Throwback Interview from 2016!
Guest Post: Tonya Kappes, author of GHOSTLY REUNION
The Book Diva’s Reads is pleased to host a visit today from the USA Today best-selling author Tonya Kappes. Ms. Kappes is the author of 40+ books, including the Magical Cure Mystery series, the Laurel London Mystery series, The Divorced Divas Mystery series, the Grandberry Falls series, the Kenni Lowry series, the Olivia Davis Paranormal Mystery series, the Bluegrass Romance series, and the ever-popular Ghostly Southern Mysteries series. Today Ms. Kappes will be discussing cozy mysteries (who better to discuss this topic?). Without further adieu, I give you Ms. Kappes.
Why not a cozy?
When people find out I’m a writer and ask me what genre. I respond with cozy mystery. You can probably guess the next question. Cozy? What is a cozy?
Trust me, I’ve been around long enough (26 novels) to know that cozy mystery genre doesn’t get the same hats off, Baptist nod, and thumbs up that thriller mystery or even just mystery writers get.
And if it’s not bad enough, I have to tell them that I write paranormal cozy mystery.That really gets the quizzical looks that make me feels as if I have two heads. THEN when I say it’s a witch mystery, I get the OMG, you believe in witches?
My explanation generally goes like this: Cozy mystery is kinda just that. Cozy. More along the lines of Murder She Wrote where the sleuth of my novels has a job that is in a craft or a special talent. She stumbles on a murder that is somehow tied to her life and she has to solve the murder/crime on her own.
There is no blood, guts, or gore and cozies are centered on the sleuth’s craft or gift. In my case with A Ghostly Reunion, the sleuth is an undertaker who lives in the small southern town in Kentucky.
Emma Lee Raines, my cozy sleuth, owns Eternal Slumber, the only funeral home in Sleepy Hollow, Kentucky. She has an unfortunate mishap with a plastic snowman falling on her head and now she sees dead people…dead murdered people who need to find their killer to make it to the other side or Emma risks to be haunted forever.
Cozies have relatable characters set in small towns with a cozy setting. Even though romance takes a back seat in the mystery, there is still a love interest to sweet the pot.
By the time I’ve given my spiel, the person who asked me about what a cozy was, is spouting off movies or television shows that fit the cozy mystery genre.
Love Tonya’s Books. I had requested the next in the series of the cozy campers,I bought the first one in Greenbay Wi At the automobile museum now I wanted the next few in the series. To get signed paperbacks someone was to so posed to get back to me. Have not heard anything from you.