Queer Cozy Mysteries That Came Out This Year and Why I Like Them
My name's CJ, and I'm a queer cozy mystery writer. I also have been a Book Riot contributor for about three years, mainly focused on queer mysteries and romance.
Until this year, whenever I did my anticipated cozy mystery round-ups on Book Riot, I could never find any about queer characters. This was deeply frustrating to me. I enjoyed so much about cozy mysteries--the humor and close-knit communities in particular--and it hurt that I couldn't see characters like myself in a genre I loved.
That all changed in 2022. My round-ups this year went from zero traditionally published cozy mysteries to five!
Below are four cozies about queer characters that came out this year and why I like them.
- follows Hayden McCall, a twenty-five-year old teacher investigating a missing persons case
- lots of loveable characters, including Hayden himself
- author coined the term "quozy mystery" to describe the uptick of cozies with queer representation
- strong Pushing Daisies vibes, which i was deeply invested in as a middle schooler
- the main character Daisy Ellery uses her magical pies to kill abusive men
- pushes the boundaries of what a cozy mystery can be
- sequel finds Daisy competing in a Great British Bake Off-esque televised competition
- while the main character Lila Macapagal does not identify as queer, there are prominent queer recurring characters throughout the series
- this installment is set in December and features both an intriguing mystery and cast of suspecte
- includes recipes at the end of the book!
- follows married couple Margery and Clementine as they solve murders in their small English village
- a sequel set during Christmas just came out, and a third is set to come out in February!
Plus, a few more queer cozy mysteries to look forward to in 2023:
- A Good Day to Pie by Misha Popp (sequel to Magic, Lies, and Deadly Pies)
- The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older (a queer Sherlockian sci-fi mystery set on Jupiter)
- A Terrible Village Poisoning by Hannah Hendy (sequel to The Dinner Lady Detectives)
- The Body in the Back Garden by Mark Waddell (new series starring a gay journalist in a small Canadian town)
- Board to Death (my debut! out from Kensington Books next year and following Ben Rosencrantz, a gay English professor who gets entangled in a murder case after returning home to run his dad's board game shop in Salt Lake City)