I'm trying to catch up on my past-due, to-be-read list and the title of this one caught my eye. While there are still months until Christmas, I am feeling like this is a good one to put me in the pre-holiday mood.

I loved the characters in the book. I think most of us who don't have a family like Caprice's would love to have one. Perhaps it's incentive to really work on those relationships! The plot was well done and the mystery was solved by the end.

A great book by a fantastic author. The writing is excellent and the mystery keeps you turning the pages. Characters are well developed. Highly recommend.

Slay Bells Ring is the 7th book in the Caprice De Luca Home Staging Mystery series. This is one of my favourite series and I look forward to each book. I absolutely loved the cover to this one. The dog, Blitz, plays a central role in this story. Other reviewers who have not read any of the series seem to have a problem with getting to know the characters, so it might be best to read the series from the beginning, but I don't think it is necessary.

Caprice is hired to put stage a home using a holiday theme. The owner of the home and his wife are not of the same mind when it comes to selling. Chris Merriweather is a toy maker and has played Santa at the local park for years. Caprice notices that something is off about Chris, especially when he almost falls down leaving the sleigh at the local parade. He also has some injuries that he tries to brush off as an accident at the store, but Caprice is not buying that either. When Chris is found dead, murdered on Santa Lane of all places, Caprice and her family are once again on the case to find out what happened to the Vietnam vet who loved to play Santa. It turns out he had a lot of secrets.

This story touches on the subjects of PTSD and other after-effects of war, plus the pain of discovering dark secrets. It has a great plot with these subjects are woven into the story well. Once again the DeLuca family plays a large part in the story. Caprice's dad is a good friend of Chris and is asked by his wife, Sara, to take his dog. He is involved in solving the mystery more than he has been in other stories. Her sisters and their families/friends are also part of her home-staging and volunteer life and I love how they all work together and flesh out the story. Even though there are some dark spots, the story has humor and brightness sprinkled throughout. I enjoy the pace of the relationship of Caprice and Grant and that they are remaining chaste until their wedding. The mystery moves at a great pace, and there are plenty of suspects and twists along the way. The ending wasn't a huge surprise as I had my suspicions earlier in the story, but it was well executed and a good ending for the story. Once again, I enjoyed getting together with the residents of Kismet Pennsylvania and solving another mystery. The publisher, Kensington Publishing Corporation, generously provided me with a copy of this book upon my request. The rating, ideas and opinions shared are my own.

What better way to pass time during the Christmas season than to read a well-crafted cozy crime novel? As odd as it may sound, murder [at least when it is of the non-gory variety] seems to fit well with the festive season and all that it entails. In Slay Bells Ring, Caprice De Luca is enjoying staging a historic home in Kismit, Pennsylvania, for Christmas. She is confident that her decorating skills will help the owners, Chris and Sara Merriweather, to sell their house, although she’s not sure that they’re really committed to moving. Chris seems to be the driving force behind the move, but he has been behaving strangely lately, and Sara seems far more reluctant to leave the family home and the attached workshop. When Chris is murdered, Caprice puts her decorating on hold and sets out to catch the killer before the festive season is ruined for everyone in town. Slay Bells Ring is another charming murder mystery from Karen Rose Smith. There are plenty of twists and turns, and more than a few suspicious characters seem to be lurking around downtown Kismit. It is the seventh investigative outing for Caprice De Luca, and she is still a compelling and convincing central character.

I love cozy mysteries and their cute covers and play on word titles. This is the first time I have read this author and I thought it was a good story, but something was missing. To be fair, it is a long running series that I just discovered. I felt sorry for the victim Chris who was dealing with longtime secrets, but was a good man. Caprice is an enjoyable character and I liked her family and her mystery solver gene, but felt the story needed less of some things which seemed like padding the story and more toward solving the mystery.

I just love Christmas/holiday themed cozy mysteries and this one delivers in spades... or at least slay in bells. With quirky characters, a rich setting, and a perfect murder ready to solve, this is a wonderful story to curl up with on a cold winter's night.

