If you are looking for a feel good Christmas book… this is not that kind of book. If you are looking for a twisted tale, then this is the book for you!
Madeline Martin survived a murder while her best friend was killed and two sisters went missing. This is a fast paced thriller that will have you flipping the pages so fast to see what happens.
Many thanks to the author, Bookouture and NetGalley for a complimentary copy of the book. The opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.
#ChristmasPresents #LisaUnger #l#Booksofinstagram #readersofinstagram #bookstagram #bookworm #booknerd #booklover #bookstagrammer #bookaholic #bookreview #bookreviewer #IHaveNoShelfControl #fiction #thriller #suspense #mystery #MysteryAndThrillers #GeneralFictionAdult

Reading Between the Wines book review #128/115(met goal in Sept!) for 2023:
Rating: 3 🍷 🍷 🍷
Book: Christmas Presents
Author: Lisa Unger
Available Now!!

Sipping thoughts: Christmas is supposed to be a fun, family oriented, holiday filled with love and spirit. Instead for Madeline, it was filled of tragedy, a near death experience, and lifelong memories of fear and uncertainty. She was almost killed by her boyfriend who did kill her best friend. The same night, two sisters went missing. They were never found. And even though the killer was put behind bars, another girl goes missing so did he have an accomplice or is there a copycat?

Cheers and thank you to @PenzlerPublishers and @Netgalley for an advanced copy of @ChristmasPresents.

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If you're looking for a feel good holiday read, this is NOT the book for you. But if you love a good psychological thriller set at Christmas time, snatch this one up!

Madeline is late twenties, owns the local bookstore. Almost 10 years ago at Christmas, she walked away a survivor of Evan Handy, a boy she had feelings for turned murderer. Madeline and her friends went to a party at Evan's house. Her best friend, Stephanie, ended up dead, Madeline was hurt, and her friends, Ainsley and Sam, who were sisters, went missing. Evan is serving a life sentence.

Harley Granger, true crime podcaster, shows up in town wanting to talk about Evan. Another girl in town has also gone missing. Did Handy not act alone years ago? Is it a copycat?

This one was engaging and, while I did figure it out prior to the reveal, it didn't keep me from enjoying the remainder of the story.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Penzler Publishers for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

A novella by Lisa Unger who is a master at writing suspense. A Christmas Presents isn't about getting Christmas presents all wrapped up in a bow. No, it's a story of heartbreak, betrayal, and pain. Madeline Martin has made a peaceful life for herself after a harrowing childhood. She is at peace and wants to stay that way. When the Podcast crime writer comes to town and wants to rip open all the pain and tragedy of the past again. He even wants Madeline to share her story with him. How can she, two of her friends are still missing and the scars of her past still reflect in the mirror.
I highly recommend this book and thank NetGalley and Penzler Publishers for this eARC, this is my personal opinion. If this is your genre you must read this!

Christmas Presents is a suspenseful read that can be read anytime of year. Lisa Unger is a master storyteller and has the reader guessing how this story will end. There are plenty of twist and turns to navigate throughout the book.

Thank you to @NetGalley and @mysteriouspress for this eARC #gifted - the review contains my own thoughts, of course!
• A psychological Christmas thriller with a bookseller at the center ... yes, please !
It's the last couple of days before Christmas and
Madeline Martin is trying to not think about an attack 10 years ago that left her severely scared and her friend dead while two other friends just vanished. She has returned to her hometown and runs the local bookstore while also taking care of her father who is slowly recovering from a stroke.
True crime podcaster Harley Granger comes to her store to purchase a Christmas present and in the process brings up the events of her past - is the killer and former classmate sitting in jail really the correct perpetrator if so why are young women in the area still going missing ? Madeline does not want to revisit her past or have her gruesome story featured in a podcast.
This book has a creepy Christmas vibe and it truly kept me hooked, flipping the pages. The chapters are short and the plot is fast-paced, seamlessly weaving in some flash backs to 10 years ago with the present timeline.
The story gets all wrapped up neatly at just over 200 pages, making it the perfect seasonal read - it won't keep you to long but it'll be phenomenal

“Youth. It only knows the jump, not the landing. And falling can feel like flying, at first.”

A murder mystery with Christmas presents and a psycho Santa?! Oooh how fun! 🎄🎅🏼

This novella was such an entertaining read! I love a good sappy Hallmark-esque Christmas romance, but this one had that unique thrill of murder and mystery. I was completely sucked into the mystery of the missing girls, the incarcerated felon insisting he’s innocent, and the small town feel of childhood friendships and unrequited love.

