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Lisa R. Howeler | cozy mystery author

@lisarhoweler

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📚 cozy mysteries 🎥 old movies 📕 vintage books 🤪 general silliness 🚫politics. 🚫 AI.
✝️ Isaiah 43:19
Classic movies/tv: @nostalgically_thinking

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It’s a wicked world…. Sherlock knows it so well.

Do you have a favorite episode of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes? Or how about a favorite story?

#sherlockholmes #arthurconandoyle #mystery by @lisarhoweler

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5 months ago

It’s been a pretty horrible couple of weeks with family crisises that won’t stop but at least I added some new Christie’s to my shelf. Have you read any of these?

#agathachristie #christie #mysteries #booklove by @lisarhoweler

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2 days ago

The trees are starting to change color where I live. Beautiful red and orange oranges and some yellows mixed in. It looks like we might have some brighter colors this year. Thanks to colder nights.

This past week was our daughter’s birthday. She turned 12, which was hard to believe. We visited a little diner near us for a breakfast dinner.

A friend sent me some books and one of them (Stillmeadow Calendar) I talked about earlier this week, but I also wanted to mention these two. PG Wodehouse books she sent. I’m already reading The Plot That Thickened and am really enjoying it.

My husband picked up a few books for me at a library used book sale. I finally have all four of the Miss Buncle books by DE Stevenson. Up next for me is The Two Mrs. Abbotts.

we went out Saturday to a city about an hour away and had a day out for our daughter’s birthday. We found a comic shop that my husband really enjoyed exploring and hopes to explore in again.

And I found some old photos.

so how was your week last week? I hope it was a good one. by @lisarhoweler

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9 days ago

As usual my reads for the month were mostly mystery but also had a couple of others thrown in. I’ve been averaging four books a month but read a couple more this month.

Books read were:

🔎 Murder, She Wrote: A Slaying in Savannah by Donald Bain
📖 Just Shy of Harmony by Philip Gulley
🍎 The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
🔎 The Crime At Black Dudley/The Black Dudley Murder by Margery Allingham
🔎 Murder, She Wrote: The Main Mutiny by Donald Bain (listened to)
🔎 Endless Night by Agatha Christie

I’m not reading as many mysteries in October (I don’t think).

How was your reading month?

#booksread #bookish #booksbooksbooks #readingroundup by @lisarhoweler

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13 days ago

A blogging friend was the first to suggest to me that I read Gladys Taber.
She said my blog posts reminded her of Gladys’ columns and books.
If you haven’t heard of Gladys, she was a columnist who wrote for Ladies Home Journal and Family Circle and was also an author of 59 of her own books, detailing her and her family’s quiet life on a farm in Connecticut.

My friend told me it was hard to find Gladys’s books. She’d lost a couple when they moved and was heartbroken. Her husband tracked one down on Thriftbooks and she almost cried with delight when he gave it to her.
Our local library had a copy of one of her books, but when I got it, I was in the middle of reading other things and never got to it.
Flash forward years later and Booktubers and Bookstagrammers are talking about Gladys and her books. I realize I should start looking for one or two of her books to read.
That’s when one pops up for sale on a bookseller on Instagram and it’s a great price! I grabbed my chance and ordered it. A few months later she offers another one, Stillmeadow Sampler, for sale.
I started Stillmeadow Daybrook in April because that’s the month the book starts in. Now I’m reading a chapter a month and I don’t usually read books this way, but I like it. I like taking my time to make my way through the chapters that fill my imagination with empty Connecticut fields, grass waving in the wind, cows on the hill, a pond where older ladies swim in the moonlight, and Irish setters bounding into the front yard of a farmhouse and flopping in exhaustion on their sides on the wrap around front porch. What is a wrap around front porch? I actually don’t remember from what I’ve read so far but I imagine it was.
Two weeks ago, I found a copy of My Own Cape Cod and an original 1946 copy of of Especially Spaniels, in a small bookstore.

And then this week my friend Erin sent me an original copy of Stillmeadow Calendar for my birthday! I burst into tears because it’s so nice to have someone in your life who knows you so well they just know what will make your heart sing when you see it and hold it. by @lisarhoweler

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14 days ago

📖🔎 The book suggestion for September’s read for the 2026 Agatha Christie Reading Challenge was Endless Night, a book that Agatha called her favorite. It is not a strict “who-done-it” with one of her detectives. Instead, it is a standalone novel that I would call a psychological mystery.

This book was written in about six weeks in 1968 when Agatha was in her 70s.

I’m going to be honest that I was a bit bored in the first part of this book but I just had this feeling that the ending was going to make it all worth it and I was definitely right.

There are some of Agatha’s books where I know that pushing through the more mundane parts of the book will pay off. I felt that way at times in The Secret of Chimneys and By The Pricking of My Thumbs but the endings saved both of those books for me.

This was another one of Agatha’s books where I guessed who was guilty but I didn’t know why they did it or how. I should have figured part of this one sooner than I did but the result would have been the same because the shock for me was more of how Agatha wrote about the villain’s descent into madness than the fact the person was guilty.

Then there was the ending, the final line, where Agatha blurred reality for the guilty party but also for us as the readers. “In the end was my beginning.”