Caprice and her family are a smart group with love and humor who have each other’s back as they solve this unusual murder

Caprice De Luca is working on helping to sell the home of the town Santa but when he is found murdered everyone is stunned and horrified, this man had no enemies, who would kill him? The details of this man's life that are uncovered and help Caprice to find the murderer is heartwarming. Great Cozy for the holidays.

I have been reading this series since the beginning and this was the weakest one in the series. Caprice is staging a house and one of the owners is killed. Even though Caprice does solve the murder not a lot of the book is spent on the mystery. There were not a lot of suspects or red herrings to make the mystery interesting. This book also had a lot more romance and religion. I enjoy Caprice, her pets and her family but like the Holidays this one had too much togetherness. The author does do a good job with the small town setting. I hope the next book has a little less romance and more mystery.

Just a note, Slay Bells Ring is the second mystery I’ve read this year where the victim was killed with a decorative, wooden candy cane. I don’t know if that means I should be hyper alert when out and about somewhere with wooden candy canes or that authors should choose another Christmas decoration to kill people off with.

Slay Bells Ring is the first I’ve read in this series. Festive Christmas covers always suck me right in. It stands alone well, though. You get to know Caprice and her whole family well and understand what’s important to her: her family, her friends, and animals. I liked Caprice for the most part, but she is just so good and wholesome and in love that she’s a bit hard to relate to. I do love that when she knows she’s going into a potentially dangerous situation, she makes sure she has back-up, too many amateur female detectives don’t take their own safety seriously enough. I liked her large Italian family, even if I had a little trouble keeping everyone sorted out, and how everyone pitches in when someone needs help. I loved the critters and the South Central Pennsylvania setting.

The mystery was fine. Chris, the victim, was a good guy, but he had a lot of secrets, and maybe an enemy or two. I honestly didn’t guess the killer, but I probably should have. I got caught up in the red herrings, like I was supposed to.

It’s a good Christmas cozy, but not outstanding. Maybe if I had read the series from the beginning, I’d feel differently.

As part of her house staging business, Caprise DeLuca is staging the house of Sara and Chris Merriweather to help them sell it. The couple has lived in Kismit, PA for a long time, and there are many memories connected with the house. Still, Chris, who owns and runs a craft store and makes hand crafted toys in his spare time, is determined that he and Sara will move to a smaller place, with less maintenance and upkeep. In addition, playing large roles in the community, Chris takes on the role of Kismit Santa during the holiday season. Kismit is shocked when they find the body of dead Santa Chris on Santa Lane. Caprice and her family also are shocked, since they have been friends with Chris and Sara for a long time, and Caprice, true to her nature, cannot stay out of the murder investigation, though the town law enforcement would prefer she did. Amid the holiday hubbub, her concerns and worries about her upcoming marriage, her flourishing business and various other competing interests, Caprice sets out to ferret through the myriad of suspects and clues, with numerous twists and turns, to find out who the murder is.

This is a good holiday story. However, I thought that a lot of the book was spent on things and events other than the murder mystery and its solution. There was a lot of time devoted to Caprice’s relationship with her fiancé and their soon to occur marriage. Most of this was a bit distracting. In addition, it sometimes seemed as if their romance was the main theme of the book, rather than the murder and its solution. I have not read any other books in the series, but I suspect their romance was already covered in them. The book also dragged a bit, as the author veered off on small and large tangents throughout. In addition, there were times, such as when Caprice’s fiancé Grant suggested they each sell their respective houses and buy a new one together, when Caprice came across as somewhat immature and self-centered. Caprice’s and Grant’s dogs as well as her cats and Caprice’s father’s new dog (the one Chris had owned and loved) added warmth and enjoyment to the story, but I guess, as a dog lover, I am prejudiced. This book will appeal to those who have read the other books in the series or to anyone looking for a sweet holiday read. I received this from NetGalley to read and review.