“Surrounded by books, the real world with all its violence, injustice, and unhappy endings seems like the imaginary one.” The most perfect sentence to explain why I read so much. 👏🏻

What a thoroughly entertaining and quick read. I can’t wait to read more by this author!

Thank you to Netgalley, Penzler Publishers/Mysterious Press, and the author for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Wow! I really enjoyed this holiday themed thriller regarding the attempted murder of one girl, the murder of another and the disappearance of two others! Whew -- that's a lot of crime going on in this story. I was completely pulled into this novella from the start.

When four friends meet the new bad boy in town, really bad things start to happen to their close knit group. Madelaine Martin has scars to prove it, and when a podcaster decides to focus on the "true crime" case, it awakens all sorts of questions.

I just really loved this story and found it to be very clever. Even though you can pretty much figure out the best suspects as the story unfolds, I was still left with the feeling that the puzzle pieces didn't quite fit so smoothly. I felt like there was maybe more to the story, but in a good way. It made me question whether they really solved the case completely. I don't want to say more, but I was left with questions, and I liked that about the story.

The pace of the story is great. Things move along quickly and the characters are interesting and complex. I liked the different points of views presented and how the clues were revealed as the story progressed. It's a quick, entertaining thriller that kept me turning the pages. There's even a bit of romance in there too.

One of my favorites of 2023.

I love the time of the year when seasonal titles start popping up. And especially when it's a favorite author. Christmas Presents is Lisa Unger's gift to readers this season!

Madeline was the only survivor of a serial killer that terrorized her town years ago. A man was convicted. But, now an author turned podcaster wants to reopen the case. He stops into Madeline's bookstore asking for her participation, as other women have gone missing.

As always, I was immediately caught up in Unger's premise. A past and present timeline is used, which I always enjoy as well. We're with a teenage Madeline as she gets close to what the reader knows is danger - in many ways. And with her in the presents as she tries to remember what she has forgotten. She's a likeable character that's easy to get behind. Unger does a great job presenting the two ages of Madeline.

There's a good cast of supporting players that gives the reader a wide variety of choice for 'whodunit.' Some red herrings kept me guessing until the final pages.

The bookshop is a wonderfully drawn setting - and I'd been quite happy to browse the shelves and displays! This book might be a great gift for yourself!

And what makes this a Christmas novella? Well, the timeframe is the days building up to Christmas. An unknown person has left Madeline a gift on her porch every Christmas for many years. And what about the person dressing up as Santa ahead of time?

While marketed as a seasonal read, those who enjoy murder mysteries will enjoy this book anytime.

Thank you to Penzler Publishers, Mysterious Press and NetGalley for this ARC!

I really enjoyed this book and will be recommending to everyone asking for great holiday thrillers!

The main character, Madeline survived a horrific crime when she was younger, but now women are going missing. A popular podcaster/author comes to investigate and what takes place will leave you on the edge of your seat!

The novella is written in the point of view of Madeline (the MC) and one of missing women. I found it very easy to follow along.

Once again Lisa Unger writes an amazing thriller!

Madeline narrowly survived a horrifying attack that happened over ten years ago. Her best friend was murdered and two more friends disappeared without any trace. was convicted of the crimes and sentenced to life in prison. Now a decade later, she has learned how to move forward with her life and is the owner of The Next Chapter Bookshop in her small town. When a famous true crime podcaster comes to town to reopen the cold case it causes Madeline to revisit the events of that tragic night. Simultaneously, another woman goes missing! Are the crimes connected if so how?

Madeline lives a quiet life as the proprietor of a bookstore in her home town while taking care of her retired sheriff father who has had a stroke and maintaining a close relationship with Badger, her childhood best friend and his brother, Chet. She is haunted by the memory of being a survivor of an attack 10 years ago by a monster who killed her best friend and may also be responsible for the disappearance of Ainsley and Sam Wallace. Evan, Madeline’s boyfriend at the time, has been locked away all this time but, as the anniversary of the attack and disappearances approaches, a writer has come to town to investigate these incidents for his true crime podcast. To add to Madeline’s discomfort, another local girl suddenly goes missing. Someone has been leaving Christmas presents on Madeline Martin's doorstep for years. Who could be leaving the gifts? She is afraid it's someone from her past, so she tells no one. Could there have been more than one person involved in the crimes?
Evan is serving time in prison, but some in the community believe he may not be guilty of the disappearance of Ainsley and Sam. Since Handy was imprisoned, three other young women have gone missing in the area. The most recent girl is a college dropout, missing only a few days. Is there a connection to the other missing girls? Is Handy innocent, after all?
I couldn’t put this dark thriller down. It is engrossing and very fast paced. A novella rather than a full length novel, it can easily be a one day read. I think it may leave many readers craving more. A wonderfully atmospheric book told in alternating POVs and timelines. This is a great winter read.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC!

