If you enjoy cozy mysteries, you might have seen these skeletons floating around the internet:

Shortly after the second book, Death by Pins and Needles was released, it became apparent that the cover skeleton needed a name. Ms. Black put the naming in the hands of the readers and set up a contest. The winning name got a free digital copy of Death by Pins and Needles. 

As you can see by the cover for the third book, Death by Surfboard, Susie now has a male skeleton that needed a name. She created another contest with the same prize. Well, I helped name the male skeleton (Susie will be sharing the details of these two contests down below), and I got a free copy of Death by Surfboard! 

So, here is my review of Death by Surfboard:

Holly is a swimwear executive, and she has a new colleague who she does not trust. She tried to warn her boss about him, but she got shooed out of his office instead. Well, quickly into this new hire Holly is proved right. And who does her boss assign to clean up terrible-colleague’s mess? Holly, of course!

Lucky for Holly, and unlucky for terrible-colleague, his body is found on the beach, attached to his surfboard. But the issue is not over for Holly because the detective, who also happens to be Holly’s friend, accuses not one, but two innocent suspects. So, Holly, being the nosy do-gooder that she is, can’t just sit back and let the detective figure things out. She then spends page after page doing crazy things that risk her job and her life on her quest to discover the real murderer. 

This is my first time reading a cozy mystery, and I’m in love. Even though it’s the third book in the Holly Swimsuit series, I was able to jump in and figure out who everyone is and the layout of Holly’s world. Holly reminds me of a grown-up Hanna Marin (Pretty Little Liars): fashion forward, blunt, and she can’t pass up an opportunity to solve a mystery. I thought it was a great challenge for the victim to be such an unlikeable character. I mean, the reader is made to feel he deserves what he got, so why try to solve his murder? Because the two suspects the police are looking at Holly knows are innocent. So, it becomes less about justice for the victim and more about protecting the innocent from being framed. I was determined to figure it out before Holly did, and I’m proud to say, I was half right. I’ll definitely be reading the first two in the near future.

Reading a series out of order is not new for me. I do it all the time. So, I have teamed up with Susie Black herself to introduce the recurring characters of the Holly Swimsuit Mystery series. That way, no matter where you start in her books, you will know who is who.

Hello, please allow me to introduce myself. I am Susie Black, author of The Holly Swimsuit Mystery Series. I’ve been asked to share what entails writing cozy mystery series.

Like the protagonist in my Holly Swimsuit Mystery series, I am a ladies’ swimwear sales exec. From the beginning of my career, I have kept a daily journal that chronicles the quirky, interesting, and often challenging people I’ve encountered as well as the crazy situations I’ve gotten myself into and out of. The journal entries are the foundation of all my writing.

As a sales exec, I am a people person. So, naturally, my primary focus is on character development. Once the characters are created, the plot easily falls into place because it reacts to the characters in the story, not the other way around. I chose to write my stories as part of a series, but because I like to give options, each book can be read on its own out of order without the reader getting lost. Pretty cool, huh? So, how in the world did I accomplish this? By making references to the background of the story setting and the main characters. I make each plot, the murder method, the victim, the murderer, and the minor characters different in each tale. But I anchor the continuing main characters with consistent and distinct histories, personalities, and quirks that readers invest in and root for because they appear real.

Here are some of the important continuing main characters who appear in every book and a bit about them:

HOLLY SCHLIVNIK: Wise-cracking, irreverent Holly is the protagonist of the series who is patterned after yours truly…Holly is the me I always wanted to be. Loyal to a fault and fearless, Holly is a ladies’ swimwear sales exec/nosy amateur sleuth who can’t mind her beeswax and sticks her nose everywhere it doesn’t belong. Holly has a quirky personality trait. She inherited her nana’s fear of death. They both respond to death by laughing.  And Holly does when she discovers a corpse. Holly is famous for this quirk and all her friends ask if she laughed whenever she has discovered a corpse. Holly’s pet phrases to describe her feelings are Yikes, Cripes, Holy Guacamole, and Merde.  

QUEENIE LEVINE: A compact dynamo equipped with a razor-sharp wit and sharper tongue, Queenie is Holly’s close friend and professional colleague…and her erstwhile crime-solving sidekick. Queenie has a distinctive habit of pushing her index finger up on the tip of her nose whenever she’s thinking out loud. When trying to flesh out the murderer, Queenie is always the one who asks “Who has the most to lose?”

JOAN BINDER: Quick-witted, sarcastic Joan is the oldest of the Yentas- four of Holly’s colleagues she meets with for coffee every workday morning at a coffee shop in the California Apparel Mart lobby to kibbitz and compare notes and opinions. Joan has a habit of looking over her eyeglasses perched on the tip of her nose in her “kindergarten teacher” disapproving pose whenever she delivers one of her acerbic zingers.

Dr. Sophie Cutler: Los Angeles County Assistant Medical Examiner Sophie Cutler is Holly Schlivnik’s lifelong friend and not your typical Coroner. For a medical doctor, “Snip,” as Holly calls Sophie, has atrocious eating habits. She is a pizza and cheeseburger lover as well as a desertaholic. Sophie refuses to share any of her cheesecake and is known to use a fork as a weapon to fight off Holly’s attempts to swipe a bite.

Smart Alec Snip has caller ID on her phone. When Sophie sees it is Holly calling, irreverent Snip answers the phone with hilarious greetings: such as “Good afternoon. This is Los Angeles County Assistant Medical Examiner Dr. Sophie Cutler. You stab ‘em we slab ‘em.”

Sigmund Freud AKA Siggie: Introduced in book three of the series, lovable, nosy Siggie is Holly’s male standard-size Poodle/assistant sleuth, and Psychiatrist. Holly discusses everything with Siggie-her love life, her friends, how to deal with pain-in-the-patootie customers, as well as viable options to flesh out a killer with her four-legged companion. Siggie might not speak but he gets his points across just the same. If he likes Holly’s game plan, he barks his approval. He shows his disdain for some of Holly’s crazier sleuthing ploys by rolling his eyes or shaking his head from side to side.

The book cover Skeleton:  Whodathunk that a skeleton wearing a swimsuit would ever garner such a huge amount of attention? I’ve had countless numbers of readers tell me they found the book cover with the skeleton so intriguing; they bought the book to see what kind of story was inside! The skeleton on every book cover was so popular it took on a life of its own and became the face of The Holly Swimsuit Mystery Series brand and became a successful marketing ploy.

Before the release of Death by Pins and Needles, the skeleton demanded she is given a name so I ran a contest to name the female skeleton and was inundated with hundreds of entries. So many great names were submitted that I ended up using several of them as a first name, middle name, and surname: Mizz Bone-ita Skelemina Bonz.

Before the release of Death by Surfboard, Mizz Bonz informed me she had a boyfriend and insisted he needed a name. So, to make our girl happy a second contest was launched and her boyfriend is now known as Mitzer Skeltor Bone-Jangles. Writing a standalone book requires a goodly amount of character development and plot planning. Writing a series requires the same. But by having a cast of long-term continuing characters an author must create one with distinctive histories, personalities, and quirks for them to keep readers interested enough so the series successfully continues.

The series continues in Holly’s next adventure, Death by Cutting Table, which publishes August 2, 2023.

Follow Susie Black and her journey at https://authorsusieblack.com/