'Twas the Knife Before Christmas

Jacqueline Frost has quickly become an auto read as her stories are all top notch. This one starts with Holly's friend Caroline being manipulated by her parents into having dinner with Derek. Derek gets handsy and Caroline jumps up and makes a bit of a scene.

It quickly makes the news, but when Derek ends up dead, Caroline becomes a prime suspect and Holly gets involved trying to clear her friend's name.

The Reindeer Games are always fun and I love the small town characters and the Christmas atmosphere. The murder is always well thought out and it's just amazing writing.

This was offered on Audible for free and happened to be the follow up to my last read, so I gave it a go. It’s easy to follow, seasonal and semi-cozy, and Allyson Ryan is such an easy narrator to follow.

Unfortunately, it’s a year later for Holly, and things haven’t been great between her and the Bostonian sheriff. He’s distant, and she doesn’t know why. With Christmas looming, she’s gearing up for another busy week of reindeer games at the family tree farm in Mistletoe, Maine. The construction of an inn on the family property is going well, and the man in charge looks and sounds just a bit like Santa.

Over the last year of being home, Holly has become best friends with Caroline, near inseparable, but after a fight with a man got out of hand and filmed, it ended up on the news…only making things worse when he was found dead the next day. The clues all seemingly point to Caroline, so it’s up to Holly to once again ask around, to infuriate the sheriff, and to draw unwanted attention to herself, perhaps at a large personal cost. Will Caroline be proved innocent? Can Holly and the sheriff reconcile?

While this one still featured a romance subplot, the mystery was far better established in my opinion. With actual red herrings, misdirects, and some well thought out investigation. For me, that was quite the build off the last one, and not for nothing, this one’s a bit darker too, and chillier too, given the season. Not quite so cozy, however the author continues to offer up seasonal cheer and sugar comas galore. And I really love that it took most of book two for someone to finally label Holly as an amateur sleuth, cause really she’s just being nosy. Sadly, the others aren’t included, and I don’t have credits.

Unfortunately, I didn't quite love this one as much as I did the first book in the series. The mystery aspect was well done. I still really enjoy that setting and the overall festive feeling. It has a great cast of characters. Holly is still a very likable heroine.





However, the whole Ethan and Holly “romance” was just odd. At the end of the last book they kissed, and it seemed like they were headed towards Coupeville, then at the beginning of this book, you find out that after that kiss they have barely said two words to each other for the entire year. Halfway through you find out the reason why (and it was kind of a weak excuse in my opinion), then things seem to be more on track (we even get a kiss AGAIN), and then at the end Ethan basically tells her the next year is going to be the same as the previous one. He will be gone a lot so they won't see each other much. He won't be able to talk to her about it. At this point, I would rather see Holly get with Ray since they seem to have WAY more chemistry together as friends than her and Ethan.





Last, I said this in my last review, but this book would have been a bit more special if the author had included some of the recipes for the things mentioned in the book. All in all, it was an OK read, and I enjoyed it enough to pick up the next book in the series.