Another fun cozy mystery collection including my favorite characters from Carlene O'Connor's Irish Village Mystery series. I love the O'Sullivan clan and I love reading these short mysteries. The short stories written by Alex Erickson (Death by Hot Cocoa) and Maddie Day (Christmas Cocoa and a Corpse) were short and fun, cozy mysteries as well. I loved the idea of a Christmas themed escape room (Death by Hot Cocoa) and that they had to solve the real mystery before they could escape, that was cool. ( )

This is a quick fun holiday read novella. Sioban has just graduated from Garda school and begins her assignment January 1 but is busy with the holiday at the bistro and the village when she notices her dog is missing. She heads out to look and sees posters all around about missing dogs. There’s a holiday fete, missing statutes, Santas, and a murder. ( )

In this collection of three cozy mystery novellas, hot chocolate takes center stage! In the first novella, missing dogs, quaint Irish villages, and handcrafted nutcrackers all play a role. When a police officer in training discovers the town dogs are going missing… and then discovers Santa dead in a carnival dunk tank, she decides to investigate. I really enjoyed the unusual small-town Irish village setting, the sleuthing, and figuring out the mystery.

The last of the three tales was another unusual setting for a Christmas novella-set in an escape room party! Eight participants have to figure out how to get out of the escape room building when the host suddenly drops dead. Just like before, cocoa is involved. An enjoyable collection of tales.

Please excuse typos/name misspellings. Entered on screen reader.
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Review coming after the readathon.

I enjoyed this book so much! There are three stories in the book. The first story, Christmas Cocoa Murder, is set in Ireland. The words aren’t spelled incorrectly. I had no trouble with reading it but I grew up hearing, and using, most of the words. I thought the plot was original and entertaining. I love the nutcracker event. Their is a tasty cocoa recipe at the end of this book.
The second story, Christmas Cocoa and a Corpse was written by an author I enjoy, (the other two were new for me). I adore that a puppy named Cocoa was a part of this story. I quickly became engrossed in the mystery. There were also recipes after this story, including an interesting one for oatmeal, (which I happen to love so I can’t wait to try this recipe).
The third story, Death by Hot Cocoa, takes place at an Escape Room event. I was so excited to see that. I want to try one of those, but without a body. The mystery was fun.
I was looking forward to this book, and happily, it was everything I hoped it would be. Every story engaged me. I had an excellent time reading it. I recommend this book to cozy mystery lovers especially those who enjoy a Christmas theme.
I won a signed copy of an arc of this book in a Giveaway. No review was required. Thank you Kensington Publishers and Maddie Day for the giveaway. ( )

This book contains 3 novellas/short stories by 3 different authors with hot cocoa and Christmas as the main connectors. The 3 works are: "Christmas Cocoa Murder" by Carlene O'Connor, "Christmas Cocoa and a Corpse" by Maddie Day, and "Death by Hot Chocolate" by Alex Erickson. As far as I remember, I've not read anything by these authors previously.

My favorite of the three was "Christmas Cocoa and a Corpse" by Maddie Day. I would probably read more works by her. My least favorite of the three was the titular "Christmas Cocoa Murder".

"Christmas Cocoa Murder" is set in Ireland. Not being overly familiar with Ireland was a detriment. For example, it took me a while to realize that Garda was like our police officer. In addition, Siobhán has a large family, most of whose characters are not well rounded out in this work, and that made it difficult to keep them all straight. I was intrigued by the idea of a dunk tank filled with cocoa (I would guess it was warm rather than burning hot.) but kept thinking the cocoa would surely stain whatever fabric it came into contact with and the cocoa would also probably be sticky as it dried. There is a recipe for an Irish Variety Hot Cocoa at the end.

In contrast, the other two works took place in more familiar settings, which might be why I liked them better.

"Christmas Cocoa and a Corpse" involved a dog named Cocoa who was to be a Christmas present but was delivered early. To hide the gift from its recipient, Cocoa gets passed around to several people on a temporary basis. I enjoyed the restaurant and learning a bit more about working in one. I liked that the two women would switch off on who handled the grill and who did the serving and that they worked together to get through the rushes of customers. Several recipes are included at the end of the story, including one for Mexican Hot Chocolate, which figures strongly in the work. Despite these characters seeming to appear in other works by this author (based on some information provided at the end of her work), I never once felt lost in reading this story (as I did with O'Connors story).

In "Death by Hot Chocolate" I was intrigued by the description on the back of the book that said this was set in a Christmas-themed escape room. The back blurb was a bit misleading in several ways in my opinion: it states "seemed like the perfect pre-holiday treat for book-store café owner Krissy Hancock" but Krissy attends reluctantly at the urging of her friend. So technically, it is the friend who felt it would be a perfect pre-holiday treat, not Krissy herself. Also the "Christmas-themed escape game" that I was excited to read about, did not seem very detailed. (It's also the only one of the 3 stories that doesn't include recipes at the end. That didn't bother me, but I mention it just in case there is someone out there who would.)

I've never done an escape room myself. I'm interested, but my friends here just don't seem to be, and my friends who are don't live nearby. Plus now, with COVID . . . . But my friends who have done them seem to have had a more detailed experience than having to solve 2-3 puzzles (2 of which seemed very similar) in order to "escape". Two of the three puzzles involve having to find a combination in order to escape. All three puzzles involve numbers.

I guess I was more interested in the escape room process and experience than I was in the murder of the escape room organizer and trying to figure out who killed him. ( )