Madeline Martin is the sole survivor in a tragic crime in her home town during her teenage years. Harley Granger is a true crime podcaster investigating the story years later. Women go missing in this same town. Is it all connected after all these years?

Wow. Buckle up for a wild ride! With this being a novella, it is a short and easy read at only 260 pages. It’s gripping and fast paced. Great read!!

This was a quick and enjoyable read from the talented Lisa Unger. I wish it had been longer, as I enjoyed the characters and would have liked to delve deeper into their lives.

A true crime podcaster shows up in town to stir some old memories. Madeline Martin has build a remarkable Book Store business and still attend to her sick father. Her dad has had a stroke that has left him with many complications. The podcaster is trying to find out what happened to Stephanie Crimer who was killed. Madeline and her friends were there the night it happened. Other girls have gone missing and the killer turns out to be someone that no one expected. You will instantly fall in love with all the characters. A really good read.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Penzler Publishing Mysterious Press for gifting me a digital ARC of this novella by Lisa Unger - 4.5 stars!

Madeline is the survivor of a horrible night in her small town, that left her disfigured, one of her friends dead, and two others missing. Her boyfriend at the time, Evan Handy, was convicted and is in jail. Madeline now runs a bookstore in town and takes care of her father, the sheriff, who is recovering from a stroke. A true crime podcaster, Harley, comes into town wanting to investigate those crimes and also more missing girls, most recently a young girl named Lolly. But opening up the past is hard on everyone.

This is marketed as a novella, but it is a fully-fleshed thriller. While it takes place at Christmastime, don't look for this to be a Hallmark story! But it's definitely a suspenseful book with characters you will be rooting for, even when you may also be yelling at them to make different decisions! Put this one on your Christmas thriller list!

Christmas + true crime podcast + cold case? Obviously, I am going to devour it! Unger delivers another great story with interesting characters and multiple suspects. The boyfriend, Evan, in this give some serious Billy Loomas vibes which I really appreciated. This didn’t feel like a novella in terms of the depth of the characters but I did blow through it. If you are looking for a bingeable Christmas thriller then definitely get your hands on this one!

We love a Christmas thriller, even if it's just a short story! I love cozy holiday novels, and there are too few thrillers set around Christmastime.

This novella was the perfect length. Unger did a really good job of introducing characters and their backstories in the limited amount of time she had. I loved the setting of the creepy small town, and was immediately drawn in to the cold case.

I keep my reviews for novellas short, but this is a great one to pick up to transfer from spooky season reads into holiday books. I'd love to see more full-length Christmastime thrillers in the future!

𝑺𝒐𝒎𝒆 𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒔 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒂𝒏 𝒆𝒏𝒅𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕'𝒔 𝒘𝒂𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒐 𝒃𝒆 𝒓𝒆𝒕𝒐𝒍𝒅. 𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆'𝒔 𝒂𝒏 𝒆𝒏𝒆𝒓𝒈𝒚. 𝑱𝒖𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒄𝒆 𝒘𝒂𝒔𝒏'𝒕 𝒅𝒐𝒏𝒆. 𝑶𝒓 𝒂𝒏𝒔𝒘𝒆𝒓𝒔 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒋𝒖𝒔𝒕 𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒐𝒇 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒄𝒉. 𝑻𝒉𝒐𝒔𝒆 𝒌𝒊𝒏𝒅𝒔 𝒐𝒇 𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒔 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒂 𝒗𝒊𝒃𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝑰 𝒄𝒂𝒏 𝒇𝒆𝒆𝒍. 𝑰 𝒅𝒐𝒏'𝒕 𝒄𝒉𝒐𝒐𝒔𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒎. 𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒚 𝒄𝒉𝒐𝒐𝒔𝒆 𝒎𝒆.

I'm not a Hallmark holiday movies fan, and I usually don't read Christmas themed books, but when I saw this novella by one of my favorite authors AND it had a murder theme, I knew I had to read it!

As a naive teenager, Madeline Martin survived Evan Handy, the handsome transfer student who asked to borrow her chemistry notebook and stole her heart. Her father, the town sheriff, received word that Evan was dangerous and that perhaps he and his mother moved because of a violent altercation he was rumored to be involved in. Madeline ignored all of her father's warnings and couldn't stay away from Evan. On the night of a big party, Madeline would be left bleeding out in the snow with a huge gash on her face, and reeling from the murder of her best friend Stephanie and the disappearance of two sisters.

