Addison Rizer is a writer and reader of anything that can be described as weird, sad, or scary. She has an MA in Professional Writing and a BA in English. She writes for Book Riot and Publishers Weekly and is always looking for more ways to gush about the books she loves. Find her published work or contact her on her website or at addisonrizer at gmaildotcom.
Addison Rizer is a writer and reader of anything that can be described as weird, sad, or scary. She has an MA in Professional Writing and a BA in English. She writes for Book Riot and Publishers Weekly and is always looking for more ways to gush about the books she loves. Find her published work or contact her on her website or at addisonrizer at gmaildotcom.
Whether it’s summertime and you’re poolside or it’s winter and you’re snuggled up in front of a fire, a cozy mystery is the perfect companion. Cozy mysteries are riveting enough to keep you hooked while keeping things more lighthearted with quirky characters, punny names, and settings you just want to live in forever. That doesn’t mean there is no crime to be found; there’s murder aplenty in the books below. But these cozy mysteries are sure to include some humor, warmth, and sometimes a sweet romance to lighten the mood.
Whether you’re a cozy mystery connoisseur or a newbie to the sub-genre, this list of the best new cozy mysteries to read this winter is sure to have something for you. You’ll find a sweet potato pie-related murder, a father-daughter duo of food detectives, and an Agatha Christie-filled mystery.
Enter for a chance to snag a brand-new Kindle Paperwhite for carrying a pocketful of stories wherever your holidays may take you.
Savvy Summers and the Sweet Potato Crimes by Sanda Jackson-Opoku
Savvy Summers spends her days serving delectable soul food to her customers in Chicago’s South Side. That is, until a man dies at her restaurant in the middle of eating her famous sweet potato pie. Despite the police ruling the death an accident, rumors cast her business in a negative light, and Savvy turns into a sleuth of sorts to clear her restaurant and her beloved sweet potato pie’s reputation.
The Busybody Book Club by Freya Sampson
An eclectic book club of five very different readers is thrown into chaos when one of their members disappears and a dead body is found inside his house. The group, each with their own book-influenced theory as to what might have happened, comes together to get to the bottom of the mystery of their missing member.
The Kamogawa Food Detectives Menu of Happiness by Hisashi Kashiwai
The third installation in The Kamogawa Food Detectives series has arrived, and with it comes the lovable father-daughter food detectives, Chef Nagare and Koishi, back at their delicious sleuthing. As with the others in the series, the pair help patrons at their restaurant, the Kamogawa Diner, by recreating dishes that were important to them in some way. The patron’s stories are heartwarming, and this detective duo is the most endearing you’ll come across.
The Marigold Cottages Murder Collective by Jo Nichols
Mrs. B’s bungalows in sunny Santa Barbara are the perfect rental homes for Sophie, Ocean, Hamilton, Lily-Ann, and Nicholas. Their peaceful living is interrupted when, only weeks after new tenant Anthony moves in, a dead body is found in their community. After Mrs. B confesses to the crime, the tenants are positive she’s lying, and they join together to clear her name and put the right person behind bars.
Detective Aunty by Uzma Jalaluddin
When widowed Kausar Khan gets a call that her daughter is accused of murdering the landlord of her clothing store, she returns to Toronto for the first time in decades. With the help of her granddaughters, Kausar starts investigating, finding many, many secrets lurking in the neighborhood that no one seems to want revealed. Kausar won’t stop, though, until her daughter is free.
Mrs. Christie at the Mystery Guild Library by Amanda Chapman
Book conservator Tory Van Dyne works at and lives above Manhattan’s Mystery Guild Library. Inside the library’s Christie Room, Tory encounters a woman claiming that she is Agatha Christie and she’s there to solve a murder. When Tory’s cousin, Nicola, finds herself tangled in the investigation into her agent’s death, Tory turns to the supposed Agatha Christie to get Nicola out of trouble.
A Novel Murder by E.C. Nevin
Writer Jane Hepburn sets out for the Killer Lines book festival, hoping to turn her detective novel into a bestseller. But when she finds the dead body of literary agent Carrie Marks, Jane hones her own inner sleuth to find out what happened with the help of one of Carrie’s clients and an intern. Unfortunately, Carrie wasn’t the most liked agent, and the trio soon finds enemies everywhere they turn.
![Vera Wong's Guide to Snooping [On a Dead Man] book cover](https://s2982.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Vera-Wongs-Guide-to-Snooping-On-a-Dead-Man--300x0.jpg.webp)
Vera Wong’s Guide to Snooping (On a Dead Man) by Jesse Q Sutanto
Vera Wang is back! When a distraught woman named Millie comes looking for her missing friend, Xander, Vera Wang does her best to comfort her. Then she just so happens to stumble upon a file in the briefcase of Serena, her son’s girlfriend, and a police officer, about Xander’s death—or, so they think. No one seems to know who Xander really was. But fear not, Vera Wang is on the case!
I hope one of these cozy mysteries is the perfect read for a cold winter’s night. If you’re in the mood for more cozy reads, check out these best cozy books of 2025 and these cozy and comforting books about bakeries!
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