20 Cozy Literary Fiction Books To Curl Up With

Murder, but make it cozy. Now a Netflix film, this bestseller is ideal for true-crime and fiction lovers alike. The book is set in a peaceful retirement village, where four unlikely friends meet weekly in the Jigsaw Room to discuss unsolved crimes. They call themselves the Thursday Murder Club, and even when they find themselves in the middle of their first live case, they’re a hoot to get to know. It’s funny, it’s suspenseful, it’s moving, and it’s a must-read.

Just in time for Practical Magic 2! Reread (or read for the first time!) this bewitching book about the Owens women — who’ve been blamed for everything that has gone wrong in their small Massachusetts town for over two centuries. It’s got love. It’s got witchery. It’s got family drama. It’s got everything you need for a cozy read. Cosmopolitan says it best, calling it “[A] delicious fantasy of witchcraft and love in a world where gardens smell of lemon verbena and happy endings are possible.”

Treat yourself to The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. This novel is a remarkable tale of the island of Guernsey during the German Occupation. It follows writer Juliet Ashton, who is looking for her next book subject and finds a society as extraordinary as its name. Through a series of letters, you get to know a deeply human cast of characters and experience the perfect dose of warmth and humor. Or as The Times puts it, “emotionally satisfying to the finish.”

Prepare to be charmed. The Little Paris Bookshop is a love letter to books and book lovers. At the center is Monsieur Perdu — a bookseller who can prescribe the perfect book for a broken heart. The only person he can’t seem to heal through literature is, well, himself. You see, Perdu is still haunted by heartbreak after his great love disappeared. All she left him with was one letter — one he never opened. Until now. What follows next is an adventure across the south of France, and it’s one that will fill you with warmth.

The Authenticity Project is the story of a solitary green notebook that brings together six strangers and leads to unexpected friendships (and even love). It all starts with Julian Jessop, an eccentric, lonely artist and septuagenarian who writes the truth about his life in the same green journal — and leaves it in his local café. The cast of characters that comes next is part of why The Washington Post calls it a “feel-good book guaranteed to lift your spirits.” Read this one with pleasure.

This charming novel is worth devouring. The Kamogawa Food Detectives takes us to a very special restaurant run by a father-daughter duo in a quiet backstreet in Kyoto. The Kamogawa Diner serves up delicious, extravagant meals. But what really brings in customers is that the father and daughter are “food detectives” who can recreate dishes from a person’s treasured memories. The Chicago Review of Books said it best, calling it, “the cozy, literary equivalent of a hearty stew on a cold day.”

The Travelling Cat Chronicles is an ideal read for cat lovers, travelers, and cozy seekers. The delightful novel gives voice to Nana the cat and his owner, Satoru, as they take to the road on a journey with no other purpose than to visit three of Satoru’s longtime friends. (Or so Nana is led to believe.) The two travel in a silver van across Japan, set against the background of its ever-changing scenery and seasons, and come to learn the true meaning of loyalty and love along the way.

Be careful with what you wish for in this dreamy, inventive novel, because you may just get it. The Wishing Game follows Lucy Hart. In a childhood marked by neglect and loneliness, Lucy found her solace in books, especially the Clock Island series by Jack Masterson. Years later, Masterson writes a new book … and holds a contest at his home on the real Clock Island for a chance to compete to win the only copy. Lucy is one of the four lucky contestants chosen and readers get to follow along on her whimsical journey.

A Most Agreeable Murder is a cozy gem that won Publishers Weekly‘s Best Book of the Year. Think: A crossover between Bridgerton, Pride & Prejudice, and Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple mysteries. The story follows feisty, passionate Beatrice Steele, who has never quite fit into her small English township. As much as she tries to live a perfectly agreeable life, she harbors a dark secret: She is obsessed with true crime. So when a wealthy bachelor drops dead at the autumnal ball, Beatrice can’t help herself. She simply must put aside decorum to pursue justice.

If you’re looking for a cozy fall romance, this is for you. This new release reunites the owner of a bed-and-breakfast with her childhood sweetheart for a celebrity matchmaking scheme that has them both seeing stars. And yet … as old wounds reopen and their connection rekindles, the two are forced to confront the truths they’ve both tried to bury. Wrapped in small-town charm, The Matchmakers Cottage is a slow-burn romance that feels like a hug.

