Picked by The Witches of Doyle Cozy Mysteries fans
Here are 15 books that The Witches of Doyle Cozy Mysteries fans have personally recommended once you finish the The Witches of Doyle Cozy Mysteries series.
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When I joined the Peace Corps in the early nineties, I wasn’t allowed to take much luggage. I decided to bring a Tarot deck, figuring I’d finally have time to learn it while parked in an Estonian forest. That Tarot deck opened up a world of Renaissance mysticism and magic, and I’ve been hooked ever since. Tarot cards and readings feature prominently in many of my cozy mystery novels, not the least of which are the Tea and Tarot mysteries. Now my imaginary Tarot reader from that series, Hyperion Night, has recently written his own Tarot guidebook,The Mysteries of Tarot.
Today’s Tarot decks tend to be clones of one of the three main “models”: The Rider-Waite-Smith, the Marseille, and the Thoth Deck.
Most books on reading Tarot reference the former, the Rider-Waite-Smith. But if you’re going to get serious about reading, it’s useful to have an understanding of the Marseille deck.
When I first picked up a Marseille deck, however, I put it down pretty quickly. No symbols on the Minor Arcana? How was I supposed to read the cards without rote memorization (which I hate)?
But the Marseille style is based on the original Tarot decks from Renaissance Italy, and they’re more typically used in Europe. This deck is important. So when I found this book, despite my misgivings about ever understanding the deck, I decided to give it a read.
What a revelation. There actually aresymbols on the Minor Arcana—they’re just subtle. Using numerology and an explanation…
Discover the Marseille Tarot! This book explores the fascinating history of this often misunderstood deck and provides practical insights into using it for readings on a variety of questions. Yoav Ben-Dov shares the meaning of the classic Marseille symbols and specific reading techniques that help you tap into your own intuition. The Marseille Tarot Revealed explains everything you need to know to start or deepen your Marseille Tarot practice, including history, decks, reading, spreads, symbols and much more.
When I joined the Peace Corps in the early nineties, I wasn’t allowed to take much luggage. I decided to bring a Tarot deck, figuring I’d finally have time to learn it while parked in an Estonian forest. That Tarot deck opened up a world of Renaissance mysticism and magic, and I’ve been hooked ever since. Tarot cards and readings feature prominently in many of my cozy mystery novels, not the least of which are the Tea and Tarot mysteries. Now my imaginary Tarot reader from that series, Hyperion Night, has recently written his own Tarot guidebook,The Mysteries of Tarot.
When I was first learning to read Tarot, one of my big challenges was understanding how the cards worked together.
I eventually came up with my own method. But if I’d had this book when I was starting out, I would have figured things out much more quickly.
Diane Wing goes into all the basics of Tarot reading, including some of the more metaphysical elements. But this book’s strength is the extensive Tarot combinations section.
If understanding how the cards fit together is something you’re struggling with, this is your book.
Learn the Tarot to Bring Divine Guidance to Your Daily Life
Tarot empowers those who connect with its wisdom. As a tool of enlightenment, it guides, reveals hidden insights, and reflects the hopes, fears, and energies of the practitioner and seeker. Based in Universal Law, the cards form a book of metaphysics. Their interpretations change with your level of understanding to help you navigate your life path and generate alternatives. It is a boundless tool that allows you to tap into ancient wisdom that promotes deep transformation of the self and the way in which you experience interactions with the…
When I joined the Peace Corps in the early nineties, I wasn’t allowed to take much luggage. I decided to bring a Tarot deck, figuring I’d finally have time to learn it while parked in an Estonian forest. That Tarot deck opened up a world of Renaissance mysticism and magic, and I’ve been hooked ever since. Tarot cards and readings feature prominently in many of my cozy mystery novels, not the least of which are the Tea and Tarot mysteries. Now my imaginary Tarot reader from that series, Hyperion Night, has recently written his own Tarot guidebook,The Mysteries of Tarot.
Robert Place is my favorite Tarot historian and artist.
What I love about this book is that he writes it in such a way that his discussion of the history of the cards makes it easier to understand and remember their symbolism (always useful when you’re trying to read Tarot). It also has detailed descriptions of different spreads.
But to my mind, it’s just a fun, interesting read, and a book I’ve turned to many a time for research and reading purposes.
