Leave it to an author with a name like Noelle Albright to pen a can’t-put-it down holiday whodunit with just the right amount of lightness and dark, humor and suspense, colorful characters, red herrings and a ghost in The Christmas Eve Murders.

I read it in one sitting and absolutely loved it!

Picture the bucolic glacier valleys of the Yorkshire Dales on Christmas Eve. Then imagine breaking down there in a snowstorm en route to Edinburgh to spend the holidays with the family. You realize you don’t have a cell signal when a strange man knocks on your window. That’s how journalist Maddie Marlow finds herself spending Christmas Eve with the locals at the Merry Monarch, just in time for the annual scavenger hunt.

Despite not knowing anyone, for Maddie, choosing teams for the evening’s festivities was easy. Choosing allegiances after a murder takes place in the snowbound pub is a whole other story. Who can she trust?

I highly recommend The Christmas Eve Murders to readers who enjoy humor and suspense in equal measures. I received this advanced reader copy from Quercus, courtesy of NetGalley.

‘It gave the distinct impression of being the kind of place where if anything untoward did befall you, nobody would hear you scream.’
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What a joyous, cozy and wonderfully written mystery! With the heart of all the greats, this book kept me flicking through the pages whilst also giving me all the feels of a cozy mystery novel that I really wanted
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A broken door car, a snowed in local pub and a Christmas Eve scavenger hunt that ends in murder?! What a glorious set up for an engrossing mystery! And with a conclusion that tied everything up so satisfyingly and a protagonist you can’t help but root for. Just a knock out all round for me! Truly wonderful!
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This one comes out 7th November in the UK, and it’s the perfect festive read to get you in the mood! Thank you to @quercus for the early copy of this!

Thank you to Net Galley and Quercus for an early look at this delightfully fun cozy mystery!

Some friends laugh at me when I say that a book containing murder is fun. But The Christmas Eve Murders really is a fun book. This cozy mystery will be perfect to read this Holiday season, curled up beneath a blanket with a cup of hot chocolate in hand; in fact, the Merry Monarch owner will make you want to step up your hot cocoa game. The Christmas spirit gets derailed, first by the overly competitive nature of the scavenger hunt and the discovery of a body. Poor Maddie just wants to make it the her family’s celebration but is stuck in the middle of a mystery, surrounded by colorful and quirky characters.

There is a Santa’s sleigh full of humor in the pages with a few laugh out loud passages. The writing and overall story is clever with awesome character development. The mystery takes a bit of time to wrap up in the end, but getting there is just so much…fun.

I really enjoyed this it’s a good mystery lock room set at Christmas thriller
I loved the Christmas setting, the unique mystery amazing characters
I couldn’t put this down and have already brought a copy for my cousin for Christmas

The title of the book The Christmas Eve Murders was enough to grab my attention. It was the perfect book to spend a day with.
Maddie Marlow gets stranded when her car breaks down. She is when a kind stranger helps her to a local pub and then they get trapped in the pub during a blizzard. The pub has many locals, and they are doing a Christmas Scavenger Hunt. Then they lose power and hear a blood-curdling scream. And yes, you guessed it a one of the people is killed. Now that will be all I can tell you – there are great characters and the mystery gets deeper. I highly recommend this book. It keeps you guessing.
Thank you NetGalley, Noelle Albright and Quercus Books and the copy The Christmas Eve Murders. This is my personal review.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC. I love a Christmas mystery. On Christmas Eve, Maddie is heading to her families house when her car breaks down. A man knocks on her window to help and she finds herself following him into the local pub. Where a savager hunt is about to begin.

Noelle Albright’s The Christmas Eve Murders is described as “hilarious and cosy” by the publishers. No, it’s not hilarious and I’m not sure that setting the novel in a pub on Christmas Eve, where everyone present, bar one woman, knows everyone else, automatically makes it cosy. There is a bit of banter but I found it mildly amusing rather than hilarious.

