That’s just cold

Here I am, and here’s another cozy.

But the break made a difference. Or maybe this is just better than the last few I read.

Stormy Day has, (for reasons not entirely mentioned in the text but including a broken engagement), returned to her small hometown after having lived and worked in The Big City (which big city is never mentioned and may be irrelevant). She’s got a rental property adjacent to her new home; she bought a small business, and she’s not yet adjusted to the ways of the local Coffee Shop. Her womanizing father, still living, is in the hospital for a hip replacement; his current girlfriend (Pamela) is somewhat unpleasant and very demanding.  It’s all her fault that Stormy ends up discovering the next-door hoarding misanthrope’s body, which has been turned into the core of a snowman.

Stormy is fun, a little neurotic, and established early as having experience at solving things. The cat (because of course there’s the cat) undergoes an inadvertent sex change early in the book (as in, Stormy takes him to the vet immediately after she finds the body and they tell Stormy her father’s girlfriend’s cat is a He, not a She), and things feel small and close in bad and good ways.

However, thanks to this book I have a new favorite replacement for “Running around like a chicken with its head cut off.” :

“I was running around like a mouse carrying a backpack of catnip.”

Most of the book isn’t that twee about its turns of phrase, but Stormy and the cat are likable and even the villain has their moments.

So, yeah. I’ll probably pick up the next couple of books in this series, and if you like cozies you’ll probably like this one, too.