A peek at several future cozy mysteries is a great way to introduce both established writers and newer authors. The diversity of settings, characters and plots will give you plenty to choose from. Thanks to #NetGalley and #CozyCaseFiles12 for advanced digital copy.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the chance to read these great samples.

I love genre fiction and definitely enjoy a good cozy mystery. I am not very immersed in the genre, though, so these Cozy Case Files have been a wonderful chance to be exposed to a variety of books.

A TALE OF TWO COOKIES by Eve Calder - I was interested to see that the blurb mentions a disappearance but not a murder, and I enjoy the thought that this cozy might be even cozier than usual. However, upon digging in I found the opening chapters stilted and uninteresting. But as I had hoped, with a pastry chef heroine, the cookie descriptions are mouthwatering!

THE ROCKY ROAD TO RUIN by Meri Allen - I think I am most excited about reading this book. It is the first in a series, which I always like--some of these other excerpts don't work very well for me because we're either jumping right into characters I'm supposed to know and love, or there's a lot of info-dumping. Anyway, I loved the evocative description of the idyllic New England town of Penniman, Connecticut, and Riley Rhodes heading home. The family and friend dynamics were laid out nicely, and I loved the getting to know the ice cream shop. Given that this is called The Ice Cream Shop Mystery series, I had to laugh at the drama about no one wanting to run the ice cream shop -- clearly it will be fine! I also am very interested to learn more about our heroine's work for the CIA. Fun fact, because she's a food blogger I thought she was making a joke about the Culinary Institute of America, but no, it's *that* CIA.
The one little thing that rubbed me the wrong way in this sample was the aggressive blond with the short skirt and bright pink at the funeral, it was just so over the top and simplistic. Aside from that, I am genuinely interested in these characters and how things will play out, and I got a great sense of people and place. I will definitely pick this one up!

MOCHA, SHE WROTE by Ellie Alexander - This excerpt made me hungry!! There were so many delicious descriptions of both food and drink, I can certainly see the appeal of the series. However, I found the characters incredibly annoying, especially Andy, who is supposed to be the emotional center of the story because our heroine will have to defend him of suspected murder. Sorry, but this whole "Barista Competition" makes no sense to me, how different can two lattes be? How could people practice for months to make coffee? Why would someone drop out of college to make fancy coffee? ...Can you tell I'm a tea drinker?

DEATH IN BLOOM by Jess Dylan - This excerpt was not my favorite. A lot of the setup just seemed so forced, and I was really uncomfortable with how the victim is pudgy and smelly and everyone hates him, the fatphobia was pretty in-your-face. Also, I lost it when we learn the heroine gets money from her parents while she attempts to "manifest" a higher-paying job--ugh!

CLAWS FOR ALARM by Cate Conte - I enjoyed the cat cafe setting, but all of the characters got on my nerves, not just the impending murder victim. Plus, there were too many to keep track of! The foreshadowing of "my friend kept acting weird when I mentioned this lady, huh that's weird I guess it's nothing" was also frustrating. And finally, I thought it was strange that the narrator judges the future murder victim for not picking up and snuggling all the cats as she tours. As a cat mom AND someone who has been to a cat cafe.....yeah, there are lots of cats who need their space, that would actually be respectful of their wishes, but here it's supposed to be a sign of villainy. Very odd.

MURDER MOST FOWL by Donna Andrews - A woman in my book club RAVED about Donna Andrews the other day and how funny she was, but I'm wondering if it's something I needed to start at the beginning for. I really felt like I was dropped into the middle of things, and there were a lot of characters that are probably supposed to be quirky but came off as incredibly irritating.

DANGER AT THE COVE by Hannah Dennison - Speaking of irritating, in this excerpt I just wanted to scream at everyone to get a real job and not try to spend all of their nonexistent money on a creepy hotel on a tiny island in the middle of nowhere. If Agatha Christie has taught us anything, it's that you should never stay anywhere that you have to take a boat to. And now there's a drama queen sister and some random lady that always needs internet even in the middle of nowhere? Just reading the excerpt I was itching to slap everyone, so that's not promising.

TRAIL OF LIES by Kylie Logan - We were on a real losing streak in this section of the sampler with fictional characters that were actually making me angry. If my love interest's mother was this horrific, I'd break up with him and move to another city.

INDEPENDENT BONES by Carolyn Haines - This excerpt's political and gender dynamics made me very uncomfortable.

THE ABDUCTION OF PRETTY PENNY by Leonard Goldberg - The book cover gave much too much away, and made this excerpt feel pretty pointless because we as the reader know what's happening. I was very uncomfortable with the fatphobia, where we get an obnoxious reference to someone "remarkably obese" and also a completely gratuitous reference to guessing someone's weight and calling her rotund when like...you'd have to be 5 feet tall before even BMI would start to classify you as overweight. Anyway, it was extremely irritating, as was all the fawning over how beautiful and sweet and innocent the missing woman was.

