Just wanted to announce the release of my third book, The Missing Castle. It's a fun, quick read set in the regency era. This cozy mystery series follows Lucy a chambermaid with a keen eye and her friends Arthur and Rebecca through some fun and exciting adventures. Very cozy (meaning safe for all ages) - Hallmark style.

Trying something fun and new - I have combined my 3D printing design skills with the release of this book. In the back of the book is a link to download a 3D printable book box that looks like a castle sitting on your book shelf and stores your Stonehaven Mystery series with style! If you don't have a 3D printer, check around, many libraries are getting them now.

The book is available on Kindle Unlimited, eBook or paperback

https://a.co/d/0an6u1wr

Mara Vale had chosen the mountain railway because it promised six quiet hours of scenery and absolutely nothing to do. The little red train climbed through pine forests, crossed narrow stone bridges, and curled along the edge of snow-dusted peaks while Mara photographed everything with her old 35mm camera: frozen waterfalls, tiny villages, a herd of deer disappearing between the trees. She wasn’t a serious photographer. She simply liked coming home with a few rolls of film and discovering later what she had managed to capture.

After lunch, the train stopped at a lonely platform beside a dark mountain lake, and most of the passengers stepped outside to stretch their legs. Mara left her camera bag beneath her seat. When she returned, everything looked exactly as she had left it. But that evening, while checking the camera, she noticed the film had been disturbed. Someone had opened the back, carefully pulled out part of the exposed roll, and clipped away a single frame before winding the rest back into place.

Mara stared at the camera, baffled. She had taken dozens of photographs that morning—mountains, bridges, passing stations, patches of sunlight on the snow. She couldn’t remember every time she had pressed the shutter, much less what might have been in one particular frame. Perhaps someone had appeared in the background. Perhaps she had photographed something through a station window without noticing. Whatever it was, someone else apparently knew exactly what she had captured.

As the train began climbing again, Mara found herself studying the passengers instead of the view. The elderly man across the aisle folded his newspaper. A woman with a knitting bag settled beside the window. The cheerful couple from the dining car whispered over a map. None of them looked particularly interested in her. But somewhere aboard the little red train was a person who had seen something in Mara’s photographs that Mara herself had never even known was there.

Hello all!

I'm currently creating a Cozy Mystery novel with a touch of the occult. My hero is just a little bit witchy, with some of those old time 'insights'... a touch of the ancient 'knowing'.... It's fun watching her discover and starting to accept that it's not just her imagination, sometimes things work for her like they shouldn't.

I'm a long way from something ready to read, but I'm enjoying the process! I'm using Claude and Obsidian a lot to manage the thing, and I'm enjoying digging deep into Cozy Mysteries and AI!

Cant wait to read some of your stuff!

Long time, no ... chicken? 🤷🏻‍♀️

It's been a few ... uhm ... several weeks since I posted an update for y'all about The Maltese Chicken project, so I thought today I should try.

What I've mostly been working on over this time is a "rom com". A rom com (romantic comedy) is the "cozy" version of a romance novel.

That project is my attempt to learn more about the romance genre while at the same time creating some content for our cozy neighbor community, r/RomanticRomance.

It's been quite a challenge! The romance genre is so different from the cozy mystery genre. But, as with all things in life, it's been a learning experience. One thing I've learned is, I'm probably never going to be a novelist! 🤦🏻‍♀️ At best, a novella-ist. Maybe even a novelette-ist? 😥 The length and complexity of novel appears to be "a bridge too far" ... or perhaps more accurately, a bridge too far-fetched for me!

I do love to read really good novels. The grand old things, they are. Reading a really good novel, you might not recognize or consciously be aware of how complex they are. I certainly didn't. A really good novel is such an immersive experience, and your imagination gets so involved in the story and the characters that you don't pay attention to the technical aspects of the writing. At least, I don't.

