Recently I had a short discussion with Murder by Death on the annoyingness of the mothers of the amateur-sleuths in so many cozy-mysteries. They lack any respect for their children's privacy, meddle and seem to be stuck on an eternal loop of 'and when will you make babies???'. And by 'they' I do mean just about any mom-character in the cozies I read (and I've read many) so far. They're also never just a bit annoying, usually I want to yell at them after about one paragraph. Or, alternately, tell the child that it's probably better for their mental well-being if they stay away. (However if they ever get around to yelling at the moms it ends with a lot of tears 'BUT I ONLY CARE ABOUT YOU!!1!!! And by the way WHEN WILL YOU MAKE BABIES???' and the kid has to apologize...)

And this isn't just badly written cozies. There are series I love (Carola Dunn's Lady Daisy-mysteries or Lanyon's Adrien English-series) that have mums with the same annoying traits.

For that reasons I'm doubly happy that the Cambridge Fellows series has an awesome and likeable mum...but it also made me wonder:

Where the hell is this 'cozy-mothers have to be terrible' thing coming from?

As said: it really isn't something that happens occasionally. If a mother has screen time in any cozy there's an 98% chance that she is horrible. Why? Is there a secret agreement between cozy writers? Are they all mind-controlled? Often cozies draw a lot of inspiration from the golden-age crime novels but the big names there are Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers and neither Miss Marple nor Hercule Poirot ever have to deal with their mothers. Lord Peter does but his is again pretty laid-back and really can't be the template for those horrible caricatures...

(on a side-note: I don't quite get the amount of books I'm getting approved of that have 'only for Commonwealth countries' in the publisher's description...I always check my NG-profile after that but it says that I'm German XD)

Oh well...at least the Guardian and the QI-book seem to be quick reads. 

Winter Siege is by Arianna Franlin who also wrote the Mistress of the Art of Death series of which I am actually not that fond but I couldn't resist when I saw that it was about the war between Stephen and Maud (and really...when we look at books set in that time-period...it can only be better than Pillars of the Earth)

it's working tremendously well. Really. I also didn't apply for three more for which I might or might not get approved. *sighs*

You got me. I often tweet about books. (when I'm not retweeting bad puns, lifve-tweet TV-shows or football-matches or yell about bad Jack the Ripper theories...) I also follow a lot of authors on Twitter but let me tell you a secret:

I probably have never read a single book of more than half of the authors I'm following (I often plan to somewhen but looking at my tbr-pile that won't be happening anytime soon) and I'm also following some authors whose books I have read but found a bit...meh.

Why am I doing this?

Because all those authors are interesting people and tweet cool stuff. They comment on current issues or just make bad puns I can retweet (often both actually). Of course they also talk about their work and announce new books, special offers and such but they aren't doing it all the time. (Just like e.g. the actors and comedians I follow don't just tweet about their upcoming appearances)

In short: of course you can follow me but if I check out who you are and find that your twitter-bio is just praise for your latest novel and your latest tweets are you telling random people to check out your novel chances that I follow you back are...unlikely.

(And if I notice that you keep following and unfollowing me probably in the hope that one day I will follow back I will block you*)

(Yes this post is in reaction to a certain author doing that recently but as they weren't the first to do it I'm not naming anybody as it would be unfair to single one person out)

*that has happened only once so far and that was ages ago but I'm still annoyed

We found the true identity of Jack the Ripper. Again. You should all read how Lyndsay Faye (who is an awesome author) rips through the latest theory.