Tortie Shorties: Wrapping Up the Christmas Season

Sadly, Christmas is over and with it go all of the wonderfully festive holiday stories that have been the purr-fect accompaniment to a mug of peppermint hot chocolate. Today we wanted to tell you about the last few that we've been curled up with. There's still time to enjoy them...it is still technically the holiday season, after all!

The Christmas Kitten: A Polly Parrett Pet-Sitter Cozy Murder Mystery by Liz Dodwell

From the publisher: Polly Parrett finds herself in the midst of another murder mystery. This time it involves two little girls, a wicked stepmother, and a missing father. Oh, and Christmas is almost here. 

It all begins with a mysterious gift box that’s left on Polly’s doorstep. Along the way she encounters problems with her pet-sitting customers and her arch nemesis, Britney Harris, who has her eye on Polly’s boyfriend Tyler. 

An Open House is planned at Welcome Home, the residential home Polly and her mom have created to provide a safe haven for homeless military veterans and their pets. It’s all go in Polly’s world, but with a killer on the loose and two children in need of her help, she’ll do anything she can to keep everyone safe.

Tortie Shorties: Pet-sitter Polly returns home from her rounds to find a kitten wearing a gold chain in a box at her front door. She takes the little one to her handicapped mother who runs a halfway house for homeless veterans and her pets, where a resident has found the two young step-daughters of a murdered woman sleeping in the barn. Their father is in the military and they think they're responsible for the death. Polly, boyfriend Tyler, the vets and a very special Christmas Kitten join forces to find the real killer. A charming novella set in Maine with loads of holiday fun.

Rest Ye Murdered Gentlemen: A Year-Round Christmas Mystery by Vicki Delany

From the publisher: In Rudolph, New York, it’s Christmastime all year long. But this December, while the snow-lined streets seem merry and bright, a murder is about to ruin everyone’s holiday cheer…

As the owner of Mrs. Claus’s Treasures, Merry Wilkinson knows how to decorate homes for the holidays. That’s why she thinks her float in the semi-annual Santa Claus parade is a shoe-in for best in show. But when the tractor pulling Merry’s float is sabotaged, she has to face facts: there’s a Scrooge in Christmas Town.

Merry isn’t ready to point fingers, especially with a journalist in town writing a puff piece about Rudolph’s Christmas spirit. But when she stumbles upon the reporter’s body on a late night dog walk—and police suspect he was poisoned by a gingerbread cookie crafted by her best friend, Vicky—Merry will have to put down the jingle bells and figure out who’s really been grinching about town, before Vicky ends up on Santa’s naughty list…

Tortie Shorties: If Rudolph, New York were a real place I would have my bags packed faster than Santa can say "Ho Ho Ho". Things go wrong for our heroine, Merry Wilkinson, right from the start when the tractor pulling her float in the Santa Claus parade is sabotaged. Then she finds Nigel Pearce, a journalist from World Journey magazine who is writing a puff piece on Christmas Town, dead in the park. He's been poisoned by a specially decorated gingerbread cookie of Charles Dickens, made by Merry's best friend Vicky, who becomes the lead suspect. With the town's reputation in danger of being destroyed, Merry has no choice but to find the nasty Scrooge. The descriptions of Rudolph's shops just ooze Christmas cheer, and the characters are instantly delightful, from Merry's former mayor father Noel to her St. Bernard puppy to the two men vying for her attention to quirky shop owner Betty. I look forward to my next visit to Rudolph, perhaps to celebrate Christmas in July!

That Silent Night: A Lady Emily Christmas Story by Tasha Alexander

From the publisher: In this new short story from Tasha Alexander, Lady Emily -- called "Victorian London's most colorful and delightfully eccentric sleuth"* -- and her dashing husband Colin are spending a few days in London, doing some last-minute Christmas shopping and making the most of the time alone, when they find themselves in the middle of an unexpected mystery. The couple is just getting cozy, not at all bothered by the storm outside. But when Lady Emily looks out the window to see a woman standing in the blowing snow, without a coat, an eerie feeling falls over her, and she rushes out to help, only to find that the woman has disappeared. Colin is convinced her eyes were playing tricks on her, but Emily is haunted by the woman's image. Clearly, there is something spooky afoot, and she is determined to get to the bottom of it...

Complete with the vivid descriptions and period detail Lady Emily fans have come to expect from this series, That Silent Night is a delicious morsel of a mystery, with an irresistible ghost story at its heart.

Tortie Shorties: There's nothing much better than a Christmas ghost story, which is probably why I am so obsessed with A Christmas Carol! This short story made me feel as though I were living in Victorian London during the era of Charles Dickens and I loved every moment. Just who is the mysterious lady that Emily sees outside her window, and how is she tied to Emily and Colin's newlywed neighbors? I will definitely be adding the full-length Lady Emily novels to my reading list!