My Favorite Places in Lovett, Michigan

By special guest Peg Cochran.


Lovett isn’t a real town—just one I created for my Farmer’s Daughter series and No Farm, No Foul, the first book in the series. But it’s become quite real to me! I’d like to share a few of my favorite places in Lovett with you.

1. Love Blossom Farm: Shelby McDonald lives on Love Blossom Farm with her two children Billy Jr. and Amelia. There’s an old but comfortable farmhouse with a big porch out front and plenty of rocking chairs to sit in. If you stand at the backdoor of the farmhouse, you can see the barn in the distance where Jack Sparrow, the rooster, struts his stuff, and

Patches, the calico cat, keeps the mice population at a reasonable level. The scent of manure drifts over from Jake Taylor’s pasture next door, but Shelby doesn’t mind—the scent is home to her.

2. Lovett General Store: The general store carries everything from groceries to kayaks to house paint to plumbing parts. Shelby supplies them with her homemade yogurt, herbed yogurt cheese, fresh herbs and produce that she and her family don’t need.

3. Lovett Diner: It’s not a fancy place—it’s where the locals and the late night truck drivers can get a decent meal—decent being roast turkey on white bread with mashed potatoes and gravy, the cook’s special meatloaf and eggs over easy with a pile of hash browns and half a pound of bacon.

4. Lovett Feed Store: The floors are wooden and creak when you step on them, the air smells of grain and dust motes dance in the light coming in the dusty windows. They stock all kinds of feed including pet food.


5. St. Andrews Church: Shelby has been a member all her life. Amelia and Billy sing in the choir and Shelby helps out at Women’s Auxiliary lunches and potlucks. She’s also in the knitting club although it hasn’t improved her knitting skills one bit.

Peg Cochran's greatest love has always been writing - particularly mysteries! She has two cozy mystery series from Berkley Prime Crime: The Gourmet De-Lite series set in Connecticut and featuring Gigi Fitzgerald, who provides gourmet diet meals to a select group of clients, and the Sweet Nothings Vintage Lingerie series, written as Meg London, set in Paris, Tennessee with Emma Taylor who finds murder and mayhem in this quiet country town.

When she's not writing, Peg can usually be found cooking. When asked to bring a dish to a potluck she invariably opts to bring dessert - partly because she loves making sweet dishes and partly because she and her husband always manage to be late so there's no point in putting them in charge of appetizers!


Peg loves connecting with readers and other writers so feel free to drop her an email via her contact page! And be sure to visit her other site at www.MegLondon.com.

Cozy Monday

No Farm, No Foul (Farmer's Daughter Mystery #1) by Peg Cochran (Berkley Prime Crime mass market paperback, 6 September 2016).

Widow and mother of two, Shelby McDonald runs Love Blossom Farm in the small town of Lovett,  Michigan.  She also writes a blog called The Farmer's Daughter, in which she describes her experiences, discusses the process of growing vegetables, and shares original recipes.


Apart from missing her late husband like crazy, she has a pretty good life, even with her pre-teen daughter Amelia already being difficult.

But the bucolic peace is destroyed when the new minister's wife is killed during a church fund-raiser that Shelby hosts.  Prudence Mather was not an easy woman to like, so there are plenty of suspects, but then Shelby's best friend Kelly becomes one of the prime suspects and asks Shelby to poke around a little and see what she can come up with.

Already upset about the murder sullying the peace of her home, Shelby agrees, and gets to work.

Many of the chapters begin with the charming device of blog entries that Shelby drafts in her mind about events as she's experiencing them.  Shelby is an intelligent and accomplished protagonist who is easy to identify with.

Recipes for some of her creations are included at the end of the book, )but the one I really wanted, for the cottage cheese pie she keeps making, is missing).

The publisher has generously offered a copy of No Farm, No Foul to one of my readers.  Please comment below before 12:01 a.m. on Monday, September 19th.  Entries from the US only, please.  
Please don't forget to include an email address where I can contact you if you win!