The Tarot is one of the few books that cuts through conventional misperceptions to explore the Tarot deck as it really developed in the Middle Ages and Renaissance Europe-not, as some would suggest, in the far reaches of Egyp-tian antiquity. Mining the Hermetic, alchemical, and Neoplatonic influences behind the evolution of the deck, author Robert M. Place provides a historically grounded and compelling portrait of the Tarot's true origins, without overlooking the deck's mystical dimensions.
Indeed, Place uncommonly weds reliable historiography with a practical understanding of the intuitive help and divinatory guidance that the cards can bring. He presents techniques…
When I joined the Peace Corps in the early nineties, I wasn’t allowed to take much luggage. I decided to bring a Tarot deck, figuring I’d finally have time to learn it while parked in an Estonian forest. That Tarot deck opened up a world of Renaissance mysticism and magic, and I’ve been hooked ever since. Tarot cards and readings feature prominently in many of my cozy mystery novels, not the least of which are the Tea and Tarot mysteries. Now my imaginary Tarot reader from that series, Hyperion Night, has recently written his own Tarot guidebook,The Mysteries of Tarot.
It’s said that court cards can be the trickiest for Tarot readers to interpret. This was certainly true for me when I was starting out, soUnderstanding the Tarot Courtbecame invaluable to me.
Mary K. Greer is another Tarot classicist and has spent decades delving into the history and usage of Tarot. The book goes deep into the symbolism and meanings of various cards—both upright and reversed—even going so far as to equate them to Myers-Briggs personality types.
Perhaps more importantly, it also has excellent explanations of howto read these quirky cards.
Just who are those kings, queens, knights, and pages in the Tarot deck? Generally considered the most difficult part of the Tarot to interpret, they actually represent different characters or personalities that are aspects of ourselves. Two esteemed Tarot scholars unmask the court cards with details not found in any other book. They bring the Tarot court cards to life, showing their full human possibilities.
I’ve been addicted to reading and writing mystery novels since I picked up my first Nancy Drew. But in addition to a good puzzle, I also love a good laugh and grew up watching classic screwball comedies. I’ve written a dozen funny cozy mysteries now with more in the works. I hope you enjoy the books on this list as much as I have!
The murder and the laughs in this mystery begin on page one—which is no mean feat. Retired CIA agent Merry Wrath is now leading an Iowa girl scout troop. A murdered Al Qaeda operative tangled in the ropes course puts her back on the case again… and with her old and very attractive handler. Add in a handsome detective, and the sparks and laughs are flying in this good-natured and well-plotted romp.
From USA Today bestselling author, Leslie Langtry comes a mystery series of laugh-out-loud proportions...
When CIA agent Merry Wrath is "accidentally" outted, she's forced her into early retirement, changes her appearance, and moves where no one will ever find her—Iowa. Instead of black bag drops in Bangkok, she now spends her time leading a young Girl Scout troop. But Merry's new simple life turns not-so-simple when an enemy agent shows up dead at scout camp. Suddenly Merry is forced to deal with her former life in order to preserve her future one.
I’ve been addicted to reading and writing mystery novels since I picked up my first Nancy Drew. But in addition to a good puzzle, I also love a good laugh and grew up watching classic screwball comedies. I’ve written a dozen funny cozy mysteries now with more in the works. I hope you enjoy the books on this list as much as I have!
Travel back in time, reader, to the dark ages of the 1980s and a sci-fi convention full of eccentric gamers, puffed-up speakers, and fans unleashing their alter egos. And of course… murder. The hero, a professor with a surprise hit sci-fi book on his hands, is a charming fish out of water determined to do the right thing. Though the technology described in the book is dated, the quirky characters can still be found at any con today.
A sci-fi convention gets a dose of true crime in this Edgar Award-winning mystery by the New York Times bestselling author of the Ballad novels.
When Virginia Tech professor James Owen Mega wrote a fictional account of his real-life research, he hardly expected it to get published. But when a publisher changed the title of his novel to Bimbos of the Death Sun, James—under the pen name Jay Omega—becomes an overnight sci-fi star. Invited to the annual fan convention Rubicon, James is both a fish out of water and a Guest of Honor among the Trekkies and sword-wielding cosplayers. But…
I’ve been addicted to reading and writing mystery novels since I picked up my first Nancy Drew. But in addition to a good puzzle, I also love a good laugh and grew up watching classic screwball comedies. I’ve written a dozen funny cozy mysteries now with more in the works. I hope you enjoy the books on this list as much as I have!
