Cozy Mystery Corner discussion

Year-End Wrap Up 2025



Heading into the new year. This thread invites you to pause and review 2025. Then share your reading goals for the new year.

Respond to as many or as few prompts as you'd like.

LOOKING BACK: How was your reading year?

📚 Overview: Did you have a chance to read as much as you liked? Or did life demand more of your attention and hoped-for reading time? Maybe your reading year was "just right." Here's the place to share.

📚Challenges:
Did you play any challenges?

What did you complete?

Did you have a favorite challenge?


📚Taking a Closer Look:

Share your favorite and least favorite reads:

Did you discover a new favorite series?

Was there a featured series picked that you want to read more of?

Did you enjoy a visit(s) with familiar friends? (on-going series)

Who was/were your favorite character(s)? Tell us why.

Did you have a least favorite character? Someone you found annoying?

Post a picture of a book cover you liked or thought was unique.

Post a picture of a book cover you didn't like or didn't fit the story.

Did you try a new series that's not your 'cup of tea"? Why not?

What book(s) made you laugh? What book(s) made you teary-eyed?


LOOKING FORWARD: What are your reading goals for 2026?
Number of books you plan to read

Complete series you started

Discover new authors

Participate in challenges

Best Wishes for a Happy New Reading Year! 🥂🎊🥳

Nell

Happy New Year, Nell!

I'm not always that great at restropectives but I will try. =)

Thanks, Nell. Happy New Year to you, too. *<]=o)

I've copied over the prompt and will be writing up my report. I like using this discussion to look back. I save this off each year and keep it my archives.

Happy New Year to you, Nell.

Karen's Year in Review: Looking Back 2025 - Looking Forward 2026

Heading into the new year. This thread invites you to pause and review 2025. Then share your reading goals for the new year. | Respond to as many or as few prompts as you'd like.

LOOKING BACK: How was your reading year?
📚 Overview: Did you have a chance to read as much as you liked? Or did life demand more of your attention and hoped-for reading time? Maybe your reading year was "just right." Here's the place to share.
My numbers keep going down year over year. I only read 207 books this past year, down from 223 last year. (Note: I don't enter everything I read into GR. I do input all mysteries, but not all other reads/re-reads--(yes, I re-read; sometimes, a lot!). I keep allowing myself to be distracted by games on my iPad. (What I need to do is get books loaded on the iPad mini.) =o/

The good news... my total number of pages read (39,131) is up by about 12% over last year. Average pages per book, 189.

I started and ended the year with cozies!

📚Challenges: Did you play any challenges?
Each year I see challenges that look so fun, but I normally only do two challenges each year:
* the annual GoodReads Challenge (My Year in Books)
* a cozy mystery challenge, Cruisin' thru the Cozies Reading Challenge

I am a seat of my pants reader. That is, I like reading what I want when I want. Challenges are, well, challenging because it’s difficult to fill prompts when reading that way. Both aforementioned challenges are conducive to that type of reader. Other than the Cruisin’ challenge counting cozy mysteries only, neither forces me to really change the way I read.

In 2025, however, I decided to stick my toes into the shallow end of the challenge waters and joined three others:
* New Year Challenge, a fun two-month challenge looking for “new” things to celebrate the new year.
* A Book a Month Keeps the Doldrums Away Challenge filling a category a month with reads.
* a Series Challenge geared toward helping one finish/catch up on series

There were other challenges I was so tempted to join, but I barely had the discipline to fit my reading to the challenges I was doing. I track what I read in a spreadsheet (and a text file with notes on each book), but…

What did you complete?
I completed all FIVE! challenges I joined.
* I always start the GoodReads Challenge with 60 books, figuring I can pretty much read a book a week. I up that number as I enter my reads and hit the goal. I wound up inputting 153 reads this year.
* I shoot for the highest level in the Cruisin’ Challenge, 40+ cozies of my choice (“A” version of the challenge). Hitting the genre goals (“B” version) of the challenge is gravy. I hit both goals this year, reading 48 cozies (+4 that I didn't count toward the goals)
* The New Year Challenge comprised 12 prompts regarding “new” things (New Skill: Read a book where the MC learns how to do something new..., etc.) to be completed in a two-month period
* The A Book a Month Keeps the Doldrums Away Challenge was also 12 prompts, but was spread out over the full year with prompts like A Lone Word: Read a book whose title consists of a single word ~OR~ Read a standalone book.

Both those challenges were easy enough because I could use any books I read that fit the prompts. And, with the monthly challenge, I lucked out and always had something to fit one of the categories perfectly!