The Nissan car belonging to Scotswoman Maddie Marlowe decides to stop in a tiny Yorkshire village as she’s driving home to Edinburgh on Christmas Eve. A local man shows Maddie to the pub, suggesting that she ought to be able to get a room for the night there. After a meal, Maddie joins in a scavenger hunt and discovers that the pub is riddled with secret passages, which are ideal for a murderer to move around the pub without being spotted, especially when all the lights go out.

I liked Maddie but I didn’t warm towards any of the other characters. Although I understand the author wanted to emphasise the remoteness of the village and the otherness of the local people, I found lines such as “’Ow about a ‘ot chocolate? Eeee, my wife Sofia makes a cracking ‘ot chocolate” quite jarring. I’m also unconvinced about how a murderer could find their victim in a pitch-dark room, unseen by a nearby witness. We’re told the lights went out, closely followed by a scream; but we’re also told a few sentences earlier that two people in different parts of the pub were also attacked in that same brief period.

Despite the holes in the plot, I enjoyed Maddie enough that I’d look out for any other books featuring her. However, I think that the many people thanked by the author for their feedback and gratitude would have served her better by a closer reading and critical approach.

#TheChristmasEveMurders #NetGalley

I really wasn't expecting to get into the festive spirit so soon, but life is full of surprises. The Christmas Eve Murders was also a surprise, and quite a pleasant one at that. Also, check out the author's name; Noelle. If that doesn't scream Christmas, I don't know what does.🎄
And so to the book. Well, The Christmas Eve Murders does exactly what it says in the blurb. It's set on Christmas Eve, and there are indeed murders. This is in essence a cosy, locked room mystery. Allow me to set the scene for you. A quaint village in the Yorkshire Dales. A a young woman, Edinburgh bound, finds herself stranded in the village after her car breaks down. There is no mobile phone reception, and it's snowing heavily. A kindly old gentleman takes her to the village inn, where she will have to stay until the snow stops. ❄

Most of the characters are likeable although, as the murder investigation progresses, they provide quite the pool of suspects. (I have to confess that Barkley was my favourite. 🐕)

If you like your mysteries cosy and festive with, a dash of humour, then treat yourself to this book. You'll be glad you did. 🎄

Thanks to Quercus Books and Netgalley for the digital ARC.

I really enjoyed this book. A hilarious, gripping cosy festive whodunnit murder mystery.
I was hooked from the start and drawn into the story. I couldn’t put it down.
It’s Christmas Eve at the Merry Monarch where the pub is preparing for its annual scavenger hunt for its regulars. Maddie Marlowe stranded by car failure and the incoming snow storm joins in. But when the power goes out the hunt turns deadly….
I loved the characters and the setting. With great twists and red herrings along the way keeping you guessing.
Definitely recommend if you enjoy this genre.
With thanks to #NetGallery #QuercusBooks for an arc of #TheChristmasEveMurders in exchange for a honest review.
Book publishes 7 November 2024.

This was such a good book, I immediately fell in love with the mystery and the holidays season was perfect for it all to unravel.

Maddie’s car break downs in Yorkshire on her way home to Scotland to spend Christmas with her parents. This story is told through a mixture of Maddie’s internal dialogue, and the conversations with the other characters. The plot was slightly predictable—that said, it was an easy cosy crime read.

A Christmas themed cosy mystery - and a locked room, closed-circle mystery, just to add to the fun. This is definitely one for fans of cosy mysteries.

The narrative voice immediately drew me into this story. The author was able to create a believable backdrop, interesting characters, and describe all this with a blend of charm and humour that I found engaging. There was a real festive feel to the book - right up until the murder. Then the tone shifts as everything becomes a bit more urgent, a bit darker than before. The change in tone was well done and it really added atmosphere to this story.

Setting the mystery in a secluded pub in a snowstorm seemed fitting. I don't want to give too much away about the pub itself, but there are secrets in the building that add to the atmosphere of this book. Add to that characters who have long, and sometimes difficult, histories. Ingredients that make the reader question everybody in the story, even off duty police officers!

Side note: while reading this I did feel like I needed to go and buy Pringles. If you read this, you'll know what I mean!

