I keep coming across books by these two authors - Daniels' Intuition series and Johnson's Mandy Dyer series.

Has anyone read either of these authors?  Did you like the series?  I've recently ordered several books that are the first in a new to me series and have had crummy luck, so I'm hoping to improve my odds by asking other mystery readers what they thought.

Help a girl out?

If you like cozies, then you might like the Mandy Dyer series.  I've actually read all of them and thought they had an interesting bunch of characters.  I've never read anything by Claire Daniels...so maybe I should check her out :)

Susie

I'm not familiar with either but like you, I've had some murky luck with a couple of new series, recently.  I just mailed book one of a series off after having only read the first three or four chapters.  It just wasn't working for me.  **shrugs**

Melani, have you read the Frank Elder series by John Harvey?  Harvey is better known for his Charlie Resnick series but the Frank Elder series is good, too.  Only three books in the series so far.  I'm nearly halfway through the third one.  British procedurals.  Good stuff.

I'll have to check out Claire Daniels as well.

What series did you try LeeAnne?  I tried the Thistle & Twigg series.  I pushed through the first one and tried the second one, but just gave up.  The characters didn't interest me and the mysteries were just "meh". 

I've added the first Frank Elder to my TBR list.

Susie - thanks for the info on the Mandy Dyer series.  I do enjoy cozies. I'll give that one a try.

I love the Mandy Dyer series!  Have read them all and sure hope there will be more of them.

Susan, I'm with you and really like the Mandy Dyer series.

This is from Amazon about the first Claire Daniels series.  I've read four of them.  I like Mandy a tad more just because they're a bit lighter than the Intuition books.

Cally Lazar is a recovering lawyer who joined a twelve-step recovery program to make sure she doesn't fall back into practicing jurisprudence. After she quit the legal profession, she became a masseuse. With some of her patients, she sees auras that enable her to know what is wrong and how to heal the patient.

Cally works with Tricia Snell, whose deceased husband insists he did not commit suicide but was murdered. Tricia convinces Cally to attend an intimacy workshop at the Inn at Fiebre where the same attendees will be present. She agrees to go and her friends Warren Kapp and Dee Dee Lee accompany her. When they arrive and start questioning people, it seems everyone disliked Seager Snell and had a reason to kill him, but the murderer intends to make Cally the next victim if she doesn't stop snooping around.

Claire Daniels has written a creative New Age psychic mystery staring a heroine that it is impossible not to like. The author writes in a breezy easy going and humorous manner so that readers don't feel overwhelmed from the complex plot with numerous viable suspects. This is the first installment in what looks to be a unique hit series. Let's hope in the next book, the author clues the reader in to why the protagonist quit practicing law though perhaps Cally was simply ahead of her time and just frustrated by judges Determining No to Aura-ology as supporting evidence.

Thanks for the tip Gerry!  I've ordered the first books in each of these series.  I'm looking forward to them.

Melani, I couldn't get into the Pennyfoot Hotel series and I've picked up "Publish and Perish" but I haven't yet given it a fighting chance.  I only read three or four pages before I picked up a Keven Kerney mystery.  Those things are like peanuts for me.

I have Jeffrey Cohen's first book sitting here (it's a library book) but I haven't started that yet either.  I'm in a bit of a funk and I'm relying on tried and true standbyes because I know everything is going to get short shrift right now.  **sigh**  Things'll get better.

Oh. I read the first Laura Lippman book, too.  Baltimore Blues.  It was just sort of okay.  I really wanted to like Tess Monaghan but she was just so flat.  I think I'll wait a bit before trying Charm City.

LeeAnne, I think you have to be in the right mood for the Pennyfoot Hotel mysteries.  Hang onto them for a later date.

I enjoyed the Laura Lippman, and I think she does a better job with the character development in the later books, but I have to admit I haven't picked one up in a long time.

I must be in the same sort of book funk that you are because I keep picking up and putting down books.  I haven't finished a book in 2 weeks. *sigh*