Wednesday, December 11, 2024

Sleigh Bells and Slaughter by Alina Jacobs, 214 pages

 Slaughter, you say? Well, you’d be ready to rampage, too, if you had to listen to “Jingle Bell Rock” for the eleven thousandth time.

Christmas is bad enough without all the music, frantic shopping sprees, and holiday parties. So many parties… with people you couldn’t stand in high school and definitely can’t stand now.
Top of the list? Patty Harrison. She made my teen years miserable and, now that we’re adults, she’s trying to get me banned from the Christmas market.
Even so, I’m not going to commit literal murder.

But when Parry is found dead in the fiery inferno of my shed, I’m not going to pretend to be sad either.
Just because I look like Wednesday Addams’s cooler, more dangerous older sister, everyone assumes I did it—including Captain Luke Reynolds, the firefighter tasked with solving the mystery of the arson and murder.
He’s everything terrible about Christmas, all in one tall, huge, muscular package.

No, not like that! I have more self-respect than to drool over a man who’s convinced I’m a murderer. Too bad my only alibi is my cat, Salem, and he’s not talking.

As someone who detests Christmas and counts down the days until Halloween, I’m not inviting Luke over for milk and cookies to appeal to his protective nature and beg for help.
Nope, I’m oiling up my brass knuckles, clearing my name, then retreating to my witchy cottage to wait out the yuletide season.

But what if I end up right in the real killer’s lair?
All the better!
Christmas needs a little spooky, and what better way than solving a murder?





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