* The Series Challenge for me was the most difficult, but I did it. As with the Cruisin’ Challenge, I challenged myself to the highest level, finishing/catching up 10+ series. In the end, I finished the challenge with 17 series

Did you have a favorite challenge?
I love the Cruisin' challenge, but the Series Challenge was my favorite for 2025. When I finally finished it, I felt such relief and a sense of accomplishment. I may never do a challenge like that again, but I’m glad I did—and accomplished—it!

📚Taking a Closer Look: Share your favorite and least favorite reads:
Did you discover a new favorite series?
With the Series Challenge, my concern was more on current series rather than new series, though I did start a couple new-to-mes. While I enjoyed them, I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say they’re “favorites” right now.

The last cozy I read, Screamish, was the start of the Black Cat Investigation/Queenie Beane series by Eryn Scott. (There's no GR series page as of yet.) The first book was fun and funny with a pretty good mystery and I loved the protagonist, Queenie Beane. I’m headed to book 02. If it’s just as good, this could be a new favorite.

Was there a featured series picked that you want to read more of?
Sadly, I didn’t really check the featured series discussions all the time. I do remember there were series I was already reading or had TBRed. I don’t remember if I TBRed anything new or not.

Did you enjoy a visit(s) with familiar friends? (on-going series)
My favorite book of the year was Cleo Coyle’s No Roast for the Weary from the Coffeehouse series. It was so good, both the mystery and the cozy storylines. I don't know if I was just starved for a good book or what, but I gobbled it up in a few hours. So engaging, So good. I am so waiting for the next!

A more recent favorite is the PJ Fitzsimmons series Anty Boisjoly. Anty (Anthony) Boisjoly is a gentleman of means with a great wit and a great ability to solve problems. I’m two books in and love this series. It is laugh-out-loud funny. The author notes in his bio that he dreams of an alternative reality in which PG Wodehouse wrote locked room mysteries, and in which I’m PG Wodehouse. The writing is crisp and the dialog witty. The characters are so perfectly drawn that I can “see” them as I read. I’ll be visiting Anty again this year.

Who was/were your favorite character(s)? Tell us why.
I enjoy visits with most of my cozy pals. Two that stand out are:

* Lottie Lemon and her two men, hubby Everett and ex Noah (but mostly Lottie!) from Addison Moore’s Murder in the Mix/Lottie Lemon series.

* Anty (Anthony) Boisjoly. He and his valet, Vickers, have become favorites. Anty is so quick with his wit that there are times I laugh out loud at things he says or thinks. Vickers sees all and knows much, even if he falls asleep in linen closets and forget the tea at tea service. The books are so fun.

Did you have a least favorite character? Someone you found annoying?
OMG!! Lottie's bio-mom, Carlotta (Murder in the Mix/Lottie Lemon). She is a trainwreck of a character, who I suppose is included for comic relief, but more often than not, I find her annoying. She left Lottie at the fire station when she was an infant. Lottie was adopted and raised by the Lemons. Carlotta came back in her life after Lottie’s maternal bio-grandmother (Carlotta’s mother) left pretty much her entire estate to Lottie. Carlotta is a sex-crazed mooch who takes every opportunity to put down her daughter while simultaneously wearing her clothing, living in her home, spending her money, eating freebies at her bakery, etc. There are times I can deal with her antics, but mostly, she just annoys me. I’m to the point that I skim-read her parts.

Post a picture of a book cover you liked or thought was unique.
I like the covers of the Murder in the Mix books, but none really stand out as better than any other.
My favorite cover of the year was on a romance, Stalker by Piper Stone (Legacy of Kings). I really love this cover from an artistic point of view (**see larger version in next post below**). It instantly sets a mood... I love the colors and the shading/shadowing in this picture. The combinations of purple hues from the darker bluish/black/grayish purples to the pinkish-purple used for the title all work well together. Even the bluish-red "spotlighting" of the model adds to the broodiness. The fact that the model is hot and sexy doesn't hurt!! This is artwork I would frame and hang on a wall. It's fantastic. The cover design is by Korey Mae Johnson. (I do like the artistry of the other covers in the series, but book 03 is my favorite!)

Post a picture of a book cover you didn't like or didn't fit the story.
Most of the mysteries I read had nice covers, all fitting their stories. This one that kind of creeps me out. The cover is fine, it just doesn’t appeal to me. (Let’s say it not art I would hang on my wall.)

Did you try a new series that's not your 'cup of tea"? Why not?
I read what’s listed as book one in a supposed new series, Maxine Gerimatter. (There’s no GR page for the series as of yet.) The book, Knot Before You Enter by Tish Bouvier was a jumble to me. I like the characters okay, but the story… I’ll read future additions hoping what I found “jumbly” was just first-in-series character- and community-building, etc.

What book(s) made you laugh? What book(s) made you teary-eyed?
I find a lot of humor (not all related to bio-mom) in the Murder in the Mix books. As part of my finish the series challenge, I read four books in the series this year.

