Tag: murder on christmas eve

Monthly Wrap Ups

December Wrap Up!

theblindscribe

Happy Monday bookish people and Happy New Year! Can you believe it is 2024 already? Time is going so fast and so much happened in 2023, bad things and good things. I won’t get into the bad things, who needs negativity on the first day of the New Year, but some of the good things were having my first stall at Comic Con for my business (The Blind Scribe), and I had a play performed in the Theatre, such a strange but incredible experience, plus I met my boyfriend through the process, he was one of the actors. So, 2023 was overall a pretty good year and to top it all off, I completed my December TBR which I think is the first time I have done that since I started making them. A good end to the year.

so, the books I read in December were:

  • Murder in Midwinter a short story collection (3 stars)
  • Murder on Christmas Eve a short story collection (3 stars)
  • The Mistletoe Motive by Chloe Liese (4 stars) review coming on the 22nd January
  • Murder on the Christmas Express by Alexandra Benedict (3 stars)
  • The Hogfather by Terry Pratchett (4 stars)
  • The Anne Boleyn Bible by Mickey Mayhew (4 stars) review coming on the 15th January
  • The Vanished Bride by Bella Ellis (5 stars) review coming on the 8th January

as you can see my favourite read of the month was The Vanished Bride by Bella Ellis, a gothic murder mystery novel I thought it was excellent.
what was your favourite read in December?

Book Reviews

Book Review: Murder On Christmas Eve

theblindscribe

Happy Monday bookish people! Today is a very busy and exciting day for me, I am going with my sister to see her try on wedding dresses. But before that I am here to share a book review or two, starting with Murder on Christmas Eve – an anthology of short stories all set on Christmas Eve.

In this book review I will give star ratings to four categories and I will write a little about each one. I will try to keep it as spoiler free as possible. I hope you enjoy my book review.

Murder on Christmas Eve Plot:

Rating: 4 out of 5.

I will start by saying I don’t think there was a story in this anthology that I didn’t enjoy. My favourite of them being the one about the cat, The book isn’t near me now so I can’t check the title but if you read the book then you’ll know exactly which one I mean. There isn’t much more I can say about the plot except to reiterate how much I really enjoyed it.

Murder on Christmas Eve Characters:

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

This category is also hard to describe because there are so many characters throughout the stories but there is a wide range, old, young, tall, short, the villains aren’t always who you expect it to be and I loved that.

Murder on Christmas Eve Writing and Dialogue:

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Each of the stories are written by different authors, some of which I had read before and others that I hadn’t. It was nice to read some work by new authors and start to enjoy their texts.

Murder on Christmas Eve:

Rating: 4 out of 5.

I gave this book four stars overall because it kept me very entertained while on a car journey. Each of the stories are very intriguing and contain great mmysteries.

Blurb:

Christmas Eve. While the world sleeps, snow falls gently from the sky, presents await under the tree … and murder is afoot. In this collection of ten classic murder mysteries from the best crime writers in history, death and mayhem take many festive forms, from the inventive to the unexpected.

From a Santa Claus with a grudge to a cat who knows who killed its owner on Christmas Eve, these are stories to enjoy – and be mystified by – in front of a roaring fire, mince pie to hand.

The trinity cat / Ellis Peters —
The Santa Claus Club / Julian Symons —
The four seasons / Michael Innes —
No sanity clause / Ian Rankin —
The footprint in the sky / John Dickson Carr —
A wife in a million / Val McDermid —
The dagger with wings / G.K. Chesterton —
Cambric tea / Marjorie Bowen —
As dark as Christmas gets / Lawrence Block —
On Christmas day in the morning / Margery Allingham