I think I'm getting sentimental in my old age! I really enjoyed this Christmas mystery & romance. There are all the cozy mystery details: a heroine coming home to a small town when her Christmas Eve wedding gets cancelled, the loving parents ready to welcome her, the family Christmas tree business for her to slide back into, and the mysterious death on the tree farm just days before December 25th. Not to mention the handsome sheriff who shows up to investigate the murder and the charming newspaper reporter who seems interested in more than the story.
Just in case you're wondering about the title, there is only the one death, right at the book's beginning, not twelve as I had mistakenly assumed. The title is merely a play on the Twelve Days of Christmas. Although Holly (yup, that's her name) gets threatened regularly. In fact, there are piles of cheesy Christmas details, but I guess I am less of a grinch than I thought, as I really didn't mind. My absolute favourite detail was Holly's cat named Cindy Lou Who!
There is a mystery to be solved and Holly puts a lot of thought and effort into it, despite the sheriff's repeated suggestions that she butt out. This is also typical of cozies and if I worked in any kind of law enforcement role, I wouldn't be able to read them. It worked for me in this instance because the plot was at least as much about finding Holly a new love interest as it is about solving the murder.
This reminded me a lot of Vicki Delany's Year Round Christmas series, except that I think I like this one a little more. Perhaps I like Holly's lumberjack father or Holly's cat more than I thought. Actually, I think it's her better attitude towards law enforcement; she treats them as allies, not like incompetents as Delany's characters tend to. Unless Jacqueline Frost has another pen-name that she writes under, this is her only series. And with a name like Frost, how could she write anything but Christmas stories?
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