Too Much Christmas? Is that even possible? - A Silent Night, Deadly Night Guest Post & Giveaway

I'm happy to allow Vicki Delany to take over Cozy Up With Kathy today. Vicki writes the Year-Round Christmas Mystery series. Silent Night, Deadly Night is the fourth book in the series and was released last Tuesday.

Too Much Christmas? Is that even possible?

By Vicki Delany

July 2019

I love Christmas. Almost everyone loves Christmas.

Although 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 Halloween arrived.

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 around the time they put away the New Years’ Decorations. Certainly, 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.

And 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.

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.

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.

Merry loves Christmas, but it is a heck of a lot of work. She would never tell the residents of Rudolph, but she actually prefers Thanksgiving g to Christmas. As she explains:

I love Thanksgiving. It’s my favorite holiday. Don’t tell anyone in Rudolph, but I love Thanksgiving even more than Christmas. My mom and dad always make turkey with all the fixings – walnut and sage stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, a squash casserole, two types of pie. It’s my chance to take one last long deep breath before plunging head first into the madness of the holiday season.

I love Christmas too - my dad is Santa Claus after all - but now that I own the store, when Christmas Day itself arrives I’m totally exhausted. That’s a day to sit back, feet up, mug of hot chocolate in hand, open a few gifts at my parents’ house, and then have a hearty brunch and go to bed early before opening the shop the next morning for the after-Christmas sales.

                                                                                                                 

Silent Night, Deadly Night by Vicki Delany

Whether Thanksgiving, or Christmas, or even Christmas in July is your favourite holiday, there’s someplace for you in Rudolph, America’s Year Round Christmas destination.

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Silent Night, Deadly Night (A Year-Round Christmas Mystery) by Vicki Delany

 

About the Book

Silent Night, Deadly Night (A Year-Round Christmas Mystery)  

Cozy Mystery 4th in Series  

Berkley (August 27, 2019)  

Mass Market Paperback: 304 pages 

Residents of Rudolph keep the spirit of Christmas alive year-round—but their joy is threatened when a group of grinches visits the town, in the charming fourth installment of the Year-Round Christmas series.

It's the week before Thanksgiving, and Merry Wilkinson, owner of Mrs. Claus's Treasures, is preparing for a weekend reunion of her mother's college friends. But when the group of women comes into Merry's shop, Merry is met with frosty attitudes and cold hearts.

The women argue amongst themselves constantly, and the bickering only intensifies after one of the friends is poisoned. With her father's role as Santa in danger due to his proximity to the crime, Merry will need to use all of her investigative gifts to wrap this mystery up and save Santa and her favorite holiday.

About the Author

 

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 thirty books: clever cozies to Gothic thrillers to gritty police procedurals, to historical fiction and novellas for adult literacy. She is currently writing four cozy mystery series: the Tea By The Sea mysteries, the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop series, the Year Round Christmas mysteries and, as Eva Gates, the Lighthouse Library series.

Author Links:
Website - www.vickidelany.com
Facebook - www.facebook.com/evagatesauthor;  
Twitter: @vickidelany and@evagatesauthor 
Instagram: vickidelany  

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