And, the aforementioned Anty Boisjoly series makes me laugh. The book I read this year, The Case of the Ghost of Christmas Morning, had Anty visiting his Aunty Boisjoly, an extremely shy woman who spends a lot of time hiding in the curtains "inspecting them for moths."

*** Wow, I am long-winded... continue to next comment for part 2 of my year in review. ***

Karen's Year in Review - part 2: Looking Back 2025 - Looking Forward 2026

What book(s) made you laugh? What book(s) made you teary-eyed? (continued)
Surprisingly, there was a cozy that had me tearing up, Knot Before You Enter (Maxine Gerimatter) by Tish Bouvier. At the beginning of the story, Maxine’s son, Otis, is taking her to an assisted living facility. He’s going to be out of town on a job for at least six weeks and is worried about her living alone. Maxine recently fell and bruised her hip and needs physical therapy while she heals. On top of that, her house was damaged in the last big storm. He doesn't want her to be alone. As they drive to the facility, Otis keeps telling her it’ll only be for six weeks, but she’s sensing he’s not telling her something. This fiercely independent woman, who’s always taken care of herself, is now out of her home, away from her town, etc. (and is planning on escaping as soon as Otis drives off!). To see the two of them in the car, he making the hard decision knowing how she feels and she trying hard to fight it knowing how he worries just made me sad for all people who go through the same act every day. It almost made me cry thinking of how hard it was for both characters. Scenes like that are the reason I’ll give new additions a read.

Additional 2025 item(s) of note
I listened to several audiobooks in 2025. I still find that I get too distracted to listen attentively—it has to be a practiced skill. I listened to some short-form romances via the Read Me Romance podcast (https://readmeromance.com/). Those were okay. (Though, if I had the book I wound up reading it after listening anyway...)

There was a mystery I wanted to read, book 3 in a series. I had book 4, but my read-in-order OCD really wanted me to read book 3. I could not find the book, Tuesday Trash and Trouble, part of the Friday Night Mystery Club series by Joanna Campbell Slan, in print at the library sites. Just as I was going to give up and skip to book 4, I found it on Hoopla in audio, so I listened to it (as I played mindless games on the iPad!). I did have to rewind a couple of times to catch things I thought I missed. The narrator, Kelli Tager, did a really good job distinguishing between characters' voices and especially good voicing protagonist Cragen, I enjoyed the audio more than I thought I would. Then, as Murphy's luck would have it, I found that I had the text version of the book in my Kindle library, a Kindle freebie I'd had for a couple of years!! So, I read the book, too. Sadly, I caught some details I missed in the listening. Part of the issue, I think, is when I'm reading mysteries, I'm involved in looking for clues, etc. When listening, I tend to be doing something else and am not fully engaged with the narrative. I know the overall forest, but miss some of the trees. I don't seem to have as much problem with audio romance—though one must be lucky enough to get good readers!

There are pluses to audio. If the reader is good, the book is entertaining. I can listen to the book(s) at faster speeds as long as I can understand what's being said and did that for Tuesday Trash and Trouble, I don't think I would have caught what I missed had I played it at regular speed. It's more of an attention thing. It's like working while the TV or radio is on. I get the gist of what I'm hearing (and seeing), but may miss details here and there. I don't know that I'll ever be a full audio reader, but.. Maybe if the book doesn't need my full attention?? — And this from a girl who used to listen to CBS Radio Mystery Theatre!

Anyway, I thought I'd toss that in as one thing I did in 2025. I may try more audio in 2026, but I really enjoy the act of reading so...

LOOKING FORWARD: What are your reading goals for 2026?
Number of books you plan to read: I always plan to read 60. I hope to triple or quadruple that if I can. I started keeping good track of reads in 2017. I know I won’t hit my high of 528 (2019), but I’d like to beat this year’s low. Maybe I can aim for the average of the past nine years, 364?? However, I'll take what I can get (and try not to let the Angry Birds and Garfield distract me!)

Complete series you started: I don’t know that it’s possible to complete most cozy series I start. =o)
Though there are those three-and-done series and series that end because the author has passed or has stopped writing them, most series I read get new entries every year or every other year. Some get two or more new books each year. I’m just trying to keep up! Last year, I caught up 17 cozy series (to date). A lot of those already have new books on the 2026 horizon. There’s no shortage of items to read. I did start a series a few years ago, Paramour Bay by Kennedy Layne's, I’ve read six of the 26!! in the series to date (last release 2024). I read book six last year, but set the series aside because there was no way I was going to catch up last year. I’ll be getting back to that.

Otherwise… I read what I like when I like and see where everything falls.

Discover new authors: I always love discovering new-to-me authors—though I groan as I add more and more to the TBR than I take off.

