Christmas Cozy Mystery Books & Christmas Thrillers

Book Summary

Lilly is a single mom to two teenagers, a jewelry shop owner, and the local Chamber of Commerce president. She is as busy as ever this Christmas and definitely didn’t have time to find a dead body on the floor of her store.

On top of that, she has to deal with her deadbeat ex-husband and the declining mental health of her mother. When a second dead body appears, Lilly is now the prime suspect and hopes the local police can figure out what is really happening ASAP for any hope of a merry Christmas.

Book Summary

Stella is about to spend her first Christmas season as the “Lady” of Morrington Hall. As an expat who married an aristocrat, she’s eager to embrace all the yuletide traditions in the English countryside. She’s thrown herself into starting a horse farm charity for the holidays. Initially, she doesn’t notice items disappearing from her bedroom. But then her housekeeper, Mrs. Nelson, is found dead in the cold on Mistletoe Lane.

Stella wonders if someone else on her staff knows the killer, but then another person dies at a Boxing Day race. Stella and her husband, Lyndy, must figure out what happens to save the estate’s reputation and keep themselves alive until the new year.

Book Summary

If you enjoyed Arsenic and Adobo, we think you’ll love this follow-up set in the Christmas season. In this book, Lila is trying to make a profit at her new coffee shop, The Brew-ha Cafe. She’s also starting a romance with her friend, Jae, so things should be good.

But her cousin Ronnie, who left Shady Pines fifteen years ago, is back. While Tita Rosie is happy the prodigal son has returned to buy a local winery, Lila knows better. Before long, Ronnie is accused of murder, and Lila has to figure out how to prove the jerk’s innocence because surely he wouldn’t go that far.

Book Summary

Ellie is trying to juggle jobs and a sick daughter, and her wish is to make it to New Year without any more problems. But then her mother-in-law moves in.

Things get even worse when her estranged friend, Andrea, collapses and it becomes clear she was murdered. Along with her daughter and mother-in-law, Ellie follows the clues to solve the mystery. This unlikely trio of Blix women must find the killer, even if that really annoys her detective inspector ex-husband.

Book Summary

This series is set on a Christmas Tree farm in Mistletoe, Maine. Cat lovers will enjoy the feline character, Cindy Lou Who. In the first book, Twelve Slays of Christmas, the local grinch and president of the Mistletoe Historical Society, Margaret Fenwick, is bludgeoned and left in the sleigh display at Reindeer Games, Holly’s family tree farm.

Holly’s father, Bud, is the main suspect, and it doesn’t help that he and the reindeer keeper were seen arguing with Margaret just before her death. But Holly knows her father and is determined to exonerate him.

Book Summary

This dark thriller takes place in the five days leading up to Christmas. Despite her tragic childhood, Madeline now owns the thriving bookstore, The Next Chapter Bookshop. Harley wanted to be novelist, but is now a true crime podcaster. When he arrives in Madeline’s bookshop, he tries to dig into a past she has been trying to forget. Madeline was the only survivor of Evan Handy, who was convicted of murdering her best friend and is still the prime suspect in other disappearances.

However, since Evan Handy went to jail, there have been other disappearances, including one recently. As Christmas approaches, Harley hopes to get to the bottom of the case.

Book Summary

When Rose cuts through Harbor Park after her midnight mass choir practice, she’s assaulted and left for dead. However, when the police find her several hours later, she’s alive. At the hospital, she learns she is pregnant, and nine months later, she names her daughter Mary.

She raises her daughter in a small Connecticut town and tries to get back to her old self. However, her attacker has never been caught. He only strikes twice a year, once on Christmas Eve and again on Christmas Day. But when he learns Rose now has a daughter, he changes his plan…

Book Summary

On Christmas Eve in North West England, four men who had gone on a walk are missing. Finding them before nightfall is essential because they’re unlikely to survive the brutal cold after dark.

After several hours, the first man is found. But, it’s clear he’s been murdered. With a snowstorm approaching, DI Walker must catch the killer before the trail is buried forever.

Book Summary

Drosselmeyer, the godfather of sisters Clara and Natasha, cursed them to be light and dark. Charming Clara, the favorite, grows into a life of beauty and ease, while Natasha is relegated to her sister’s shadow, ignored and unloved.

On Christmas Eve, Natasha has the opportunity for revenge when Drosselmeyer attends her family’s Christmas gala. He comes with the Nutcracker, which offers entry into the Kingdom of Sweets.

Natasha follows Clara into this magical land and finds the Sugar Plum Fairy, who offers her own wondrous gifts . . . and chilling bargains.

Book Summary

On Christmas Eve sixty years ago, a delivery man made a gruesome discovery that forever changed the small town of Tambilla. In the present day, Jess is a journalist in London when she gets a call to return home to Australia to help with her grandmother, Nora. Nora was more like a mother to Jess, after Jess’s mother, Polly, left her with Nora and moved to Brisbane when Jess was only 10.

Nora fell in her attic while searching for something, and now she is mumbling about an event in her past in a way that is difficult to understand. As Jess tries to piece things together, she learns that Nora was agitated and restless even before the fall. She knows something is going on, and is determined to figure it out. She searches the house for clues and finds a true crime book about the Turner Family Tragedy of Christmas Eve.

But what does this cold case have to do with her family?