Did you finish a book (for this challenge) in April?

If you do, please let us know what you read!  The form isn't required but I always think it's fun to see what othe cozies everyone is reading for this challenge.

Books completed in April

Holy Guacamole! Somebody already finished the challenge!

First off....I'm excited and surprised by the number of books you have all read for the challenge this month!  Very impressive.  I just knew Cozy Mystery readers were the best.

I'm especially surprised that Deborah from Books, Movies, and Chinese Food has already finished the challenge with, get this, 10 books!   Holy Smokes and Congratulations Deborarh!  I think you deserve a round of applause.

I suppose this means I need to create the post for the Challenge winners, er I mean, finishers, so I can start collecting mailing addresses for the bookmarks huh?  Hopefully I'll have that up by the end of the week.

Congrats again Deborah!

It's time to sign-up for my annual Cozy Mystery Challenge!

What is a cozy some of you might ask?  Good question!  To make it brief: a cozy mystery is a mystery that doesn't normally have any rough language, sex scenes, or gruesome details about the killing, and the main character is normally an amateur detective.  Many times you will notice that a cozy mystery series also revolves around food or a hobby, although this isn't a requirement.  The Cozy-Mystery website does a great job of listing what a cozy mystery is and also contains a list of authors who write cozies (you can also browse series by theme! Seriously!  I just noticed that and they have a section for paranormal..I'll be checking that out soon.).

This year the challenge means a bit more to me than in past years.  My friend Barbara (she went by Heidi on her blog) passed away last April.  She had signed up for the challenge but never had a chance to participate in it.  Barbara is the one who got my hooked on cozies.  Since she has passed I haven't read as many cozies as I would like, partly because I don't have her to talk to about them all the time and partly because reading her descriptions and what she read always kept me abreast of the cozy mystery world and excited about starting new series.   I'm hoping that by hosting the challenge this year I get back in the swing of reading more cozies.

Now, without further ado, the rules:

1. The challenge runs April 1st, 2010 through September 30, 2010.
2. The goal is to read at least 6 cozy mysteries, one for each month.  You can choose to read more, but you must read 6 in order to complete this challenge. You don't have to read 1 each month, you can read them whenever you like, you just have to read at least six.
3. While you can overlap with other challenges, please try to have at least 2 of the books only count towards this challenge.
4. Prizes you ask?  Everyone loves a prize! Everyone who completes this challenge will get a bookmark made by yours truly (even if I don't mail them in a timely manner - I will mail them.)
5. Sign-up using the dedicated form.  The form can be found in another post or here's a direct link.  While it would be great if you signed up before April 1st, last year I had several people who wanted to join but didn't learn about the challenge until after it had started. Therefore you can sign up anytime between now and September 1st.

Questions?  Leave a comment and I'll answer them.

oh..and the picture you ask?  That's a picture of part of my bookcase (I only have one right now).  These are almost all my mysteries, it is all my cozy mysteries.  I'm actually kinda out of room and that's why it looks so messy.