A Christmas Witness by Charles Todd

At 212 pages, Charles Todd’s A Christmas Witness is the longest novella I’ve ever read. It’s also tedious, and repetitive. Nothing happens except for a man who swears he sees a ghost and changes his life a la Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol....

austenland by Shannon Hale

I needed a reread of Shannon Hale’s romantic novel, Austenland. I read it years ago when I was watching the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth. But, I never was as obsessed as Jane Hayes. Only Jane’s best friend knows she yearns to be...

Murder Most Haunted by Emma Mason

With the title of Murder Most Haunted, and the knowledge that Emma Mason’s novel is a locked-room mystery, I was looking forward to an exciting story. Instead, I felt the story was slow-paced with dislikable characters, even the protagonist. She spent thirty...

Miss Winter in the Library with a Knife by Martin Edwards

Don’t trust anyone. That’s the message given to six people who agree to spend the Christmas holidays playing a mystery game at Midwinter, a village in the extreme north of England. It’s also a warning to readers of Martin Edwards’ first...

The Impossible fortune by Richard Osman

Why is it that when Bitcoin is involved in a mystery, I find it boring? Probably because no financial mystery has interested me since Emma Lathen wrote the Wall Street Mystery series featuring John Putnam Thatcher. And, as much as I like the group from The Thursday...