That line made me think about so many of the parts of the book, replaying in my mind where I missed vital clues or thought something might be a clue, but wasn’t yet sure.

Have you read this one?

#agathachristie #2026christiereadingchallenge #books #bookchallenge by @lisarhoweler

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15 days ago

Angela Lansbury was almost 60 years old when she decided she wanted to do something other than theater and movies, which had comprised the entirety of her acting career up to that point.

She told her agent she wanted to get involved in television and he began to put feelers out for television shows that might work for her.

What came back from producers was very disappointing for Angela. Scripts submitted suggested she play the maid or housekeeper in an ensemble piece.

“When I got them, I was really pissed off,” Angela said in an interview with the Archive of American Television. “Well, jiminy, I’ve been working all these years in theater and movies and I don’t have a q-rating but I certainly have a little bit of a reputation for someone who knows how to do what I do, which is act. And I sent them back and I said, ‘do you mean to tell me that I’ve been working in the theater, getting ten percent of the gross and keeping the curtains up, for 15 years in New York and you’re going to offer — is that what you call a television opportunity for me at my age?”

Only a week later she received two scripts. One was for a comedy, that turned out not to be her cup of tea, so to speak. The other was for Murder, She Wrote.

When Angela read about Jessica Fletcher, she felt Jessica’s role was something she could connect with and contribute to.

Angela portrayed Jessica for 12 years starting in 1984 and during those years she once said that her show helped keep CBS afloat during some very lean years, especially in the 1980s and early 1990s when the network’s only other “big show” was 60 Minutes.

Murder, She Wrote topped the ratings week after week, year after year. In fact, it was the top-rated drama series for nine consecutive seasons.

Today the show is streaming on various services. It can be found in reruns on regular TV/cable and there are, of course, DVD collections. Fans of the show haven’t waned but merely grown up or are newly discovering it.

The show debuted Sept. 30th, 1984.

#cozymystery #murdershewrote #angelalansbury by @lisarhoweler

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16 days ago

I’m starting a new feature where I recommend classic movies on Mondays.

Today I am recommending Vivacious Lady with James Stewart and Ginger Rogers.

I absolutely loved this movie. Ginger Rogers and Jimmy Stewart were absolutely brilliant and hilarious in it.

It features one of the funniest “cat fight” scenes I have ever seen in a movie . Ginger’s expressions and mannerisms throughout the scene just crack me up.

Jimmy is - If I may use a term of the youths of today - unhinged throughout this movie and I was there for it.

Vivacious Lady is screwball comedy at its finest.
Filmed in 1938 it is the story of a conservative/serious botany professor (Jimmy) who impulsively married a nightclub singer (Ginger).

George Stevens directed the movie which was released by RKO Radio Pictures.

I had a hard time finding this one streaming so eventually I had to purchase the DVD which I do not regret.

Have you seen this gem?

#movierecommendation #moviereview #jamesstewart #gingerrogers #oldhollywood by @lisarhoweler

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18 days ago

Attention Murder, She Wrote fans! See if you have this deal if you are an Amazon Prime Video member because I did this week. All 12 seasons for $15. But I will still probably watch the DVDs more because I love the old feel of it.
And because I never know when Amazon will drop our account or mess something up and take all of our purchases! I don’t trust Big Tech!
#murdershewrote by @lisarhoweler

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20 days ago

I watched the movie Phffft with Jack Lemmon, Judy Holliday, and Kim Novak on a whim at the beginning of this year.

This was my third Jack Lemmon film I’ve ever seen and it was quirky and fun one.

Released in 1954, the movie is about a married couple who divorce but fail at being divorced.

That sounds weird doesn’t it? Which is what makes the movie fun.
This movie came right after Jack’s breakthrough role in It Should Happen To You, also with Judy Holliday.

Phffft was directed by Mark Robson, for whatever that is worth to those of you who don’t know directors. I am one of those people much of the time.

We start the film with Jack doing something I commonly see in my house — reading a comic.

Nina is clearly annoyed with this activity and she’s been annoyed for a while. She’s trying to figure out how to tell him that she wants a divorce. Finally, she just blurts it out.

He says he’s been wanting a divorce too. Before we know it, our main characters are actually divorced and while they seem confident at times that they made the right decision there are other times you can hear the hesitation in their voice.

We learn about how these two met, how their marriage progressed, and eventually fell apart, through flashbacks as they talk to their friends or family.

Have you seen this one? If not, I do recommend it for a fun escape.

#jacklemmon #judyholliday #oldmovies #movies by @lisarhoweler

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20 days ago

The Gladwynn Grant Mysteries are on sale on Amazon this week! If you’re looking for light and fun mysteries, then check out these e-books this week. You can also read them at any time on Kindle Unlimited!

#cozymysteryseries #cozymystery #cozybookstagram #mysterybooks by @lisarhoweler

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22 days ago

We really enjoyed visiting the Eagles Mere Book Store in Eagles Mere, PA last weekend.

The shop offers new and used books, antique books, collector books, fiction and non-fiction. It is so much fun to just poke around and see what you see in the shop. It’s a hidden gem in our area.

#bookshopping #bookshop #books #bookstore #smallbusinesssupportingsmallbusiness by @lisarhoweler

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23 days ago