Set in 1922 Russia, A Gentleman in Moscow is a tale about a man who is ordered to spend the rest of his life inside a luxury hotel. Count Alexander Rostov — a man who has never worked a day in his life — is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal and is sentenced to house arrest in a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov’s circumstances provide him entry into a much larger world of emotional discovery and provides us, the readers, with a glittering cast of characters that transport us into this story about purpose.

Cozy and beautiful prose collide in Still Life, a sweeping portrait of people brought together by love, war, art, flood, and the ghost of E. M. Forster. The story begins in Tuscany in 1944, where a young English soldier, Ulysses Temper, finds himself in the wine cellar of a deserted villa and meets a kindred spirit amidst the rubble of war-torn Italy. That chance encounter will shape Ulysses’s life for the next four decades. Get all the feels in this Good Morning America Book Club pick.

This is a story of hope that may just turn your cozy night into a new beginning. The Life Impossible follows a retired math teacher who is left a run-down house in Ibiza by a long-lost friend. When curiosity gets the better of her, she books a one-way ticket with no guidebook or plan. On the island, she searches for answers about her friend’s life and how it ended. To find the truth, she must first come to terms with her past. The New York Times called it a “love letter to life,” and what better way to spend a cozy night?

One more for cat lovers. Set in Kyoto, Japan, The Kokoro Clinic for the Soul is a mysterious clinic that can only be found by people who are truly struggling and genuinely need help. Even more mysterious? It offers a unique treatment to those who find it: Cats as medicine. The novel follows a medley of the clinic’s patients as they navigate inner turmoil and seek resolution, while their feline companions lead them toward healing, self-discovery, and newfound hope. Part of a 3-part series, We’ll Prescribe You a Cat is, as People puts it, “a heartwarming testimony to the power of the human-animal connection.”

Part love story, part fable, The Night Circus is a spellbinding novel for those who love a little fantasy with their cozy. This New York Times bestseller is about two star-crossed magicians who engage in a deadly, fierce competition. What they don’t know is that they’re a part of a game where only one can be left standing — all set against the backdrop of a circus that arrives without warning … and is only open at night. Get cozy and enter the mystique of Le Cirque des Rêves.

Okay, this one’s cozy and spirited. Melissa Mogollon’s debut is structured as a series of one-sided phone calls from a spunky, sarcastic narrator, Luciana, to her older sister, Mari. As a hurricane heads straight for Miami, Luciana’s eccentric grandmother, Abue, refuses to evacuate. The two have a complicated bond, but they also understand each other better than most. When Abue receives a shocking medical diagnosis during the storm, that relationship is tested even further. As Luciana is forced to step into the role of caretaker, translator, and keeper of the devastating family secrets that Abue begins to share, she finds herself facing down adulthood — and rising to the occasion. Reading Oye is like overhearing an entertaining family conversation and having to know what happens next.

A woman learns the incredible story of a real-life American kingdom — and her family’s ties to it — in this novel from the New York Times bestselling, NAACP Image Award-winning author, Dolen Perkins-Valdez. The story follows Nikki, who hasn’t seen her grandmother in years, until her grandmother calls out of the blue with an urgent request for her to visit. There, in the hills of western North Carolina, Nikki learns the story of a kingdom on this very mountain and of her great-great-great-grandmother, who would become its queen. It sounds like the makings of a fairy tale, but really, it’s Nikki’s legacy. Inspired by true events, Happy Land is a multi-generational novel about family, inheritance, and the courage to dream.

Like Water for Chocolate is a classic love story set on the De la Garza ranch, where the tyrannical owner, Mama Elena, chops onions at the kitchen table in her final days of pregnancy. While still in her mother’s womb, her daughter-to-be weeps so violently she causes an early labor. Little Tita slips out — surrounded by the spices and fixings for noodle soup. Tita’s early encounter with food soon becomes a way of life, leading Tita to become a master chef who uses cooking to express herself. Earthy, magical, and utterly charming, this tale of family life in turn-of-the-century Mexico will be your next literary indulgence.

There’s just something about retirees solving murders that screams cozy. This one is set in a small town where bookstore owner Samantha Washington is trying to keep her grandmother from spending her golden years in an orange jumpsuit. Nana Jo blows a gasket when phony Maria Romanov steals the lead in the Shady Acres Senior Follies — a part Nana Jo plays every year. But when Maria is silenced with a bullet to the head, Nana Jo lands the leading role on the suspects list. Sam must put aside writing her newest mystery to prove that Nana Jo’s been framed. With help from her grandmother’s posse of rambunctious retirees, Sam digs into Maria’s secrets to expose the real killer.