The Scumble River Mysteries look like they will be another favorite series of cozy mysteries for me. This one authored by Denise Swanson.
Since I began reading books considered “cozies,” by several authors I decided to expand my knowledge base. The premise is a good one. Violence, but not harshly depicted, romance but no sexual scenes, recurring characters usually living in a small or quaint town. You will often find them set around a persons hobby, whether knitting, baking, or solving crimes.
The covers of the books are irresistible. I would love to spend time simply studying the detail that goes in to many of them. If you would like to know more about cozies, click here for my article, What Makes a Cozy Mystery.
Introducing Skye Dennision
In this series, Skye Dennison is the main character, at least so far, returning from the city to her small town in Illinois. As a school psychologist we get to see the towns students involved in her stories as well, for good and for bad. We meet her family too. No doubt we will see much more of them. Then there is the sheriff, Wally, the one she had the crush on when she was in school. Throw in the good looking coroner willing to help her investigate and we have characters that we will enjoy getting to know as the series progresses.
The first book in the Scumble River series is entitled Murder of a Small-Town Honey. One of the things I liked about the story is that it starts the action off quickly, introducing characters as the story moves along.
In this case a murder of a victim who turns out to be someone the community knows. The author allowed for a variety of suspects with questionable motives, then let us investigate along with Skye. There were plenty of surprises in store too Click here to read my review of the series first.
Ms. Swanson currently has seventeen books published in the series. The first was published in July of 2000, the latest in September 0f 2014. Besides Scumble River, the author has other series as well, namely the Devereaux’s Dime Store Mysteries and the Center Point Premiere Mysteries.
The Second in the Series…Murder of a Sweet Old Lady
Skye’s own grandmother is found dead in book #2! And turns out it is not from natural causes. Naturally Skye is determined to find out who is responsible. If that means family secrets are exposed…She will just have to see. Could one of her family be a murderer?
The Latest in the series…Murder of a Needled Knitter
I personally have to read a series in order. If you are not one of those people, you may prefer her latest book… Skye is on a honeymoon cruise when she discovers a knitting expert dying. By now readers will know there is no way she can leave that alone! Let the investigation begin.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
