Because the town is like its own character.  You look forward to strolling down the main street and seeing the local cafe or the favorite watering hole, the lovely neighborhoods lined with historic houses.  Or, in the case of your well-loved Coffee House Mysteries, how the author turns a place as big as New York City into tiny little villages.  You favorite of these villages, of course, is the ever inviting coffee house, The Village Blend. It's like a little town in its own right, a familiar place you long to linger in, to savor a rich espresso and people watch.

You even love how particular spaces, like the coffee house, become their own entities, none more so than the kitchen in the Domestic Diva Series.  When you are tired after a long day of work or are looking forward to a lazy weekend afternoon, you can snuggle into your own home, fat mug of tea in hand, and read about the gorgeous kitchen and imagine yourself sitting before its fireplace, cooking and chatting with the characters.

The mystery matters, sure, but more than that you look forward to the small cast of characters you can return to again and again, that sooth you with their everydayness.  These small glimpses of lives that revolve around family and close friends help wash away the noise of the outside world and remind you that life is in the kitchen, enjoying cooking and conversation with family.  Life is the stroll through your neighborhood where you unexpectedly run into loved ones.  Life is in the time spent with the small cast of characters in your own corner of the world.

The recipes at the back of the books don't hurt either.  They court me with their very focus on creature comforts and the little things in life that make it delicious.  Therein lies the magic of the cozy mystery.