by Sunny Frazier

This week we have a giveaway of Can’t Judge a Book By Its Murder by Amy Lilliard featured in a past Coming Attractions column. Details on how to enter below-winner can choose either print or ebook.

Ho, Ho, hoping the vaccine will reach us soon. In the meantime, tell your friends and family that all you want for Christmas are books. Here’s some titles you can suggest—some are brand new releases and some came out earlier this year.

Since famous chocolatier Bailey King started her cable show, her Swissmen Sweets shop in Harvest, Ohio, has been overrun with Christmas orders. She pulls in her Amish cousin Charlotte to help. When Charlotte starts getting love notes, she starts watching the mailbox to see who her secret admirer is. But she sees underhanded activities going on and wonders if he’s the main suspect in the investigation. The developments has Charlotte thinking about leaving her Amish roots. Amanda Flower includes recipes in Candy Cane Crime, sicth in the Amish Candy Shop series. (In Best of the Rest below you can see another book by the author.)

More recipes show up in Candy Slain Murder by Maddie Day (review & giveaway in this issue). In South Lick, Indiana, Robbie Jordan has her hands full at the Pans ‘N Pancakes restaurant during the holidays. Things get strange when a man shows up claiming to be her assistant’s long-lost half-brother. Next, a fire destroys a home and exposes a skeleton in the closet. A decades-old mystery is not making the spirits bright. This is the fifth in A Country Store mysteries.

More sweet recipes are found in Gingerdead Man by Maya Corrigan. It’s a Dickens of a Holiday festival in Bayport, Maryland. Val Deniston, who runs the Cool Down Café at a fitness club, is hosting a private tea party serving costumed characters like Dickens, Scrooge, and Santa. But when poisoned cookies are circulated, “Santa” munches several and dies. Now Val and her granddad must catch the killer before the New Year. This is the seventh in the 5 Ingredient mysteries.

Author Joanne Fluke never fails to deliver the sweet treats. In Lake Eden, Indiana, Hannah is trying juggle Christmas baking at The Cookie Jar as well as solving everyone else’s problems. When a man is found close to the bakery and nearly dead, they discover he has amnesia. All he seems to remember is how to restore furniture. Christmas Cupcake Murder (recently reviewed in KRL) is the twenty-sixth in the Hannah Swensen mysteries, and includes over a dozen cookie recipes!

Lucy Berberian manages the family’s Kebab Kitchen on the Jersey Shore. When she decides to take part in the annual Polar Bear Plunge, she finds a swimmer doing the dead man’s float—for real. The man is the owner of the reception hall who turned up his nose at her wedding plans. Who killed the caterer? Is it the wedding cake baker whose career he nearly destroyed? Or the angry bride whose reception he ruined? It’s all Mistletoe, Moussaka and Murder in Tina Kashian’s Kebob Kitchen mysteries number five. Recipes included.

?Animals enjoy Christmas too! When a mouthy, grieving donkey shows up at Ivy Galloway’s Runaway Farm and Inn, his howling disturbs guests. But his crying encourages Ivy, her Border Collie Keats and the crime-solving crew to investigate a murder. Twas the Bite Before Christmas is sixth in Ellen Riggs’ Bought-the-Farm mysteries. Another new book, Swine and Punishment, is listed in Best of the Rest.

Owl Be Home for Christmas is Donna Andrews’ promise in the twenty-sixth Meg Langslow outing (this is a paperback release of last year’s hardback). It’s just a few days before Christmas and Meg’s grandfather is hosting a science conference on owls at the Caephilly Inn. A snowstorm traps the attendees and an ornithologist is murdered. The Chief of Police doesn’t want anyone to leave, so they might miss Christmas because of a killer. Time for Meg to come to the rescue.

Here Comes Santa Paws! It’s a Connecticut Christmas in Greenwich for Melanie Travis who runs a poodle breeding business. Her event planner friend lands a personal shopper gig for a wealthy client and it’s business as usual–until she stumbles across the client’s body. Now a prime suspect, she begs Melanie for help. It’s discovered that the woman has an untraceable past and permission to live on the estate of a recluse. Clues pile up like presents under the tree in Laurien Berenson’s twenty-fourth Melanie Travis mystery.

Even if you don’t have much time to read during the holidays, these anthologies will fulfill the wish for a quick read:

Christmas Crackers: A Paranormal Cozy Mystery Collection by Jane Hinchey, Nancy Warren and eight more writers.

A Stocking Full of Murder Four holiday stories from Lynn Cahoon’s Tourist Trap mysteries.

Christmas Card Murder by Leslie Meier, Lee Hollis and Peggy Ehrhart

Tonya Kappes—Ropes, Riddles & Rubbers Campers and Criminals #15

Ellie Alexander—Chilled to the Cone Bakeshop Mystery #12

Kate Carlisle—Premeditated Mortar Fixer-Upper #8

Ellen Riggs—Swine and Punishment Bought-the-Farm #7

Rosemarie Ross—Finished Off in Fondant A Courtney Archer Mystery #2

Kate Collins—A Big Fat Greek Murder Goddess of Greene St. Mystery #2

J.A. Whiting and Nell McCarthy—A Silver Christmas Tipperary Carriage Company Mystery #4

Sharon Farrow—Hollyberry Homicide Berry Basket #5

Cate Conte—A Whisker of Doubt Cat Café #4

Kelly Utt—Her Christmas Guest Rosemary Run #8

Donna Andrews—Gift of the Magpie Meg Langslow #8

Lily Harper Hart—Ghostly Graves A Harper Harlow/Maddie Graves Mystery

Elizabeth Spann Craig—Hush-Hush The Village Library Mysteries #4

Elizabeth Spann Craig—Murder on the Ballot A Myrtle Clover Cozy Mystery #17

Amber Crewes—Urchin Dishes and Deadly Wishes

Beth Byers—The Lurid Possibility of Murder Severine DuNoir Mystery #5

Misty Simon—Varnished Without a Trace A Tallie Graver Mystery #5

Vicki Delany—Dying in a Winter Wonderland Year Around Christmas #5

Sara Bourgeois—Yule Be Magical Familiar Kitten #8

Deanna Chase—A Witch for Christmas Witches of Christmas Grove #2

J.A. Whiting—Holiday Slay A Hope Herring #3

Traci Wilton—Mrs. Morris and the Ghost of Christmas Past Salem B&B #3

Anna Celeste Burke—A Merry Christmas Anniversary Mystery George Shaw Cozy #9

To enter to win either an ebook or print copy of Can’t Judge a Book By Its Murder by Amy Lilliard, simply email KRL at krlcontests@gmail[dot]com by replacing the [dot] with a period, and with the subject line “christmas” or comment on this article. A winner will be chosen December 5, 2020. U.S. residents only, and you must be 18 or older to enter. If entering via email please include your mailing address in case you win, it will be deleted after the contest is over. You can read our privacy statement here if you like.

Check out other mystery articles, reviews, book giveaways & mystery short stories in our mystery section. And join our mystery Facebook group to keep up with everything mystery we post, and have a chance at some extra giveaways. Be sure to check out our new mystery podcast too with mystery short stories, and first chapters read by local actors. A new episode went up this week.

Or click on this link to take you to Mysterious Galaxy’s website where you can purchase any of these books & a portion will go to help support KRL:

Sunny Frazier worked with an undercover narcotics team in Fresno County for 17 years before turning her energies to writing the Christy Bristol Astrology Mysteries. Based in the San Joaquin Valley of California, the novels are inspired by real cases and 35 years of casting horoscopes.

Disclosure: This post contains links to an affiliate program, for which we receive a few cents if you make purchases.