items a month. 🙄
This is where we come to the tricky part of the paranormal cozy mystery.
How to review them.
For those that do not understand the world of paranormal cozy mystery; think Murder, She Wrote, but with vampires and witches, sometimes ghosts, and my least favorite the horny werewolves. For some reason, the werewolves always have to be driven by sex and food…
I tend to avoid werewolf stories…
Anyhoo, because these books are not designed to twist and turn and keep the reader/listener guessing until the very end. They are not geared so that the reader looks for the meaning of life. They are written to shut off the readers brain and let said read escape reality even if it’s only for a little while.
Nancy Warren delivers just the right amount of supernatural that you can believe in her world these people not only exist but you want to meet them and buy one of their amazing knitted sweaters. She gives us a main character in Lucy Swift, that we do not hate by page 2, a near amazing feat, but that’s a story for another time. The mysteries themselves are not very hard to suss out, as I said, that’s not what a cozy mystery is designed for, especially the paranormal kind.
But here Warren has created likable characters, some unlikable ones too, cause yeah, but overall she delivered on the main promise; escapism.
I give this series an A positive.
This is an Open Thread.
