I met Manju Soni through our wonderful Sisters in Crime Connecticut group. Please join me in giving her a warm welcome to Writers Who Kill and Cozyworld. -- Shari Randall
HOW I LANDED IN COZYWORLD BY MANJU (MJ) SONI
I first began writing after signing up for a weekly personal essay class I saw advertised in our local community newspaper. My writing teacher, Beverly, was a quixotic woman in her mid-seventies with a perfect bob and the throaty voice of a chain smoker. She was a voracious reader consuming two books a week and was a cancer survivor, with an incredible memory in spite of surgery for a brain aneurysm.
As a doctor under apartheid, a system of legalized racism in South Africa, I had seen so much suffering I found I couldn’t get past it when writing. I constantly veered toward writing about patients I had encountered. Like the young mother who had third degree burns from a paraffin stove explosion because they had no access to an electrical grid. She refused to allow her three children, the youngest a toddler, to see her for almost six months as she recovered because she didn’t want them to see her so bandaged up. Or the many young men blinded by riot police shrapnel, and, on a happier note, the old man from a village who gifted my colleague a cow for restoring his vision after cataract surgery.
Every piece of fiction I wrote seemed trivial and self-indulgent.
Under Beverly’s kind and sometimes stern guidance, I wrote my part-memoir, nonfiction book DEFYING APARTHEID. I believe it was therapy for the years of subclinical post-traumatic stress syndrome from growing up under an authoritarian regime.
I then turned my hand to fiction. At first I wrote thrillers, then psychological suspense novels, and then domestic suspense. But none of these went anywhere in spite of my signing with an agent.
Finally, frustrated, I parted ways with my agent and decided to write something I enjoyed. A plain old mystery with a cast of characters I’d like to see in my own homogeneously white coastal New England town. The latest census says one percent of our town is Asian American, and I know all ten of us!
The result was my debut, THE MASALA CHAI MYSTERY CLUB, due to be published in July 21, 2026. In their starred review, Library Journal said, “This multicultural and multigenerational novel has intrigue, heart, and excellent storytelling that is perfect for readers who enjoy the ’Detective Aunty‘ series by Uzma Jalaluddin or Jesse Q. Sutanto’s Vera Wong and 'Aunties' books.”
When I began to submit my manuscript to agents, I had no idea it was a cozy mystery. I didn’t know this sub-sub-genre existed. But then I hit it lucky with my second agent who during our first call said she liked it because it was a ‘new cozy.’
Looking back, my debut has all the elements of a cozy. The murder takes place off screen. My protagonist is amateur sleuth Neeti Shah, a librarian who has been pushed into early retirement. She wears a saree and teams up with a community of quirky characters to solve the murder of their nasty homeowners association president, which resembles the murder in their latest book club read, THE DUMB WITNESS by Agatha Christie. And there’s chai, appetizers, a cute kid, and an equally cute dog.
I realize now, trying out various genres is not uncommon. Finding that bridge that connects what one writes with what publishers want to publish is a test of resilience and determination.
So that’s how I landed in Cozyworld, and I absolutely love it. I attended my first Malice Domestic this year and was blown away by how friendly and welcoming everyone was. It truly is an amazing community of very kind and helpful fellow authors.
Thank you for having me, and I’m looking forward to this journey of being a cozy author with all of you. Please let me know whether your journey to Cozyworld was as zigzag as mine or as straight as an arrow.
Manju (MJ) Soni grew up in South Africa and wrote DEFYING APARTHEID, a part-memoir, about being a doctor/activist under apartheid. Since then, drawing on her American, African, and Indian background, she's written mystery short fiction. Her debut cozy mystery, THE MASALA CHAI MYSTERY CLUB, which is full of heart and humor, with a saree-wearing librarian protagonist, will be coming out on July 21 with Crooked Lane Books. Preorder here: https://tinyurl.com/