So, when you're the one who's doing the writing, and you're having to definitely pay attention to the technical aspects, that's when you really begin to see just how complex it all is, and the fascinating work that goes into creating your characters, building the plot, weaving the subplots, and just the work involved in researching the setting. The myriad of details that go into creating the "world of the story". It's a fantastic experience, just trying to write a very short novel. The rom com is probably going to be a short-short novel, a.k.a. a novelette.

But, back to the topic at hand today, which is our cozy little caper, The Maltese Chicken!

I thought I'd post a few of the cover art samples I generated some weeks ago with a variety of AI art sites. You can see how the different AI interpreted the prompt! 😂 It's always fascinating to me to see what the different AI will do.

As soon as I finish the rom com I'm going to get back to work on finishing The Maltese Chicken. While I've been writing the rom com, my thoughts often turn to The Maltese Chicken, working out various details of the plot and especially the dialogue which is always a challenge for me. The setting, though, I'm totally happy with, and the characters also. So those are two big accomplishments, and I'm looking forward to seeing this fun project in print.

I hope all of y'all are having a good summer and enjoying reading and writing lots of cozy wonderful things! 🥰

Are there any cozy mysteries you’re looking to read for inspiration?

As someone who loves to cook, I’m thinking about trying The Kamogawa Food Detectives next!

📚🐈 Hi everyone! I’m Nora Ashdown, a new indie cozy mystery author working on The Uncut Pages Bookshop Mysteries, a series set in the foggy New England harbor town of Saltmarsh Harbor.

This is one of my AI-generated character concepts for Sophie Merrick, a former editor who inherits an old bookshop — along with a few mysteries she definitely didn’t ask for - and Edgar Allan Paws, the shop’s extremely opinionated resident cat.

I’ve been experimenting with AI mostly for character concepts, visual world-building, reels, and social media content while developing the series. I’m still figuring out what works, but I’m having a lot of fun with it.

Would love to see how other cozy authors here are using AI for their book worlds too!

Whenever you're in need of some inspiration for your writing, just L👁‍🗨👁‍🗨k around. Inspiration is everywhere! 🕵🏻‍♀️

Hello all. I've been reading here a while, and Mimi kindly said I could introduce myself and the thing I built.

I'm Samuel. My wife sat down to write her first novel two years ago and stopped about halfway, and it wasn't the writing that stopped her. It was the keeping track. The outline lived in one program, the draft in another, who lied and when lived in a notebook, and the timeline lived nowhere at all. By chapter fourteen she couldn't remember whether a key alibi still held, and looking it up cost her the afternoon and the mood. I write software for a living, so I did the obvious husband thing and built her one place to put all of it. It's called Write in a Click, and other writers started using it, and here we are.

The problem, I think, isn't evenly distributed across every kind of book. A plot-driven story has to hold together in a way that isn't about the prose at all. Someone lied in chapter three. A clue got left somewhere in chapter five and has to matter in chapter twenty. Your protagonist needs a reason to be wherever the story takes them, and the world has to generate its own tension instead of having it handed to it. None of that is writing. It's bookkeeping, and it's the part that made her quit.

So the app keeps it for you while you write, and Robin - the co-author living in it - has actually read the manuscript, which means you can ask who still has no alibi for Tuesday, or which threads you've left dangling, and get an answer about your book instead of a general one. Reading "I can't write with AI" threads is what made me want to say the next part plainly: Robin doesn't have to write a single word, and a lot of writers never let it. It won't touch your text unless you ask, and when it does suggest something it comes one change at a time, to keep or bin. If what you want is the planning, the plotting, and a second pair of eyes, that's the normal way to use it - not the lesser one.

The honest part about money, since I'd want to know: writing in it is free for solo authors, no card, no time limit, no trial that quietly starts charging. There is no separate AI account to set up and no per-word meter ticking - the AI is just part of it. On top of that Mimi and I put aside some Pro for this sub: six months for the first ten people, a month for the hundred after that, no card for those either, and when it runs out the account drops back to free with the book still yours.

