We're almost at the end of British cozy mystery month and there was no way in the world that I wasn't going to post a collection of cozies set in the wonderful county of Cornwall. I mean, what's not to like. Think of Cornwall and you'll probably think of Poldark, Cornish ice cream, clotted cream and scones, Cornish pasties, mermaids, basking sharks, pirates, piskies, saffron buns, smugglers and wreckers, shipwrecks, copper mines, fishermen, Celtic language and arts, King Arthur, and fudge. You may even want to visit the Museum of Witchcraft and Wizardry or explore the reasons why J.K.Rowling used Cornwall as one of the locations for hiding the horcrux in Harry Potter!  I say we find a nice Cornish beach somewhere, grab a load of local delicacies to feast on, and sit awhile with a lovely collection of cozies. Who's with me? 

With the summer soon upon us and a first day back to work for many folks after this weekend's Bank Holiday, I figured that it was time to turn our attention to the cozy mystery books set in the seaside town of Brighton, on the south coast of England. So grab your buckets and spades, Punch and Judy shows, sticks of rock, and a portion of fish and chips and we shall begin! 

OK, so technically I shouldn't be including Isle of Man books under the umbrella collection of 'British Cozy Mysteries' but I'm going to anyway, because there are way too many treasures here to miss.  You see, the Isle of Man (or Mann as most people call it) is an island in the Irish Sea, right between the west coast of England and the east coast of Ireland. 

Now, I've sadly never been to the Isle of Man, but funnily enough I did have an 'Uncle Douglas' (my granny's brother) and an 'Aunty Kathleen' (whom I sadly never met because they died when I was a tiddler) who lived in the island's capital also called Douglas! I also discovered recently that my paternal grandfather (who died long before I was born) was stationed on Mann as a teen when he first signed up with the Royal Navy. I shall post the video below so you can hear the full story for yourself. But I really should go and visit one day because it's a place filled with Celtic and Norse history and that really interests me, especially having discovered my Scandinavian and Irish ancestry as part of the Channel 4 documentary series.   

Just take the Kirk Malew Church, for example. This is the burial place for the Norse kings of Mann, as well as being the final resting place (so legend has it) for the Manx vampire! And near the summit of Meayll Hill is a stone circle known for its ghostly hauntings, prehistoric rituals, and Viking burials. Jurby Church has Pagan and Viking burial mounds, and St Trinian's Church is connected with an ogre (Buggane or shape shifter) who got so fed up of the noise from the church bells, that he eventually tore off the roof of the church. All of which makes the Isle of Man a perfect location for a paranormal mystery or two in my humble opinion! What do you think?

When I was about 4 years old, my dad got a new job, selling greenhouses for Capability Brown at Haskins Garden Centre in Ferndown. This meant a big move from the Royal County of Berkshire to the south coast county of Dorset, right before I started at school for the first time. There were lots of nice things about the move, firstly we would have a little garden, surrounded by what was called 'the common' - ideal for a tomboy like me to find baby adders and catch lizards. Secondly, as I grew up I learnt a lot about the ground that our housing estate was built on, and it turned out that there were tunnels used by smugglers as well as a druid burial site, and an old gallows. 

But best of all, was that we started to go to the seaside on really hot days after school and if we were really lucky then on a weekend or on school holidays. One of my favourite places by the sea was Kimmeridge Bay and to me it was heaven, full of mysteries to be solved and nooks and crannies to be explored. It was the ideal place for making up stories and imagining what life must have been like in other times - important for an only child like me at the time, because I needed to keep myself entertained and not be too bothersome around grownups.

Kimmeridge Bay was the best playground you could want as a child (and as an adult). The cliffs were made from black shale that would collapse in heaps throughout the day to reveal fossils of dinosaurs, and the large rock pools would get warmed by the sun so were never too cold to swim in. Sometimes, we'd have a barbecue and I'd set fire to the oily rocks. Further along the coast there was actually a cliff that would spontaneously catch fire, owing to the high content of 'fossil fuels' within. Just around the headland was an army range, and if I wandered off when the red flags were flying then I might just catch sight of a tank firing. That was where the best rock pools were, and where you could find the biggest crabs and brightly coloured fish and better still, where there were no other people to interrupt your thoughts.

Close by the cliff top there was an old World War II pill box made of concrete that always smelt like wee, and right on the top of the cliff, was an abandoned tower looking as if it might just drop into the sea at any moment. I'm always at my happiest when I'm at the seaside in Britain, and that is why I just LOVE cozy mystery books set by the sea, because it brings back a sense of nostalgia. I'd love to know what your earliest memories are of the seaside, and if you have any favourite beaches in the world.