Stars: 5 out of 5
Pros: Three fun Christmas mystery novellas
Cons: Doesn’t come with hot cocoa to sip while reading
The Bottom Line:
Christmas novellas
With some holiday murders
You’re sure to enjoy
Snuggle Up for this Christmas Novella Collection
Christmas seems to be becoming increasingly popular for cozy
mysteries. While I don’t normally
associate murder with Christmas, I do find it a super cozy time of year, so it
fits from that standpoint. If you find
the holiday season too busy to read a full-length book easily, then you can
easily pick up Christmas Cocoa Murder.
This book has three novellas in it, so you can more easily fit one of
them into your busy December schedule.
As a bonus, all three of them are delightful.
The book starts off with the title story from Carlene
O’Connor. I’ve never read anything by
her, so this was my introduction to Siobhan O’Sullivan, the main character in
her popular Irish Village Mysteries.
This story finds Siobhan a few weeks from joining the local police department
in her small Irish village. Even though
she’s not supposed to officially join until after the first of the year, she
finds herself getting involved in a case just before Christmas. First, her family’s dog goes missing. Then the intermission entertainment at the
holiday panto goes horribly wrong. Paddy
O’Shea, the village Santa, has been obsessed over how to top the Santa from the
neighboring village, and he’s come up with what he thinks is the perfect
way. He’s had a custom-built dunk tank
made, and he’s going to challenge people to dunk him in hot chocolate. However, before the show is over, Paddy is
found floating face down in the hot chocolate.
Who killed Santa?
As I said, this was my introduction to the characters, and I
did struggle a bit keeping Siobhan’s family straight, and there are some
references to things going on in her personal life that I didn’t get. However, these were very minor issues in an
overall fun story and easy enough to ignore.
As you might have guessed from the description of the story, there is
some humor involved in the events, but it does have plenty of serious moments
as well. These were balanced
perfectly. I really enjoyed getting to
know Siobhan and the suspects were all strong enough to be believable as the
killer. The plot kept me engaged until
we reached the great climax.
Next comes “Christmas Cocoa and a Corpse” by Maddie
Day. With how much I love her books, I’m
sure you’ll find it no surprise that this is the reason I picked up the
collection. It features the characters
from her Country Store Mysteries, so we travel to Indiana to catch up with
Robbie Jordan. It’s the week before
Christmas, and business is booming at Robbie’s restaurant, Pans ‘N Pancakes. However, not everyone is in a festive mood. Local businessman Jed Greenburg is found dead
on the sidewalk while he was out walking a Chocolate lab puppy, the spilled
contents of a mug of Robbie’s special hot chocolate blend next to him. What happened?
Since I love this series so much, it’s no surprise to me
that I enjoyed this novella. Several of
the series regulars are away for the holiday, which actually works out very
well since this is a novella. We are
able to focus on the characters important to mystery. Robbie’s boyfriend’s family are actually key
to the events as they unfold, and it was great to get to know them a little
better. The mystery was strong, and I
enjoyed watching it unfold. As always,
the scenes in the restaurant made my mouth water, and I am now craving
breakfast foods.
Finally, we get “Death by Hot Cocoa” by Alex Erickson
featuring Krissy Hancock from his Bookstore Café Mysteries. Krissy has been talked into doing a Christmas
themed escape room by her friend Rita.
The game starts out with the participants being placed in separate
rooms, but when they all meet up in the second room, they find the body of
their host, Lewis, lying in a pool of spilled hot cocoa. Is Krissy locked in a room with a
killer? Can she figure out the clues to
the crime and the clues to escaping the room?
I read the first book in the series, but I haven’t made it
back to the series again. As a result, I
really didn’t remember much about the characters in the series, but that is
okay because almost the entire story takes place at the escape room. With Krissy trapped in a room with all the
suspects, it is easy to get to know them.
I haven’t tried any escape rooms yet, but I appreciated how this modern
trend was used to update the locked room staple of the genre. It was well done with the clues to both parts
of the mystery layered in to the events.
This one definitely kept me turning the pages.
All three stories feature plenty of Christmas atmosphere to
put you in the holiday spirit no matter when you read them. And there are a couple different recipes for
hot cocoa as well as another couple Christmas treats in the book to make part
of your Christmas traditions.
These stories will entertain you and leave you with a warm
Christmas feeling. So make yourself a
cup of hot chocolate (or maybe not given the theme of this book) and snuggle in
with Christmas Cocoa Murder.
If you enjoy the story here, you'll want to read the rest of the Country Store Mysteries.
NOTE: I received an ARC of this book.
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