Participate in challenges: This I’m not sure about. I did three "extra" challenges last year. I enjoyed doing them, but I don’t know… Challenges take a lot of discipline and I know I don't have a lot of that in my reading.

I’ll have to check what looks interesting and what they entail. I may do a few. I may just stick with my usuals (Annual GR and Cruisin’), which I’ve already committed to.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ *** Onward to 2026!! ***

Here’s a larger version of the cover I loved this year. As mentioned, I liked the covers of the other books in the series, but this cover for book 3... man oh man!!!
Love the colors; love the model—Broody AND Yummy! Cover Design by Korey Mae Johnson. All three covers in the series shown below with 03 blown up.
** **

Karen wrote: "And, the aforementioned Anty Boisjoly series makes me laugh. The book I read this year, The Case of the Ghost of Christmas Morning, had Anty visiting his Aunty Boisjoly, an extremely shy woman who spends a lot of time hiding in the curtains "inspecting them for moths.""

I love Anty! I was an early ARC reader and beta reader for Christmas Morning! I nearly fell out of bed laughing while reading Christmas Morning. I never know HOW Anty solves those cases when he appears to be brainless and perpetually drunk. I just go along for the ride.

Year-End Wrap Up 2025

LOOKING BACK: How was your reading year?

📚 Overview: Did you have a chance to read as much as you liked? Or did life demand more of your attention and hoped-for reading time? Maybe your reading year was "just right." Here's the place to share.
I make it a point to find at least an hour (usually more) each day to read. (Well actually, to listen. With my vision issues, reading print books is difficult, so the majority of my reading time is spent listening instead.) It's my retreat from the rest of the world, and don't we all deserve some me-time?

📚Challenges:
Did you play any challenges?
Too many to count! It's rare when I don't have at least 35 active challenges going, and I love them - they help me decide what to read next.

What did you complete?
Again, too many to count. I did complete a couple that I've been working on for well over a year, so that felt good.

Did you have a favorite challenge?
Not one specifically, but I like the challenges that teach me something, the ones that let me choose, say, 20 of 30 prompts given, and those that challenge me to find title words in a phrase/sentence.


📚Taking a Closer Look:

Did you discover a new favorite series?
After only one book, I can't say if they'll become favorite series, but I really liked these series starters:
* What Angels Fear, by C.S. Harris
* The Long Call, by Ann Cleeves
* Death in the Sunshine, by Steph Broadribb
* Death on Dickens Island, by Allison Brook
* Nash Falls, by David Baldacci (even though it ended on a major cliff-hanger!)
* Murder at the Breakers, by Alyssa Maxwell
* An Accidental Death, by Peter Grainger

Was there a featured series picked that you want to read more of?
Well, if you count the dozen or so featured series that I'm in the middle of, yes :) I'm current in several of them as well, eagerly waiting for new books 🤞

Did you enjoy a visit(s) with familiar friends? (on-going series)
Roughly 75% of the books I read were series books, and about 10% of those were first-in-a-series book. So yes, I read quite a few from ongoing series :)

Post a picture of a book cover you liked or thought was unique.
Off the top of my head, this was the last book I read in 2025



LOOKING FORWARD: What are your reading goals for 2026?
Number of books you plan to read
My GR goal for 2026 is 375 books, but I'll adjust that as the year goes along.

Complete series you started
I only have a handful of books on my list that would complete a series, but that list is very fluid.

Discover new authors
Always looking for new authors! One of my challenges requires finding a new-to-you author each month whose initials can be found in a given phrase. It can be... well, quite challenging.

Participate in challenges
Of course!

Barb wrote: "📚Challenges:
Did you play any challenges?
Too many to count! It's rare when I don't have at least 35 active challenges going, and I love them - they help me decide what to read next."

OMG!!! I had trouble and I only did five--and I keep a spreadsheet.

I have a GR friend, Pam, who does lot of challenges as well. She does a lot of reviewing and also keeps a spreadsheet. I don't have that much discipline in my reading to do that many challenges or try to keep them straight. I think it would rob me of valuable reading (or gaming) time.

I admire the dedication that many challenges takes. Good luck in 2026.

~and~
Barb wrote: "I make it a point to find at least an hour (usually more) each day to read."

This is a resolution I could get behind!

Karen wrote: "Barb wrote: "I make it a point to find at least an hour (usually more) each day to read."

This is a resolution I could get behind!"

It all started when my doctor suggested getting away from screens - laptop, television, even Kindle! - for at least an hour each night before going to bed, more would be better. I was having trouble falling asleep, and this has actually helped. Unfortunately, I've taken up listening to audiobooks while I cross-stitch at night before bed and sometimes get so wrapped up in the book that I lose track of time and stay up much longer than intended!