Crafting with Cora - A Guest Post, Review, & Giveaway

I'm pleased to welcome Cora Chevalier to Cozy Up With Kathy today. Cora exists on the pages of the Cora Crafts mystery series by Mollie Cox Bryan. ASSAULT AND BEADERY is the fourth book in the series and was released this week.

Hi there! Cora Chevalier here.

We’re getting ready for our next crafting retreat. It will be the third one since we’ve opened our doors. We’re focusing on one craft this time: beading. We have a famous beader coming to show us how it’s done. So exciting!

We are also trying to reach out to moms with this retreat—it’s geared for the moms who stayed at home all summer long with their children. We all love kids, but after a summer of being home with them, we know these women might need a break from home. So along with all of the beading projects we have lined up, we have some other little surprises for them—manicures, and so on.

Of course, when we have our retreats, we never know what crafting we’ll actually get up to. We allow our guests to explore in our paper crafting room and our fiber arts room. I have to tell you no matter the focus, knitters always come and bring along their projects. All crafting is welcome at our retreat house in Indigo Gap, North Carolina.

We’ve had some problems in the past—dare I even think about them? But this retreat promises to be so much better.

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Review

ASSAULT AND BEADERY by Mollie Cox Bryan

The Fourth Cora Crafts Mystery

Cora Chevalier and her business partner Jane are thrilled that their time at IndigoArts is almost over. Corralled to help design and paint the scenery by their friend Zee, the duo have had enough of the egotistical director and the stage mothers. Plus, a new retreat is about to start. This time they decided to create a retreat for moms featuring a big name beader. When one guest shows up early, Cora is thrown a tad off schedule, but she's thrown even more when she receives a phone call from Zee. Zee won't be bringing the floral arrangements she promised-she's in jail, suspected of murdering the IndigoArts director!

Mothers are the thread that bind this crafting mystery. We see mothers taking time for themselves, mothers putting their children first, mothers on the warpath, mothers desperately missing their children, and more. For someone who has no desire to be a mother, some of it was a bit much, but I'm sure anyone with kids will love this theme and commiserate with several of the mothers found in these pages.

The mystery itself was quite interesting, most people disliked the egotistical director, but who would actually want to kill him? Cora deals with trying to shelter her retreat participants from the murder, only to discover one of them could be the killer!

Mollie Cox Bryan creates a wonderful atmosphere for her retreats. It's an insulated world of creativity and acceptance...and in this case some mothers gone wild! Cora better watch her liquor cabinet more carefully. I love the variety of crafts that are showcased and enjoy learning more about them. I actually make Artist Trading Cards, so it was fun reading about that.

ASSAULT AND BEADERY is an engaging mystery that empowers women while comforting them. 

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