Vicki Delany – Ruff Drafts

Have Yourself a Deadly Little Christmas
(Year-Round Christmas Mystery)
by Vicki Delany

About Have Yourself a Deadly Little Christmas

Have Yourself a Deadly Little Christmas (Year-Round Christmas Mystery)
Cozy Mystery
6th in Series
Setting – Rudolph New York
Crooked Lane Books (September 19, 2023)
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 288 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1639104631
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1639104635
Digital ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0BQLJWBN4

It’s beginning to look a lot like murder in the sixth installment of this charming cozy mystery series, perfect for fans of Donna Andrews and Jacqueline Frost.

It’s the beginning of December in Rudolph, New York, America’s Christmas Town, and business is brisk at Mrs. Claus’s Treasures, a gift and décor shop owned by Merry Wilkinson. The local amateur dramatic society is intensely preparing a special musical production of A Christmas Carol. But it’s not a happy set, as rivalries between cast and crew threaten the production.

Tensions come to a head when a member of the group is found dead shortly after a shopping excursion to Mrs. Claus’s Treasures. Was someone looking to cut out the competition? Everyone in the cast and crew is a potential suspect, including Aline, Merry’s mother, and Merry’s shop assistant Jackie O’Reilly, who was desperate for a starring role.

It could be curtains for Christmas—and for Merry—unless the killer can be ferreted out of the wings.

About Vicki Delany

Vicki Delany is one of Canada’s most prolific and varied crime writers and a national bestseller in the U.S. Author of more than fifty books, she is currently writing the Tea by the Sea mysteries, the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop series, the Year-Round Christmas mysteries, and the Lighthouse Library series (as Eva Gates). Vicki is the recipient of the 2019 Derrick Murdoch Award for contributions to Canadian crime writing. She lives in Prince Edward County, Ontario.

GUEST POST

Too Much Christmas? Not in Rudolph, New York.

For Chicks on the Case

By Vicki Delany

Most of us would agree that Christmas can come too soon. We complain (I certainly do) about decorations in the stores and seasonal ads on TV before summer’s even over, never mind before Halloween.

But still, a lot of us do our shopping ahead of time. I know people who buy decorations for next year the week after this year’s Christmas, and who start shopping for gifts around the time they put away the New Years’ Decorations. It’s a wise woman (or man) who starts her baking in plenty of time. A traditional Christmas cake or old-fashioned English pudding, full of rum or brandy, or sometimes both, needs to be started months ahead to be perfect for the big day.

It’s precisely to help out those early birds that the town of Rudolph, New York celebrates Christmas all year round.

Don’t rush to your atlases or Google maps looking for Rudolph because I made it up. It’s the town at the center of my series, The Year-Round Christmas mysteries from Berkley and Crooked Lane.

Rudolph wants to be known as America’s Christmas Town and everything in Rudolph is about celebrating the holidays. All year round. They have a Santa Claus parade twice a year. The usual one the first Saturday in December, and then another for Christmas in July when Santa arrives by boat. (As featured in the third book in the series, Hark the Herald Angels Slay.)

In Rudolph everyone gets into the spirit of the thing. Victoria’s Bake Shoppe is famous for its gingerbread. There’s Candy Cane Sweets, the North Pole Ice Cream Parlour, The Elves Lunchbox, Cranberries Coffee Bar, Touch of Holly Restaurant, The Yuletide Inn, the Carolers Motel. (Looking at this list it seems as though the residents and visitors to Rudolph like to eat a lot.)

The series protagonist is Merry Wilkinson, owner of Mrs. Claus’s Treasures. Merry’s dad, Noel, is Santa Claus. Yes, Merry knows that he isn’t really Santa, but she does sometimes wonder. He has a way of knowing exactly what someone wants before even they do.

Rudolph, New York, wants to be known as America’s Christmas Town. Here, we celebrate Christmas all year round. In July, the town goes all out to take advantage of its prime location on the shores of Lake Ontario and its Christmas Town theme, when Santa arrives for his summer vacation in a grand boat parade. He sets up his umbrella on the beach to meet visiting children, and high school students dressed as vacationing elves serve as his attendants, as does Alan in his toymaker getup.

We might play at Christmas all year, but it’s the beginning of December when everything comes together. The hotels go all out with the decorations and seasonal activities, and the restaurants offer special menus featuring traditional holiday fare. Vicky’s bakery goes heavy on the mince tarts and gingerbread and even old-fashioned fruitcake of the sort that people buy and almost no one ever eats. (Although Vicky’s is fabulous!) The theater group always does a play with a holiday or Christmas theme, and it’s an important part of the town’s annual celebrations. Last year’s production of Miracle on 34th Street had been an enormous flop, or so I’d heard. Mom told me the company was desperate this year to recover from that disaster. They’d never attempted a musical, but encouraged by the new artistic director to be bigger and bolder than ever before, they were taking a chance with A Christmas Carol.

Have Yourself a Deadly Little Christmas, by Vicki Delany

Of course, it wouldn’t be a mystery novel without strife and conflict. And they find that, in abundance, as the town struggles to put on A Christmas Carol: The Musical.

Tell me, Chicks and friends, would you like to celebrate Christmas all year round? What would be the ideal length of the holiday season for you?

ABOUT THE BOOK: It’s the beginning of December in Rudolph, New York, America’s Christmas Town, and business is brisk at Mrs. Claus’s Treasures, a gift and décor shop owned by Merry Wilkinson. The local amateur dramatic society is intensely preparing a special musical production of A Christmas Carol. But it’s not a happy set, as rivalries between cast and crew threaten the production.

It could be curtains for Christmas—and for Merry—unless the killer can be ferreted out of the wings.

Vicki Delany is one of Canada’s most prolific and varied crime writers and a national bestseller in the U.S. She has written more than fifty books: clever cozies to Gothic thrillers to gritty police procedurals, to historical fiction and novellas for adult literacy. She is currently writing the Tea by the Sea mysteries, the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop series, the Year-Round Christmas mysteries, and the Lighthouse Library series (as Eva Gates).

Vicki is a past chair of the Crime Writers of Canada and co-founder and organizer of the Women Killing It Crime Writing Festival. Her work has been nominated for the Derringer, the Bony Blithe, the Ontario Library Association Golden Oak, and the Arthur Ellis Awards. Vicki is the recipient of the 2019 Derrick Murdoch Award for contributions to Canadian crime writing. She lives in Prince Edward County, Ontario.

Find Vicki at http://www.vickidelany.com

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