It's been years (okay, decades) since I read Agatha Christie, but I still remember St. Mary Mead, where Miss Marple solved murders by paying close attention to the behavior of her friends and neighbors. What made the town so memorable? The people. Quirky characters are essential to a giving the fictional town in a cozy mystery that "cozy" feel--especially important for those cozy mystery towns that have a higher-than-average death rate. So if you're reading (or writing) a cozy mystery,...

In my twenty-plus years working as a doctor, I got used to having my patients come in wanting to tell me things. What hurts and where, when it started, what makes it better or worse. Family members often add helpful details like "She's already tried heat and massage and acupuncture, which helps for like an hour, but then it comes right back." We're all on the same team, working together to solve the puzzle. Mystery writing flips that whole paradigm. People on the page of a cozy mystery—even...

Doctor by day, writer by night. For years, that was me. I published my 1st contemporary romance novel in 2013, and by 2019 I had 11 books out there. Mostly medical romance, with a few other tropes thrown in. My colleagues and patients had no idea I was leading a double life (Jill Blake is a pseudonym, under which I continue to write). My family and a few close friends were in on the secret—and were often gracious enough to be my sounding board, beta-readers, and all-around cheerleaders as I...