FTC Full Disclosure:  Many thanks to the publisher for providing me with a review copy of this book.

Picking a Setting for a Cozy Mystery

by special guest Peg Cochran.


One of the first choices an author makes when contemplating a new cozy series, is the setting or location. Most cozies are set in small towns—either real or imagined by the author. There are a few notable exceptions—Cleo Coyle’s Coffeehouse series set in New York City, for one. But even in mysteries set in a big city, the author often manages to create a small town feel by narrowing the story focus to a shop or a particular neighborhood or apartment building.

The cozy setting can be a real town with which the author is familiar. Ideally, the town or region will have a strong atmosphere that lends itself to a cozy mystery. Think charming seaside town with the fog rolling in…or a small Midwest village complete with town gazebo and plenty of houses with wrap-around porches. Or, if the book is leaning toward cozy chick lit, a neighborhood in a bigger city with renovated brownstones, chic boutiques and trendy restaurants. The reader wants to feel like he or she is there enjoying the scenery, smelling the smells, hearing the sounds and tasting the food. They want to live vicariously through the characters. And they generally want to live someplace attractive and interesting—a place they might choose to visit in real life.

Assuming the town is real! 

Some authors prefer to use a real place for their story. Generally, as long as nothing “bad” happens in a place, it is considered acceptable to use real shops, restaurants, etc., in the story. I wouldn’t, however, set the murder in a real store or restaurant or other public place unless I’d been able to check with the owner of the Coffee Klatch, for instance, and get their permission for my character to find a dead body in one of their booths!

Making up a town can be a lot of fun. It’s quite possible to capture the essence of the south, or New England or Texas in a fictitious location. What some authors find helpful is to choose a town they know well, rename the streets and use that map as a template for their fictitious village.

Either way, setting becomes a secondary character in a well done cozy with readers anxious to revisit it in book after book.

Peg Cochran writes two other cozy mystery series for Berkley Prime Crime. The Gourmet De-Lite series is set in Connecticut and features Gigi Fitzgerald, who provides gourmet diet meals to a select group of clients. The Sweet Nothings Vintage Lingerie series, written as Meg London, is set in Paris, Tennessee with sleuth Emma Taylor who finds murder and mayhem in a quiet country town.


Peg loves connecting with readers and other writhers so feel free to drop her an email via her website ! And be sure to visit her other site at www.MegLondon.com.

Cozy Monday

Berried Secrets (Cranberry Cove Mystery #1) by Peg Cochran (Berkley Prime Crime mass market paperback, 4 August 2015).

After her tiny Chicago café went under, Monica Albertson moved to Cranberry Cove, Michigan to help her half-brother Jeff with his cranberry farm.  But the first time she helps with the harvest, she snags a corpse.  The body is that of Sam Culbert, who had looked after the farm while Jeff was deployed overseas. It didn't take long for the police to determine that Sam had been murdered.

Going over the books, the day before, Monica had found some discrepancies, and had mentioned the problem to Jeff.  Jeff had been livid; he was just scraping by, but Sam drove a Lexus and lived in a fancy house.  But Monica is certain that Jeff didn't kill Sam.  She just has to prove who did.

Unfortunately, almost everyone in town had a grudge against Sam or just plain disliked him, so narrowing it down will be a difficult task.  Luckily, Jeff's mother Gina has shown up, and insists on "helping" Monica with her quest.

I really enjoyed this book.  Learning about the methods of growing and harvesting cranberries was fascinating.  Monica is a wonderfully independent, intelligent and resourceful protagonist, and some of the inhabitants of Cranberry Cove are delightful.

Recipes for baked goods containing cranberries are included at the end of the book.

The publisher has generously offered a copy of Berried Secrets to one of my readers.  Please comment below before midnight on August 17, 2015.  Don't forget to include an email address where I can contact you if you win!

FTC Full Disclosure:  Many thanks to the publisher for providing me with a review copy of this book.