I’ve recently been introduced to the BBC App on which you can listen to three new Miss Marple short stories. They’re wonderful and the reader has the best voice! You can get the app on your app store and listen to a bit of British cozies!
Sitting on my nightstand are a few books that are written by authors I wasn’t familiar with before purchasing the books:
Death in a Pale Hue by Susan Van Kirk is an introductory book to a new series. There’s an amateur artist, Jill Madison, as the protagonist. Per the “rules” for a cozy, Jill moved back home to a small town after trying out Chicago. She gets a job as the director of a community art center, has disagreements with one of the board members, discovers a skeleton in the basement of the center, and eventually solves the crime. What makes the book doubly interesting is Jill’s art career. There are not too many cozy mysteries with artists at the center of the novel.
Then, there’s Bailee Abbott’s series, Paint by Murder. Abbott’s second in the series is Kill Them with Canvas. I haven’t read the first of the series, but this one is fun. It takes place in a small town in upstate New York and has some nifty characters involved with the two sisters who own a paint party business. It’s hard to imagine how Chloe and Izzie Abbington, the two sisters, manage to get enough business with paint parties in a small town, but that’s not the point of the mystery. Someone gets killed, has someone else’s purple hat, an innocent person gets accused of the crime, and the two sisters solve the event before the police. All of this is told in a fun, upbeat manner. Enjoy! 
Related, but not quite about painting or drawing, is Alexis Morgan’s Death by Arts and Crafts. It takes place in Washington with Abby McCree as the protagonist and main sleuth. Abby organizes arts and crafts fairs as well as being on her town council. In this book Abby is able to visit a wide variety of craftspeople who plan to be part of Abby’s fair. The author makes some interesting comments about the various crafts. Of course one of them ends up dead, but no problem – Abby solves the murder!
You know that I love Louise Penny. Her new novel, A World of Curiosities, has been out. It is an Inspector Gamache mystery which does involve a piece of artwork. It’s not on my nightstand yet, but on the way per Amazon!
If you know of other cozies with an art theme, please write a comment. We’ll add the book to the list.
I put Gabby Allan’s (pseudonym for Misty Simon, our guest author for April) cozy, Something Fishy This Way Comes: A Whit and Whiskers Mystery, Book 2 on top of my pile. I’ve started reading it and am enjoying it. It takes place on Catalina, Whitney Dagner and her cat, Whiskers, solve crimes while being part of the family tourism business. I love it. 
I also have Cremains of the Day on my nightstand. It’s by Misty Simon (using her own name) and part of the Tallie Graver series. Tallie had been wealthy, is now divorced, finds that she has to do housecleaning to keep herself afloat, discovers one of her clients dead, and has to solve the crime. It’s also quite fun and a fast read. Simon writes with a great sense of humor. It’s a good curl up on your easy chair kind of read.
January’s rain made reading cozies all the more comforting. I’m about to curl up in my easy chair with a good cup of tea and pick one of the books from my pile. No disturbing me while I fantasize that I’m solving murders in a small town that’s picturesque and has a business opportunity that I fall into!