Fans pick 33 books like Beaches, Bungalows & Burglaries

I admit it: I underestimated Flavia de Luce.

She is 11 years old, self-schooled, and lives outside a small English town in the 1950s. She is overlooked and underestimated by everyone. Deep inside, I’m still 11 years old, underestimated, and overlooked. I had an insatiable desire to learn about my environment, and I often saw things others didn’t. Flavia also reminds me of my childhood living in the country in the 1980s. I ran unchecked, safe, and constantly delighted in discovering new things about my corner of the world. I wince at the de Luce family politics. I cheer Flavia’s investigations and her fearlessness. I want nothing more than to stay in Flavia’s 11-year-old world forever. She is the kick-ass kid I wanted to be. 

This is a fun cozy that has four seniors scrambling to find a killer. I liked so much about this book. For one, it was a fun read. Every Thursday, four unlikely friends residing in a retirement home gather to tackle cold cases. They never anticipated that they would find themselves embroiled in an actual murder investigation.

I found Elizabeth, Joyce, Ron, and Ibraham to be endearing characters who bring warmth and humor to the story. I loved the way each character employs their unique and sometimes eccentric strengths to contribute to solving the crime, making their interactions both entertaining and engaging.

A CIA assassin who is forced to go undercover as a girly girl in the tiny bayou town of Sinful, Louisiana? From that premise alone, I knew this would be a fun read, and wow, does Jana DeLeon ever deliver in book one of her Miss Fortune Mystery series.

It’s a fabulous fish-out-of-water story filled with quirky characters of all ages, secrets that refuse to stay buried, and wrongs to be made right. There’s a splash of romance and plenty of laughs in this well-paced, sassy whodunit. My favorite kind of lighthearted mystery!

Animal lovers everywhere will love this humorous mystery series, where Ivy Galloway leaves the big city and her stressful job to open her own farm-themed inn, alongside her rescue dog.

Of course, not knowing a thing about running a farm and then having a murder occur on her property right after moving in was likely more stressful than anything she’d experienced at her previous job. Dogcatcher in the Rye kept my attention and had me laughing the whole time.

As soon as I finished this book, I started reading the next in the series.

This book is so original. We follow an old man, a retired serial killer, on his journey to read his own newly published true crime story. He stumbles on the book while doing his security rounds and can't resist picking it up, and over the next week finds himself more and more obsessed with reading it, growing fears that he will be discovered after twenty years, and with the author, his only surviving victim- who was a child at the time and is now an adult twenty years later. 

I enjoyed this book, it's original in the sense that the killer is an ordinary, cranky old bastard that no one likes. He's just a guy, who doesn't stand out, hasn't been good at anything all his life, a mediocre man that falls into the crowd. The only thing he's ever been able to succeed at was being The Nothing Man,… show more.

Flavia de Luce is surely one of the most original—and the most delightful—detective characters ever written. The precocious eleven-year-old lives in a crumbling manor house in the English countryside, with her vague father, beastly older sisters, and faithful retainer Dogger. Her interest in chemistry—and death—tend her get her into trouble on a regular basis. In this book, Flavia is on the scene when the body of the church organist turns up in the medieval tomb of St Tancred, the parish church’s patron saint. Predictably, she sets out to solve the murder, tearing about the village on her faithful bicycle Gladys. Alan Bradley evokes a world—rural England in the 1950s—that many of us would love to return to (in spite of the murders!) and has created an unforgettable heroine. If you enjoy mysteries that make you smile, rather than… show more.

I just did a reread of this timed for the release of the seventh in the series, and every time I read it I’m blown away by the genius way Thomas deconstructs the Holmes mythology and then puts it back together again in a new, fascinating, plausible, entirely satisfying way.

In this retelling Holmes is not only a woman, but one who has been exiled from society for—well, behaving like Sherlock Holmes. The characterization—not only of Holmes, but also of her family, associates, and enemies—is rich and believable, and the mysteries are complex and gripping.

The whole series explores the fundamental injustice of women being treated differently from men, as well as the many ingenious ways women find to escape, avoid, and subvert that norm—and the price they pay.

I stumbled across this book while browsing through a charity shop – a murder/mystery set in Whitechapel when Jack the Ripper is still roaming free. I am by no means a follower of Ripper stories, legend or myth, despite recommending this book, but there is something about Victorian London in the 1880s that fascinates me.

The Yard is the first in a series that I have devoured over the last few years. I love Alex Grecian’s easy writing style and the main character, Detective Inspector Walter Day is one I wish I had created myself. He has a brilliant mind, a quick and quiet humour, and a soul that is truly good. Of course, he does have his faults, but they are all forgivable…at least for me!

As a chocoholic, I had to check out the Death by Chocolate Mysteries by Sarah Graves, and I definitely wasn’t disappointed.

Protagonist Jacobia “Jake” Tiptree and her best friend sell their delectable chocolate creations from their shop, the Chocolate Moose, in Eastport, Maine, while solving local mysteries.

Death by Chocolate Cherry Cheesecake is sprinkled with intense, page-turning scenes and plenty of chocolate, making this a fun and delicious cozy mystery.

Hidden Treasure is the thirteenth novel in the long-running Josie Prescott Antiques Mysteries series.

This novel is a great addition to the series that features not only an antique dealing main character but shows her business growing and transforming. I specifically enjoyed this novel because the mystery is centered on an older woman who has a zest for life despite her age—and I like how Josie encourages and helps her.

The novel’s fast-paced and twisty, including one particularly surprising and fun detail near the end. I highly recommended this series to lovers of cozy as well as traditional mysteries with an antique dealer as the main character.