As owner of a dusty bookshop and mother of a teen daughter, widow Claire Malloy is hesitant to host a book party for a smutty romance author. But the two women are friends, so she does, and this being a cozy mystery, murder results. Claire’s droll wit, the funny situations, and the sparring between Claire and the handsome detective keep the pages turning in this well-plotted mystery. Strangled Prose is the first book in the Claire Malloy series.
Claire Malloy's friend has written a trashy novel. Claire agrees to host a book party but at the end of the evening her friend is found strangled. She had admittedly offended many people but who could have hated her with such passion?
I’d always been a bookworm, but once I settled into a not-so-exciting career, I became a voracious reader of romance and mystery to escape the monotony of my day job. I’d frequent the library during my lunch breaks and devour the titles by my favorite authors. While this was entertainment, it was also educational. My love for writing became rekindled, and I started studying cozies and romantic mysteries with the goal to write what I most loved to read: fun, lighthearted mystery. I especially enjoy writing and reading humorous whodunits that are populated by quirky, loveable characters as reflected by my list. I hope you enjoy them too!
A CIA assassin who is forced to go undercover as a girly girl in the tiny bayou town of Sinful, Louisiana? From that premise alone, I knew this would be a fun read, and wow, does Jana DeLeon ever deliver in book one of her Miss Fortune Mystery series.
It’s a fabulous fish-out-of-water story filled with quirky characters of all ages, secrets that refuse to stay buried, and wrongs to be made right. There’s a splash of romance and plenty of laughs in this well-paced, sassy whodunit. My favorite kind of lighthearted mystery!
CIA assassin Fortune Redding is about to undertake her most difficult mission ever-in Sinful, Louisiana. With a leak at the CIA and a price placed on her head by one of the world's largest arms dealers, Fortune has to go off-grid, but she never expected to be this far out of her element. Posing as a former beauty queen turned librarian in a small bayou town seems worse than death to Fortune, but she's determined to fly below the radar until her boss finds the leak and puts the arms dealer out…
Even as an overachieving student, I struggled with true/false tests, always writing short essays explaining why the answer wasn’t quite clear cut. Some teachers loved my need to blur the lines. Others not so much. But this aversion to boundaries—the idea that something (or someone) must be this or that—it’s part of my blood. I read everything in the library, nonfiction, fiction, all genres. I like books that cross from real to fantasy, history to fiction. I love characters who refuse to be told who and what they can (or can’t) be. I want love to break boundaries, too. That’s what this list is all about.
When a story gives me a character so real I feel like I know them, someone I can invest in, then I’ll go through anything with them—mistakes, victories, heartbreaks, joy. Connie Goodwin brings us into her life as she clears out her grandmother’s estate and then takes us with her as she discovers the remarkable life of Deliverance Dane, a midwife during the time of the Salem Witch Trials. The book swirls with mystery and romance and the power of women in any age.
While clearing out her grandmother's cottage for sale, Connie Goodwin finds a hidden parchment inscribed with the name Deliverance Dane. And so begins the hunt to uncover the woman behind the name, a hunt that takes her back to Salem in 1692 . . . and the infamous witchcraft trials.
But nothing is entirely as it seems and when Connie unearths the existence of Deliverance's spell book, the Physick Book, the situation takes on a menacing edge as interested parties reveal their desperation to find this precious artefact at any cost.
What secrets does the Physick Book contain? What magic…
I believe that magical systems and worlds based on folklore and existing magical practices feel more “real” to the reader... and are a lot more interesting. As an avid Tarot reader, I’ve taken some deep dives into the esoteric magical traditions and symbols behind the cards. I’m still coming up for air on the topic. I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to channel this arcane (and let’s face it, not otherwise very useful) knowledge into my own witch and paranormal mysteries. I hope you enjoy the witchy mystery novels on this list!
Most authors put their notes about what the book is based on at the back. Syd Moore puts it right up front—the true story of a witch hunt hysteria in England. And once that story’s in your head, it colors everything that follows in this paranormal mystery set around an Essex witch museum. Most of the laughs (and there are plenty) come from the wry and witty heroine of this intriguing mystery, packed with information about witchcraft past and present.
Rosie Strange doesn't believe in ghosts or witches or magic. No, not at all. It's no surprise therefore when she inherits the ramshackle Essex Witch Museum, her first thought is to take the money and run.
Still, the museum exerts a curious pull over Rosie. There's the eccentric academic who bustles in to demand she help in a hunt for old bones, those of the notorious Ursula Cadence, a witch long since put to death. And there's curator Sam Stone, a man about whom Rosie can't decide if he's tiresomely annoying or extremely captivating. It all adds up to looking…