A PECULIAR COMBINATION by Ashley Weaver - I had already seen this in the Minotaur sampler. I was intrigued by the synopsis but found myself bored by the slow pace of the excerpt--the synopsis goes way past what we get here! Additionally, I do enjoy historical mysteries but something about the WWII setting just made me so bored, I feel like this is a setting that is really saturated in all kinds of media, both literature and TV/movies.

A ROGUE'S COMPANY by Allison Montclair - The opening of the book with some obscure bit of WWI immediately started putting me to sleep, it was the opposite of intriguing. I then felt VERY lost when we meet our protagonists and they are prim and proper English ladies learning self-defense, and just really had no idea what was happening. Another one that might work better if you know the series.

FATAL FAMILY TIES by SC Perkins - I enjoyed this excerpt and this is another book I will pick up--it's even got two book in the series already out that I can try! Our heroine Lucy seems very competent at her job as a genealogist, and the mystery of the family history and the missing triptych seems intriguing. The references to the Confederate soldier being anti-racist and supporting Texas's Black population and not glorifying the Confederacy seem a little bit pandering but I don't mind, it certainly makes the book easier to sink into when it seems to be thoughtful about these topics.

THE SECRET STAIRCASE by Sheila Connolly - I also enjoyed this excerpt, which is good because I actually was invited to read an early copy of the full book (thank you again NetGalley!). Our heroine is trying to revitalize a historic town, starting with a mansion that is owned by the city, and she seems to be competent and dealing with others well. The excerpt doesn't give us too much of a sense of the plot yet but the blurb sounds very interesting, I enjoy mysteries where a long-ago murder stirs up trouble in the current day.

OK, so out of 14 excerpts, I'm only interested in reading 3--but those are 3 new series I get to try! I liked that this had a mix of modern day and historical mysteries to offer, though I think I preferred books that were first or early in a series as for some of these long-running series I did not have the same love for "quirky" characters that fans might have already developed. Overall, another nice collection of samples and I look forward to next season's.

Delicious Tasters....
A sampler of up and coming cosy mysteries. With fourteen generous chapter samples from authors at the top of their game in this genre, the reader is treated to just enough to get delicious tasters of things to come.

I like these sampler sets. They give enough content to let you decide whether to read the whole book without giving so much away as to spoil it. Some winners in this set!

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC of Cozy Case Files, A Cozy Mystery Sampler, Volume 12. This is my personal review.
I am a Cozy Mystery junkie, and this sampler was amazing! It was a great mixture of authors new books. I liked that there was enough of a sampling for each author that I was able to decide if it was a book I want to read.
I have now increased my authors to read and my TBR pile has gotten bigger. I am so glad I was given the chance to read this sampling and look forward to seeing more of this type of book available.

this is a great way to sample a lot of cozy mysteries all at once. The only problem is that I found way too many that I want to read.

Cozy Case Files 12 is a free chapter sampler for 14 upcoming or newly released cozy mysteries. The sampler is due out 4th May from Macmillan on their Minotaur imprint. It's 420 pages and will be available (gratis) in ebook format. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately.

I love cozies (my favorite genre). This is a nice cross selection of 14 upcoming releases from very well known authors, and a couple who were previously not on my radar. I love collections for that very reason - there are generally a few which are new to me or which I'd forgotten to put in my TBR pile (which is, as always, untamable).

The chapter previews are generous, they're all multi-chapter, and give a good idea of the writing style and theme of each mystery. I look forward to every one of these previews when they become available. Most of these will be getting full length reviews in 2021.

Five stars. I highly recommend this free publisher's preview to fans of cozy mysteries.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes

A great way to sample upcoming mysteries to see what they’re about. Except now I want to read them all!

Our cozy mystery fans tend to be avid readers, so they are always hungry for great new titles. That's why, as a librarian, I appreciate Cozy Case Files, where I can get a preview of a number of upcoming titles. Hope the publisher keeps these coming! Thank you!

As a cozy devotee, I am always absolutely thrilled to be able to get a preview of upcoming releases, some from authors I already follow and some from authors new to me. I get a feel for the writing and characters, and often I am inspired to read previous books in a series. Thank you for this opportunity!

Those who enjoy cozy mysteries will want to look at this extensive preview featuring titles by Ellie Alexander, Eve Calder, Cate Conte, Donna Andrews, Meri Allen, Eve Calder, Sheila Connolly, Hannah Dennison, Jess Dylan, Leonard Goldberg, Carolyn Haines, Kylie Logan, Allison Montclair, S. C. Perkins, Ashley Weaver. The excerpts are each several chapters long giving readers a chance to decide if a book is for them. Find out if a favorite author has a new book forthcoming and maybe find a new favorite as well!

Just some of the author’s whose books I want to read include Hannah Dennison, Carolyn Haines, Kylie Logan, Allison Montclair, S.C Perkins and Ashley Weaver. How about you?

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this wonderful compendium. All opinons are my own.