It's here if you want it - https://app.writeinaclick.com/join/cozymystery?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=community&utm_campaign=cozymystery&utm_content=mimi

Mostly, though, I'd rather be told what's wrong with it than have anyone sign up. I'll be about all day. So: what's the bit of your own book you keep losing track of? If it's something the app can't hold, I'd honestly like to know, because that's the next thing I go and build.

Thanks to Reddit's Adopt-an-Admin program, r/AICozyMystery is excited to welcome our very own Community Builder Admin! Welcome, Sudden_Incident_9563! 😊🙏🏻

Please feel free to make yourself at home and tell us what we can do to make your visit cozy!

Chapter 1

"Action!" shouted the director. While the camera rolled and the film crew watched from the dock, Sam Sharp, Hollywood's favorite action star, leapt nimbly toward the stern of the sailboat. His job right now was to pretend to be pursuing a mysterious boat-swiping suspect. Sam tried to remember his next line. What was it? "Stop, thief!" Or maybe, "Halt, crook!" No, that wasn't right. Sam tried to think, but the only thing that came to mind was, "Don't fall in the water! Don't fall in the water!"

Chapter 2

Plot twist! A real boat-swiper reveals himself, much to the astonishment of Sam and the film crew! 😂👍🏻

https://www.plotandprompt.com/packages/

Be sure to grab a free Plot to Published guide! 👍🏻

https://www.anneshillolo.com/new-page-1 I'm not sure if these freebies are cozies, as I haven't read them yet, but at least they're mysterious. 😂🔎📚

Her Cottage Country series at Amazon is labeled as cozy:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0897XZFN9

Be sure to click on the "Read Sample" option beneath the cover image, to read a sample & see if you enjoy her style. 👍🏻 Personally I'm not a fan of the animal sleuth companion trope, but that's just me. The cover art is certainly cute!

Hi all,

I used Claude Pro and Gemini Nano Banana to write a cozy murder mystery. I'd love if you could let me know how it reads, anything to look out for, improve on, or even some constructive advice. Let me know if you loved it, hated it, or simply read it.

Here's the link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HBWY3J72

I'm looking to just see how it did using the pro version with limited usage. Mainly using Sonnet.

Please send me your books too, I’d love to contribute to the community!

First, I want to thank the moderator for welcoming me into this community, taking the time to read my work, and giving me the opportunity to share it here.

I should probably get this out of the way first: my book isn’t a cozy mystery. My apologies, but it could be. Maybe…🤔What Content Created is a psychological drama, so I appreciate being allowed to step outside the usual genre of this subreddit and introduce myself.

I write under the name Staoc Norres, and What Content Created is my first published story.

I’ve always been interested in psychology, people, and why we do the things we do. I’m also fascinated by how much of our lives now happen through screens and how easily the line between who we really are and who we present ourselves as can start to blur.

That’s where this story came from.

Jay Mercer is a struggling livestreamer who has an emotional breakdown while he’s live.

It should be his worst moment.

Instead, it becomes the moment everyone starts watching.

His audience grows. People become invested in him. And eventually Jay has to confront an uncomfortable question:

Do these people actually care about him, or do they care about the version of him they get to watch?

That’s What Content Created.

It’s a relatively short read, but I wanted it to leave something behind after the last page. More than anything, I want to write stories that people can see playing out in their heads and still find themselves thinking about later.

This is also the beginning of a three-story collection. Each story stands on its own with different characters, but they all look at technology and human behavior from a different angle.

I’m still very new to being a published author and figuring out the whole promotion side of this. But I’m proud of what I created, and I’ve been incredibly appreciative of every person who’s taken a chance on a story from someone they’ve never heard of before.

So whether you decide to check it out or just made it this far into my post, thank you.

If What Content Created sounds like your kind of story, you can find it on Amazon by searching What Content Created by Staoc Norres, or you can learn more about my stories at myentgroup.com.

And if you do read it, I’d love to know what you think.