Terrible mystery--saccharine overlying a slightly sanctimonious tone; annoying main character who vacillates between immaturity (I love grant soooo much! We're waiting to sleep together until we're married because that's important to us. I love Grant sooo much but I don't want to leave my house because it's mine and more important to me than anything else. insert big sigh here) and pomposity (I'm such a good crime solver, why haven't the police called me in to tell me all about what they've discovered?).

Typos, missing hyphens, poor formatting did nothing to alleviate my annoyance with the book, only some of which is detailed in my review.

This book gets one star because frankly I can't recommend it at all. And if I could leave a review without any starts, I would for this book.

Chris Merriwether and his wife Sara have hired Caprice to stage their home for a quick sale. Chris, more so than Sara, wants to move into a condo, but she has her doubts although willing to go along with it. Chris is a toymaker who plays Santa every year in the Christmas parade, and it is shortly after this that he is found dead, killed with a heavy wooden candy cane.

While at first no one can believe such a wonderful man was killed, it soon becomes apparent that there were enemies of his; and Caprice begins to wonder if any of those enemies were in his own family. Even though the police are investigating the murder, because Chris was a friend of her father's she feels the need to do a little sleuthing herself.

So in between helping her sister Bella's Christmas program, staging a home for sale, and looking after her own pets and planning her sometime-future wedding, she noses around people who knew Chris to see if any of them can give her a clue as to why. But if she's not careful, her questions might lead her to the wrong party - the killer...

I have to say that I have always enjoyed the Caprice De Luca mysteries; have read every one of them, and therefore I was looking forward to this one being just as wonderful. Unfortunately, there were a few things that took away my enjoyment of this mystery. One was that the mystery took a back seat to the dilemma Caprice feels in planning her wedding - she needs to find a dress, is waiting for an annulment, and she really, really loves Grant as we are reminded often.

Every time we were learning something about the murder, the next paragraph was about her family or Grant. It was just overwhelming to the mystery. I understand her strong family values, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. But it was getting to the point that I got the idea her family would be the ones to decide on a wedding date, where she would honeymoon, and so forth; because she wouldn't think of making those decisions without their help. I also have a hard time believing her family has no conflict between them at all. It seemed just too perfect.

This was far too saccharine for me this time around. Caprice loves Grant so much she can't stop telling us - ever. She wants to marry him, but wants to wait until his annulment comes through. Annulments can take up to three years. So she's willing to wait up to another three years before she gets married or has sex? (Not to mention he's been married before, so the fact he's willing to wait that long truly makes him a paragon among men - and as a side note, I don't read a lot of romances, so it's not that I want them to have sex; it just doesn't seem quite realistic). How old will that make her when she finally has children? Plus, she acts like she's eighteen in this book - gushing over Grant, her wedding gown, pearls, etc.; and then has a panic attack because Grant wants to move into a home big enough for both of them, not just her. She just seemed so immature in her attitude toward Grant and her wedding. Regrettably, it just didn't ring true to the real world, and it should have.

What I am saying is that unless the main character is having a personal crisis, it shouldn't take away from the main issue - which in this case is a murder. Aside from that, the writing was very good and Ms. Smith is a talented writer that I hope to hear more from in the future.

Meh. It was as much romance and women's fiction as mystery which I wasn't expecting. The story didn't grab me.

Princess Fuzzypants here:
Have you ever read a book.series and thought, I missed something. Reading books out of sequence can do that, especially when you do not realize this is what happened. I read one of the Caprice de Luca stories and then picked up what I thought was the next in line, this book. It did not take too long before I realized I had read the book in between amd had to try and put everything back into sequence. Thankfully I enjoy the series so it was no hardship.
It is coming up the the holidays and Caprice and Grant are engaged. Caprice’s business is booming as she is signing new clients on recommendations from old clients. She really doesn’t have the time for a murder with all that is on her plate. But when someone kills “Santa”, an old family friend, she has to get involved.
It is always a fine line for me between a heroine getting involved in a way that strains credulity and moving the plot along in an organic way. Caprice does push the limits but she has lots of back up and she tries to do it in a way that does not alienate the local cop shop. It is a good thing since one of the detectives is getting serious about her sister. The ongoing and developing relationships is one of the strengths of the series. The reader becomes invested in the lives of the de Luca family and their friends. It is like catching up with friends.
As usual, the mystery was good and there was just the right amount of suspense. And not to lose sight of the most impawtant characters, I love the animals and how they are woven into the plot. This is one to put on your Christmas TBR list.
I give it five purrs and two paws up.