Personally, I felt there was a little too much dialogue in the book, which sometimes distracted from the atmosphere, but I get that's a personal thing. I know other readers prefer more dialogue. I think the level of dialogue probably makes sense, given the situation and the characters, but it was a little overboard in my humble opinion.

Overall, this was enjoyable. A good cosy read and it does make me wonder if Maddie and Alex will return for any future books. I have the feeling that has been left open as an opportunity.

At the start of this book Maddie is driving home for Christmas with her parents and breaks down in a snowy remote area, where luckily she finds a knight in shining armour who rescues her and takes her to the local pub. In this Christmas Eve it all sounds very cozy but as Maddie is unable to get further, the phone lines have gone down and a game the locals play each year starts and then ends with a body.

A good descriptive book with some good characters and twists along the way.

Quirky cosy Christmas crime; curl up with a big mug of hot chocolate and enjoy the lovely setting. Good choice of potential murderers, secret passages and a cute dog.

The premise for this book was really intriguing. A young woman on her way to spend Christmas with her family finds herself stranded in the middle of nowhere in Yorkshire when her car breaks down and finds shelter in a pub in a small village on Christmas Eve. She takes part in the annual scavenger hunt organized by the owner and someone is found murdered. A snow storm cuts them off from the rest of the world, so they need to find the killer before it hits again. I love this kind of locked room mysteries, but I can’t say I quite enjoyed The Christmas Eve Murders. It took me a while to really get into the story, I didn’t particularly enjoy the ghost presence theme, and it was easy to predict what was going to happen next. I started to enjoy it a bit more in the second half, as the pace picked up, but, all in all, it wasn’t really for me.

I loved this funny atmospheric mystery a la Agatha Christie. The setting is a main character with a broken car in a snowstorm. She finds the local pub where the village is gathered. Amid the food, games and gossip mystery is afoot and soon everyone is drawn into solving more then one mystery .I loved the characters, the setting and the suspects gathered on a snowy night. This is the perfect Christmas theme mysterious cozy with humor and great characters. Thank you to Net Galley, to the publisher and to the author. I highly recommend this mystery for your reading enjoyment.

Maddie is driving home to Edinburgh on Christmas Eve when her car breaks down and she finds herself stranded in the Yorkshire Dales. AA are unable to come to her due to the heavy snow but thankfully she is rescued and finds refuge in a pub. Here she finds herself roped into a scavenger hunt which turns deadly - it is up to her and local policeman Alex to find the killer before more bodies pile up.

It was an enjoyable read and has an interesting plot with lots of mystery but I thought that the killer was obvious due to the lack of exploration of some of the characters backstory. It would have been nice to learn about them all equally and for them all to have plausible motives for the murder.

Overall, a fun read that you could easily read at anytime of the year as it doesn't focus too much on Christmas. What happens in the book is definitely not in the spirit of spreading cheer and goodwill to all men...

3,5 actually! This was quite an easy read, a bit predictable but not so much that it really bothered me.

The atmosphere is there for sure and despite the murder mystery aspect it brings the coziness with it so I can picture people snuggling up with a blanket on a cold winter day reading this. It fits perfectly under the cozy mystery genre and if you like that, you will probably like this. It's funny at parts, the banter is there as is the festive cheer and there's of course a murder in a "locked room".

My own personal holdbacks that made me rate this 3.5 stars actually are that there is too much dialogue that seemed awkward. It's for exposition but who would talk to people they know like that just so the reader can catch up? And the pacing is a bit uneven.

Loved this book. It had more red herrings than a fish shop !
I almost always work out who the killer is before the end but this was different, I had no idea, although looking back through the clues it should have been obvious. Such is a well written crime book. More please .......

An enjoyable, creepy whodunnit set in a Yorkshire pub on a snowy Christmas Eve.
Maddie is stranded when her car breaks down in the snow and shd gas no signal to call for help. A chance meeting with a dog walker, leads her to a village pub where she can shelter from the snow.
As the annual scavenger hunt takes place, a body is discovered and Maddie tries to work out who the killer is.
This was an enjoyable read.