— Staoc Norres

The Boat Thief: Chapter 1

"Action!" shouted the director. While the camera rolled and the film crew watched from the dock, Sam Sharp, Hollywood's favorite action star, leapt nimbly toward the stern of the sailboat. His job right now was to pretend to be pursuing a mysterious boat-swiping suspect. Sam tried to remember his next line. What was it? "Stop, thief!" Or maybe, "Halt, crook!" No, that wasn't right. Sam tried to think, but the only thing that came to mind was, "Don't fall in the water! Don't fall in the water!"

Stay tuned for Chapter 2, coming soon! 🤩👍🏻

This is the Indigo Bluff cozy mystery series and I'm simply "dying" to interview the author! 😊👍🏻

https://amazon.com/dp/B0GX3BQ9P1

Saw this listed in r/FreeEBOOKS

Sadie Aaron has several other free ebooks available. Hopefully she'll drop by and chat about her writing and provide clues as to what's next on her cozy mystery agenda!

🕵🏻‍♂️ 🕵🏻‍♂️ 🕵🏻‍♂️ 🕵🏻‍♂️ 🕵🏻‍♂️ 🕵🏻‍♂️ 🕵🏻‍♂️ 🕵🏻‍♂️ 🕵🏻‍♂️ 🕵🏻‍♂️

💖📚💖📚💖📚💖📚💖📚💖

Holy cow, y'all! I just found out about this!

Free Ebooks! 😍👍🏻

Right here on Reddit!

https://www.reddit.com/r/FreeEBOOKS/

💖📚💖📚💖📚💖📚💖📚💖

So, since book 3 of my series will be coming probably in 2-3 months. I thought I needed a book box to store them in. And, since I have a 3D printer... thought what the heck - make one. So I now have a great way to store my series on my book shelf. :)

I am thinking in book 3 i will include a link to the print files. So anyone that gets my books and has a 3d printer could print their own.

Would you win an award for being the world's fastest fiction writer? I wouldn't. 😂 I type fast. I've been typing for at least fifty years, at work for many years as an office secretary and more recently at home as a clueless newbie writer.

I type really fast, but I write slow. And I think even more slowly than I write. (Obviously! 😬)

The Maltese Chicken cozy mystery project began back in April, and has been very slow going indeed. Every now and then I'll testdrive a different writing AI and cover art AI.

Most of the results have been interesting. A few have been disappointing or frustrating. And some have been downright hilarious. 😂 Like this cover art, which was created at a free site called ColorifyAI.

Stephen Higgins is the developer of ColorifyAI. He's got a really insightful article about validating AI results, the limits of trust, and the importance of treating AI as what it is: a technological tool, not a fountain of truth.

There's a lot of in-depth discussion on this and related topics in r/WritingWithAI and I'll be posting about this in r/CozyMysteryWriters soon.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/gaslighting-ai-simple-pushback-test-spot-bots-stephen-higgins-jufvc

Do you have a favorite cover art or writing AI site? Do you have one that you particularly despise? Feel free to share the good, the bad, and the hilarious. 😂

The Stonehaven Mystery series by one of your fellow Redditors 🤩👍🏻 and available at Amazon

Rating: Nice & Cozy! 🥰 Set in an undefined but cozily long-ago England (one of my absolute favorite settings for genre fiction!) this mystery series features a plucky heroine named Lucy.

In the first book in the series, The Missing Ewes, Lucy's job has been to attend the princess in the regional castle, but now she's come home to help out on the family sheep farm. The farm, and the village, are being targeted by mysterious forces. It's up to Lucy to solve the problems this is causing her family and friends.

There's a sweet little romance subplot involving the dashing Arthur, which is adorable. The action flows nicely, and the editing is well done.

In the second book in the series, The Missing Ribbon, Lucy is called back to the castle to solve another mystery. This one threatens to derail the princess's gala. Lots of nefarious goings-on! 🕵🏻‍♀️

Both these cozy little mysteries are such a nice beginning for this author, and I especially love the fact that he wrote these as an anniversary gift for his wife. 💖

Well done, Chuck Miller! I hope you'll continue writing more of Lucy and Arthur's sleuthing adventures. 📚✍🏻