Slay Bells Rings by Karen Rose Smith is the seventh book in the Caprice De Luca Mystery series. Caprice is busy with holiday home staging for Chris, a friend of her dad. Chris also plays Santa for the town. Chris' strange behavior confuses his friends and family, but nothing is as bad as when he is found murdered. Caprice finds herself drawn into the mystery which is not as simple as it seems. I enjoy the characters and setting of this series. While I have read a previous book, it is not completely necessary. I found the mystery very interesting, and the side stories added to the book!

Slay Bells Ring is the 7th book in the Caprice De Luca Home Staging Mystery series. I enjoy this series and happily jumped at the chance to read Caprice's newest adventure. But even if I hadn't read prior books in this series, I think the incredibly cute, festive cover would have pulled me in! Such a Christmas-y happy cover! Love it! Cozy mysteries have the BEST titles and covers!

In this newest mystery, Caprice is hired to put a holiday theme in a historic home in Kismet, PA. Homeowner Chris Merriweather is a toy maker and has played Santa at the local park for years. Something seems a bit off with him this year though. He seems tired and just not himself, plus he shows up at the local community theater looking like he was just in a fist fight. His behavior seems strange. He and his wife, Sara, are at odds about selling the house as well. Then Chris is found dead, murdered on Santa Lane of all places. Caprice and her family are once again on the case to find out what happened to the Vietnam vet who loved to play Santa. Turns out he had a lot of secrets.....and enemies.

This story is a bit emotional, touching on the subjects of PTSD and other after effects of war, plus the pain of discovering dark secrets. It's a well-written and enjoyable cozy mystery though, with plenty of bits of humor and brightness among the more dark aspects of the theme. The mystery moves at a perfect pace, and there are plenty of suspects and twists along the way. The ending wasn't a huge surprise. I had my suspicions earlier in the story, but it was well executed and a good ending for the story.

All in all, another great addition to this series! I like the characters and theme for this cozy series, and can't wait to read the next book!

For more information on the author and her books, check out her website: https://karenrosesmith.com/

**I voluntarily read an advanced readers copy of this book from Kensington via NetGalley. All opinions expressed are entirely my own.**

Slay Bells Ring is a very entertaining cozy mystery. I have not read other books in this series but found this worked as a stand-alone.

Caprice has just finished decorating/staging the Merriweather house that's going up for sale over the holidays. Sara is a little reluctant to sell but her husband Chris is anxious to get it sold. He's Santa to the small town of Kismit, Pa and when he's found murdered the whole town is in shock. This is book 7 and Caprice is getting pretty good at solving cases with her fiance Grant. Set over Thanksgiving and Christmas this is a nice read to get you in the holiday season.

Caprice is celebrating the holidays by investigating the murder of Chris Merriweather. He was Kismet's Santa. Can Caprice use her unique skills to find the killer? Caprice DeLuca is such a good and loving person that I immediately liked her. She cares about people and animals. Seeing her in action kept me on the edge of my seat. Her romance with Grant is filled with love and caring. The way he supports Caprice is so special. I want them to be together. always. The small town setting adds to the mystery. Kismet has people who care. I love that. Karen Rose Smith has writen a suspenseful story filled with secrets and suspects. I must admit that the ending took me by surprise. I never saw it coming. I love this series. It's a keeper. Caprice along with her family and her animal friends make Slay Bells Ring special. This author is a must buy for me. Her writing makes me feel as if I'm right there in the middle of the action. I can't wait to see what happens next.