Please or to access all these features

What we're reading

Find your new favourite book or recommend one on our Book forum.

Cosy books looking for recommendations

34 replies

Sagealicious · 20/09/2025 01:42

I've recently started to get into cosy type books and was wondering if anyone had any recommendations? I'm not into romance type books although I don't mind if it has romance in it as long as it's not the main storyline. Cosy mysteries is more my style and in case you're not sure what a cosy book is think Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman or Agatha Christie. then there are cosy tv shows such as Agatha Raisin, Death in Paradise, Hamish Macbeth, Murdoch Mysteries, Miss Fisher's murder Mysteries and many more and of course the books these shows are based on.

OP posts:
ThatLemonBear · 20/09/2025 20:48

Have you read any Liane Moriarty? Not crime mysteries but books that make you wonder what has happened

DisplayPurposesOnly · 20/09/2025 20:37

This is my historical detective fiction list that I posted fairly recently. Some are more cosy than others.

Pre-Tudor
Paul Doherty - Brother Athelstan (1300s)
Ellis Peters - Cadfael (1100s Shrewsbury)

Elizabethan
Fiona Buckley - Ursula Blanchard
P F Chisholm - Sir Robert Carey (Cumbria/Northumberland)
Edward Marston - Nicholas Bracewell
S J Parris - Giordano Bruno
S W Perry - Nicholas Shelby
C J Sansom - Shardlake

Restoration
Edward Marston - Christopher Redmayne
Andrew Taylor - James Marwood & Cat Lovett

Georgian
Douglas Skelton - Jonas Flynt (late 1700s)
Chris Nickson - Simon Westow (1820s Leeds)

Victorian
Anna Katharine Green - Mr Gryce, Amelia Butterworth (contemporary, American, very melodramatic writing style)
Chris Nickson - Tom Harper (Leeds)
Ambrose Parry - Raven & Fisher (Edinburgh)

Edwardian/WWI
Edward Marston - Home Front
Jacqueline Winspear - Maisie Dobbs

1920s
Cora Harrison - Reverend Mother (Cork)

1930s
Margery Allingham - Albert Campion (contemporary)
Elizabeth Daly - Henry Gamage (contemporary New York/East Coast USA)
C H B Kitchin - Malcolm Warren (contemporary)
E C R Lorac - Macdonald, Rivers (contemporary with particular warning for antisemitism. Even when sympathetic to the character her words can be quite hard to take)
Patricia Wentworth - Miss Silver (contemporary, late 1920s thru to early 1960s)

1960s
Patricia Hall - Kate O'Donnell (Liverpudlian in London)

1980s
Sue Grafton - A to Z (California)

Then on the present day side there's Rebecca Tope's Cotswold series about a house sitter and her Lake District series about a florist .

sammactoom · 20/09/2025 20:17

Catherine Coles writes cosy mysteries.

Doone22 · 20/09/2025 19:44

Carola Dunn , the Daisy Darymple series

ConstantlyTired312 · 20/09/2025 19:11

Have you tried any of the writers from the Golden Age, like Dorothy L Sayers? Also, Lucy Worsley wrote a great book on Agatha Christe and another called A Very British Murder which looks at why the British public lives murder mysteries so much. There's also fantastic series to go along with the books (I do adore her too, so not sure if I am biased here 🤣)

thistimelastweek · 20/09/2025 19:06

'What you are looking for is in the Library ' by Michiko Aiyama.

It's very cosy.

Robertplantgoddess · 20/09/2025 19:01

But I did think Thursday murder club was too twee for me so its all just opinions.

Robertplantgoddess · 20/09/2025 19:00

No mystery but the people on platform 5 I really enjoyed. Very cosy (to me)

Lovetoread1814 · 20/09/2025 18:59

Cozy mysteries are some of my favourite books to read. The majority are American! My favourite authors are Denise Swanson, Kate Carlisle, Lorna Barrett, Ellery Adams and so many more!

Swipe left for the next trending thread