A Holiday Homicide is the fourth book in the Ellie Alexander’s fantastic Secret Bookcase Mystery series and it’s quickly become one of my favourite cozy mystery series! The mysteries feature Annie Murray, a bookstore events manager who also investigates mysteries in her spare time.
Title: A Holiday Homicide
Author: Ellie Alexander
Series: The Secret Bookcase Mysteries #4
First Published: November 20, 2024
Publisher: Storm Publishing
Genres: Mystery
Acquired: from the publisher via Netgalley
*** Thank you to the publisher, Storm Publishing, for providing me with an e-copy of this book via Netgalley for review purposes. ***
Annie Murray’s festive plans at the Secret Bookcase are thrown into disarray when a celebrity baker drops dead during a gingerbread-baking competition. As whispers of foul play swirl like snowflakes, Annie soon finds herself tangled in a web of secrets, small-town rivalry, and long-buried mysteries.
With pub-owner and new love Liam by her side and the help of her loyal bookstore colleagues, Annie sets out to solve Redwood Grove’s latest murder mystery. And the closer she gets to the truth, the more she discovers that the baking community isn’t as sweet as it seems…
Can Annie unwrap the truth before the killer strikes again? Or will this be one Christmas she won’t live to remember?
A deadly combo of social media, gingerbread, and murder
Ellie Alexander has a knack for creating sleuths you want to be root for with, townsfolk you want to know, and friends you want to hang out with. Event planner Annie Murray has been going from success to success, from planning book launches to dinner parties, from film festivals to book festivals, she has been creating memorable events for the Secret Bookcase store.
In her latest event brainstorm, the bookstore hosts a huge gingerbread competition, just in time for the holidays! But things go awry (as they do) and Annie is quickly drawn back into being an amateur sleuth, something she’s more than qualified for with her criminology degree.
This book zips along at a perfect pace, always keeping my attention and moving everything along. There’s two plots going on – the main murder mystery, and the series-long arc of Annie’s best friend, Scarlet’s, murder when she was in college.
The death of the baking influencer was a good look at influencers, online perceptions, and how fandom can sometimes go a little too far. It’s really relevant in today’s society and reminds readers that what you see online isn’t always what’s going on in reality.
A familiar return to the Secret Bookcase
One of the things I love about this series is the supporting characters and how they’ve developed as the series continues. I love the support that Annie’s co-workers give her, and how Annie is able to balance two different career options – working at the bookstore and assisting the police in their investigations.
I also love the developing relationship between Annie and Liam. It’s sweet and the fact that she has him watching Midsomer Murders and Death in Paradise (two of my favourites!) makes me love them as a couple even more. I think there’s still lots to come for these two but I do like the fact that Liam supports Annie’s investigations, and trusts her to be able to handle herself.
While the main murder is solved before the end of the book, Scarlet’s cold case murder is still unsolved, but major developments happen in A Holiday Homicide and I’m hoping we get even more answers in the next book!
Quote from A Holiday Homicide
