Cozy Up with Quozies: 9 of the Best Queer Cozy Mysteries

This is one of the first cozy mysteries I ever read, and it is such a fun introduction to the genre. Not only is Alexis Hall a seasoned writer with many great books under their belt, but they also just know how to write great characters, which is so important in a cozy mystery. When a crime podcaster and her corporate financier wife go on a weekend retreat to a Scottish castle, they’re hoping for some time to rekindle their relationship. Instead, they get a dead body, a locked-room mystery, and a murder investigation. But can Liza’s armchair sleuthing hold up against an actual murderer in their midst? Only one way to find out!

As someone who’s watched my fair share of HGTV home renovation shows, I’m obsessed with this premise. Peter and JP are partners at home and at work as stars and producers of a hit new home renovation show called Domestic Partners. But when a dead body shows up on the new season, will their skills as a mystery novelist and former star on a cop show be enough to help them solve this real-life murder?

When the man whose bed Hayden McCall wakes up in goes missing, he becomes the police’s prime suspect in what might be a case of foul play. But Hayden doesn’t know anything. In fact, Camilo Rodrigues was practically a stranger before he accidentally kicked Hayden in the face at a nightclub. Now, Hayden needs to track down Camilo’s friends and find out more about this guy before anything else happens. Because even worse than the police suspecting Hayden would be them not investigating this disappearance at all.

Book Rioter CJ Connor’s queer cozy mystery novel is set in a Salt Lake City board game shop. When the owner is offered a great deal on the rare vintage board game Monopoly was based on, he passes, thinking it’s too good to be true. He was right. Soon, the collector is found dead behind Ben’s dumpster, and with a mysterious bag of $100 bills on his doorstep, it’s no wonder the police think he’s the number one suspect. Can he get to the bottom of this board game mystery before he’s put away for a murder he didn’t commit?

A luxury airship banquet ends in death, and it’s up to chef Alex LeBeau to solve it when her son is charged with murder. Alex just wanted to start over and provide a quiet life for her son, away from their past, when she got a job as a cooking instructor in Louisiana. That means staying away from any romance, too. But soon enough she’s falling for warm-eyed Josephine and trying to solve a murder to save her son, all while stopping the real killer from striking again.

In this cozy British mystery series, an asexual autistic woman who goes by the nickname “Motts” has her quiet life turned upside down when she discovers a dead body buried in her garden. Now she’s mixed up in a criminal investigation, with a murderer out to get her and a cute detective on her case. This is really not what she had in mind when she moved from the bustle of London to the quiet British countryside. Can she stay alive long enough to solve the case and get back to the life she wanted, or will she wind up as another body buried in the backyard?

Cozy mysteries can come in the form of science fiction novellas, too! When a missing person’s case linked to her former university takes Investigator Mossa back to Valdegeld, she is also reunited with her former flame, a scholar studying the Earth of old named Pleiti. The case, though, is more than it first may seem. While Mossa reacquaints herself with Pleiti and her old stomping grounds, she also uncovers a conspiracy threating everything Pleiti and the other academics at Valdegeld have been working for.