Kathi Daley

I love Kathi and wrote a bio on her with focus on my favorite series, the Cottage on Gooseberry Bay series. Here’s the write-up for you:

Kathi Daley could be called a queen of cozy mystery novels. She’s published several series of mysteries with dozens upon dozens of fun stories 
that are a nice variety of series written with seaside locations.  

Whales and Tails Mysteries, Seacliff High Mysteries, and Sand and Sea Hawaiian Mysteries were the leads up to the Cottage on Gooseberry Bay series. Ms. Daley’s debut published novel was her 2013 Halloween Hijinks which launched her Zoe Donovan series.

Ms. Daley’s beachside days are inspired by her own life. She and her husband live in Alpine, California on Lake Tahoe with frequent visits from their children, and grandchildren who love to hang out at the beach, go kayaking and wakeboarding.  

Other outdoor activities the family enjoys is hiking, mountain biking, snowshoeing, and cross-country skiing. An active woman, in Ms. Daley’s down-time she likes sitting by a bonfire with a hot cup of coffee and a book in her hand.  

She loves cooking cheese and chocolate dishes, and introducing new plants to her garden. Ms. Daley’s beautiful Tahoe mountain home is a sumptuous source of inspiration for her books with the abundant wildlife making appearances in her stories.

The Cottage on Gooseberry Bay is a wonderfully, large series with an abundance of stories to explore. The stories are cozy mysteries with love, families, and friendship, some heartbreaks, holidays and celebrations, and bonds that are forged over puzzles to solve.

In this series, we are introduced to Ainsley Holloway. She has come to Gooseberry Bay to try to find some answers about her past. She’s had dreams that have been haunting her every night.  

They are about the death of the cop who, when she was a child, first rescued her then raised her. The dreams are showing her a family she can’t remember but one she knows in her heart she had once belonged to.  

Ainsley needs to find the answers, knowing it is a path for her to heal. She’s looking for peace and is hoping to find it here at Gooseberry Bay.

The first book in the Cottage on Gooseberry Bay series is Halloween Moon. Ainsley has arrived in Gooseberry Bay for the day and is quickly disappointed when she realizes there will be no easy answers to her deep, disturbing questions.  

She doesn’t want to leave without answers so she and her dogs, Kai and Kallie, rent a cottage on the beach where they can begin their investigation.  Ainsley has a nice first night in town and she meets some of the people, including a young woman.  

Unfortunately, Ainsley is shook up the next morning when the young woman is found dead. It’s immediately dismissed by the local sheriff as a suicide, totally based on a text message she supposedly sent before she died.  

Ainsley isn’t as confident as the sheriff that she committed suicide. Ainsley had spent time and spoken with the young woman a few hours the night before the texts were sent and doesn’t think suicide matches with their conversation.  

Ainsley’s instincts could be right. Brought up as a cop’s daughter and an investigative journalist by trade, she doesn’t like unanswered questions and inconsistencies.  

With the help from her new acquaintances, she starts her own investigation. It’s looking like the sheriff is pushing the suicide angle to protect the self interest of the very powerful and very rich man. The community has no idea how dangerous this really is. Ainsley intends to expose them both.

Book number two of the Cottage on Gooseberry Bay series by Kathi Daley is Thanksgiving Past. Sitting around with a group of friends one evening before Thanksgiving, Ainsley learns about the Hamish family.  

It’s one of the biggest mysteries of Gooseberry Bay, about five years old, and unsolved to this day. Thanksgiving day the whole family, mom, dad, and four daughters between the ages of six and sixteen vanished. They disappeared without a trace, leaving their Thanksgiving dinner on the table, a turkey on the counter waiting to be carved, all their belongings were there and even their car in the driveway.  

Ainsley meets Adam Winchester and he agrees to help her try to solve this dark mystery. Vanish without a trace? How does one do that? Unless they are all six dead and buried somewhere so out of the way. That’s too gruesome to contemplate.  

There was no sign of a struggle, no forced entry, it doesn’t appear to be a mob retribution, and there are lots of theories including the family on the run for their lives. Alien abduction? Ainsley is going to pass on that one.

Because of Gooseberry Bay’s location, it is a good spot for a family on the run to hide. The geography with the inlets and bays are isolated and Gooseberry Bay town is close-knit and everyone is so known to each other.

In the back of Ainsley’s mind, even while she is intrigued with this mystery and committed to solving it, she has her own mysteries to solve. She has to solve her own nightmares.