Years later, true crime podcaster Harley Granger comes to town to investigate Evan's case. More woman have gone missing since he's been incarcerated, so it begs the question: was Evan innocent this entire time, or is someone working with him? Harley intends to find out.

Usually with novellas I find myself wanting more...more character development, more plot twists, just more. But the author gave me everything that's usually found in a full-length novel. I loved Madeline's character and all of her nuances that made her seem so real. Even the secondary characters were three-dimensional and well developed. The plot featured dual timelines that really brought the reader back to that fateful night, seeing it through the lens of the girl who survived it and how it shaped her into the woman she would become. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would recommend it to any thriller lover. Thank you to Penzler Publishers and Mysterious Press for the early copy. This book is available now.

Madeline Martin has worked hard to build a good life for herself in her small rural town. As owner of The Next Chapter Bookstore, she’s capitalized on social media to help keep her store turning a profit. Never mind if that means little time for a social life. She has her best friend Badger and, since her dad’s stroke some months back, the virtually round the clock support of family friend Miranda. So what if they and her two high-school-aged employees are pretty much her only friends?

It’s been another long day at the store when Madeline realizes that the customer she’s helping is none other than best-selling podcaster and true crime writer Harley Granger himself. Harley has come to town in order to investigate what really happened the night that Madeline’s high school boyfriend Evan Handy tried to kill her and succeeded in murdering one of her best friends instead. Two more of Madeline’s friends, Ainsley and Sam Wallace, went missing that night too. While Evan was convicted of homicide, he swears that he had nothing to do with Ainsley and Sam’s disappearance. A desperate Mrs Wallace has asked Harley to look into the cold case, hoping his prior success with other cases will help find her the answers she’s been desperately seeking for over a decade.

While Madeline sympathizes with Mrs Wallace, she’s still too emotionally raw from her ordeal to want to help. Harley’s own reputation for being somewhat opportunistic does little to assure her either. Even as he readily agrees to sign books at her store for his fans and answer their questions, she watches him warily, for fear he’ll rip open scars that are still healing:

QUOTE
There are a ton more questions, and he answers them all with ease as he signs, his scrawl fast and fluid. Vague but polite. No, he doesn’t have any theories yet. No, he doesn’t have theories about where Ainsley and Sam have gone. No, he doesn’t think the police flubbed the investigation, seizing on Evan and ignoring other possibilities. I wonder how much of what he’s saying in true. That article in <i>New York Magazine</i> basically portrayed him as a hack and a liar.

No one seems to even wonder what this line of questioning is doing to me.
END QUOTE

Complicating matters is the fact that a young woman, a dancer at a strip club, has recently vanished too. Harley is a more than competent investigator, and he soon discerns that Lolly Morris is only the latest in a string of missing young women who all bear an uncanny resemblance to Madeline. The other women had no one looking for them after they disappeared, but Lolly’s family is expecting her home for Christmas. Could her disappearance have something to do with Sam and Ainsley’s? More pressingly, will Madeline be able to overcome her fears and trauma in order to help save another woman’s life?

Christmas Presents is being marketed as a novella, but this almost 300-page book packs in more story and characterization than many other novels with much higher page counts. Lisa Unger very deftly brings her characters to life in this twisty tale, inserting a judicious amount of red herrings while avoiding schlocky plot pitfalls.

Perhaps the most compelling character in this cast of flawed yet sympathetic people is Lolly herself. In the hands of a lesser writer, Lolly might have been a background character at best. Ms Unger however presents her as someone whose spirit and courage are inextinguishable as she fights to save herself from the hands of a serial killer so she can get home to her beloved family:

QUOTE
I would rather be mauled by wild beasts, hungry animals with no malice, only operating on instinct and the will to survive. That seems fair to me. There might be a kind of peace to it, a circle of life essence to my death. I am the weaker animal–no fur, no claws, no hard padded feet. I’d rather go to the wolves in the fairness and savagery of nature, than go to him–a monster, a psychopath who kills and hurts for his own pleasure or deviant need.

No, I won’t let him kill me, not without a fight. I will cause as much pain as I can if I have to leave the world this way.

Is it Christmas yet? Did I miss it? Is my mom looking for me?
END QUOTE

It’s this balance of poignancy and ferocity that had me hooked from the beginning right to the very end of this powerful, compact novel. I can’t wait to read more from Ms Unger, who has leapt on to my list of Must-Read authors with this terrific book about finding the courage both to confront the past and to fight for a better future.

First of all, only 260 pages. How dare you not give us more!!

Don't let the title scare you away, this isn't a Hallmark Christmas story. If you like any of Unger's previous books, you will like this one too!

Thank you to NetGalley for my ARC in exchange for my honest review.