Quote:
Originally Posted by pendragginp
I would think that all of the latter references might just be because the author listed it as a cozy, rather than because it actually is.
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Yes, that's entirely possible.
But if the author decides to state her book is a cozy right in the subtitle and I don't see anything prominent to contradict it, such as a top-voted customer review saying something along the lines of "Good mystery, but NOT a cozy, just a regular comedic woman sleuth", then it's unfortunate that she may have chosen to fly her work under false colours to presumably attract the lucrative niche cozy market (or just be very mistaken about the varieties within the genre she writes in, which would be rather sad for an Edgar Award-winning writer who also edits a series of themed mystery anthologies*), and I'm afraid there's only so much investigative decision-making I'm willing to do before deciding which megathread a KDP Select Amazon-exclusive self-republished backlist freebie seems to best go into, sorry.
I like to trust the Gentle Reader can ultimately decide whether or not they want to get any book based on how much it appeals to their taste, even if it doesn't seem to fit the category given.
Anyway, another freebie direct from the author @
Smashwords (may be price-matched elsewhere):
Frosted Shadow by Nancy Warren, 1st in the Toni Diamond Mystery series starring a cosmetic sales rep. Warren is normally a Harlequin author, but she specifically says in the blurb included on Amazon that she considers this to be a cozy mystery, though it may perhaps lean more towards the romantic comedy side. Nothing in a quick skim of the customer reviews obviously says otherwise, and this hasn't been posted in any of the romance megathreads according to MR search, and the romance readers are usually pretty quick to find and point out dedicated romance freebies from authors they know, as they have previously for some of Warren's other books.
This appears to be one of her self-published efforts (despite the "Ambleside Publishing" name on Amazon & iTunes), but years ago, I did morbid-curiosity read one of her official Harlequin NASCAR romance freebies,
Speed Dating, and mildly enjoyed it (mainly for the car-racing stuff, though the character interactions were decent and the storytelling played out well enough, as far as I can remember).
So I personally would have no hesitation about trying this one, especially since it's in a subgenre I'm much more likely to normally read. YMMV.
Meet Toni Diamond, make up artist to middle America. She's got a nose for trouble and a passion for solving mysteries. Imagine Columbo in a lavender suit. She never met a woman who wouldn't look better with a little help from the Lady Bianca line of cosmetics. But don't be fooled by appearances. Underneath the fake diamonds and the big hair is a sharp brain and a keen eye that sees the details as well as the funny side of life. When a Lady Bianca sales rep is murdered at the annual convention in Dallas, Toni is the one who notices things that some people, like sexy Detective Luke Marciano, might easily miss. Only someone who understands as much about how to make appearances deceiving could see into the mind of this killer -- a murderer who wants to give Toni a permanent makeover. Into a dead woman.
At the sales convention, Toni has to deal with her arch rival Nicole Freedman, a woman who would stab Toni in the back if it would get her the coveted top sales award. She's got her own beauty consultants to encourage, her mother who's taken Dolly Parton as her pattern and her patron saint, her daughter Tiffany, who, at sixteen, is mortified by everything her mother does. Including breathing.
In this humorous, cozy mystery, complete with a wily and entertaining amateur female sleuth, a sexy police officer, a murder or two, a little comedy and some racy scenes, a suburban cosmetics sales woman matches wits with a fiendish murderer.
* I know this because I bought one. Actually I only happen to know about Smith's own career in the first place because I'd bought said anthology because it contained a short by one of my favourite mystery writers.