Cozy Reads That Sleigh

Having just completed an MBA, Bronwyn Crewse returns home to Chagrin Falls, Ohio to take over and renovate the family ice cream shop. She has plans for the menu to return to its heyday when it was filled with her grandmother’s homemade recipes, but fate has other plans. The store has a bad reopening, and she finds a body. Sis can’t catch a break. Thing is, the guy who died isn’t exactly well-liked by the Crewse family, which complicates things. General amateur sleuthing hijinks ensures, but with the nice addition of a cast of quirky, fun characters.

Both Gabe and Michelle reconnect after their careers need a refresh and not having seen each other for over a decade. Back in the Bronx, where their families lived next to each other, they were the best of friends. But then Gabe decided to leave Michelle and his family abruptly for L.A. There, he runs a successful celebrity gym, the same gym whose marketing Michelle has been hired to reconfigure. The two of them working together has each of them confronting their past, family pressures, and, most importantly, the chemistry between them. This’ll make the cold days a lot warmer, ifyouknowwhatimean.

Lila Macapagal moves back home to get her ish together after a break up. Now, though, she has to contend with trying to save her Auntie Rosie’s restaurant, and the judgement (and love!) that comes from well-meaning Filipino Aunties. When a local food critic shows up who just so happens to be her bitter ex, he winds up face first in her family’s cooking, dead. She’s the prime suspect, and has to figure out who really murdered him before the landlord evicts her family’s restaurant from his building. Luckily, she has Longanisa (her Dachshund), gossiping Aunties, and a little love interest to help her through it all.

This is the third in the utterly delightful Brown Sisters trilogy by Hibbert. I would strongly suggest you read all three, but if you want to get a taste first, you might as well start with the most recent one (you don’t really have to read them in order). Plus, it gets extra cozy points for taking place in a bed and breakfast in the English countryside.

Certified Walking DisasterTM Eve Brown wanders upon a bed and breakfast after having been told by her parents to get her life together. Turns out, the very organized, always in control owner Jacob needs a cook ASAP for an upcoming festival. After blatantly (rudely?) refusing Eve’s application, she accidentally hits him with her car and stays to help run his business while he’s taken to the hospital for a broken arm. Pretty soon, the whirlwind that is Eve, with her natural charm and sunshine-like demeanor, is running his kitchen and even staying in his spare room. The very serious Jacob finds that his cold exterior might be melting…just a little. The banter between these two is genuinely fun, and it’s the rare romance that has a neurodivergent love interest. When I tell you this was such a joy to read. Also, it gets real hot.