Christmas Sweets by Joanne Fluke, Laura Levine, and Leslie Meier

Christmas Sweets is an enjoyable book of short stories by three well-known women authors who write cozy mysteries.

The Twelve Desserts of Christmas by Joanne Fluke

This holiday short story is perfect for any Hannah Swensen fans, as well as anyone looking for some holiday recipes as those are included at the end!

Two boarding school teachers must spend their Christmas holiday at the school taking care of students who had no where else to go. They begin to fall in love, but someone isn’t too happy about this and wants to keep them apart. It is up to Hannah to both snoop and bake to find out who is behind trying to break the two up.  Will Hannah, armed with both wonderful easy to follow recipes and her disposition to solving crimes help love win out?

Nightmare on Elf Street by Laura Levine

Having never read a cozy by Laura Levine, I found this short story to be my favorite. It is very comical and I assure cat lovers you will enjoy this as well.

Jaine Austin is looking for work.  Any work.  She finds a job working as an elf at a local mall.  Between the hideous elf costume and one of the Santa’s not being very nice, Jaine is miserable.  When she decides to take her cat Prozac to the mall to have holiday pictures taken things go “cat crazy” thanks to Prozac. During the chaos Santa is  murdered by a tree ornament.  Jaine soon discovers she is the prime suspect. Now she must catch the Santa killer before they catch her.

The Christmas Thief by Leslie Meier

All Elizabeth Stone wants for Christmas is to go home to Tinker’s Cove, Maine and see her family.  Elizabeth works at a lavish resort in Florida.  When she finds out all vacations have been cancelled due to a very expensive posh party which was suddenly booked, she is beyond disappointed.

Then during the party one of the pieces of expensive jewelry goes missing and Elizabeth becomes the prime suspect in the heist.  Afraid of losing her job, she is banned from the establishment until the case is solved. She doesn’t know where to turn.  Enter her mother Lucy Stone and friend Miss Tilley who fly in from Maine and take charge. Between the three of them, will they be able to convince the police Elizabeth is innocent?

I found the short stories to be full of cheer, wit, mayhem and of course mystery.  A lovely cozy to read with some apple cider and one of Hannah’s cookies.

Thank you #NetGalley #Kennsington #JoanneFluke #ChristmasSweets for the advanced copy.