Twelve Slays of Christmas (A Christmas Tree Farm Mystery #1) by Jacqueline Frost

Twelve Slays of Christmas by Jacqueline Frost
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Holly White thought she would be spending her Christmas holiday getting married to her fiance and heading out on her honeymoon. Instead Holly’s fiance breaks up with her with less than two weeks to go until their planned Christmas Eve wedding and she packs her things to return home to Mistletoe, Maine where her family runs a tree farm. Jumping back into working at the farm to help her parents during the busy season leading up to Christmas helps Holly take her mind off of the end of her relationship.

The excitement and magic of the upcoming Reindeer Games has everyone in the town excited except for those that have had a run in with the president of the Mistletoe Historical Society, Margaret Fenwick. Margaret has been on a rampage leaving lots of folks upset handing out fines in the name of the Historical Society which hasn’t made her the most popular in town but Holly never expected to end up finding Margaret murdered just on the outside of the farm. Now Holly knows her family and employees are all suspects so she’s determined to find out who the real murderer is to take the suspicion off of those close to her.

Twelve Slays of Christmas by Jacqueline Frost is the first book in the Christmas Tree Farm Mystery series. This cozy mystery series is definitely one for Christmas lovers everywhere and will certainly get readers in the mood for the upcoming holidays. From the main character being named Holly and working on a tree farm with all sorts of fun Christmas activities to the name of her cat, Cindy Lou Who the entire book just oozes Christmas and had a smile on my face for the biggest part of the book.

The fun Christmas side of the story aside there was also a nice little mystery going on with a bit of suspense when Holly begins nosing about and the murderer doesn’t take too kindly to it leading to threats. The local Sheriff was also a potential budding love interest for Holly as he’s new to town and takes his job seriously leading to the pair spending quite a bit of time together which leads to hoping we see more of that story line in future books. In the end this one was a big ball of Christmas fun and I’ll certainly look forward to more of these characters in the future.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.