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Shady Hollow #3.5
Evergreen Chase
It’s the winter solstice in Shady Hollow, that magical time of year when creatures of all shapes and sizes come together to honor the season and eat as much pie as possible. Reporter Vera Vixen is eager to experience her first holiday in town and is especially looking forward to the unveiling of the solstice tree. But then disaster strikes. The year’s tree—the tallest in the forest—has disappeared without a trace. Can Vera, her best friend, Lenore, and Deputy Orville Braun find the tree and save the season? Or will this year’s solstice be especially dark?
32 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 30, 2021
170 people are currently reading
5446 people want to read
About the author
Juneau Black
11 books1,176 followersJoint pseudonym of Elizabeth Cole and Sharon Nagel. For works of these authors written under their own or other names, search also under: Cole, Elizabeth (Author of romance fiction) or Nagel, Sharon, 1966-
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 357 reviews
December 2, 2021
1.5 stars. This short book, 54 pages on my Kindle, serves as an introduction to the forthcoming Shady Hollow Mystery series. These books focus on woodland animals solving mysteries. When I read the premise, I believed it would be a relaxing break and something i would enjoy. I have no problems with stories containing talking animals, but they should think and behave like mammals, birds, and reptiles.
Here they did not retain their animal characteristics, and I had to keep reminding myself they were not human. Many years ago, my mother would read me Nancy Drew mysteries and the animal adventures written by Thornton Burgess. I liked the idea that these books would contain forest animals busily engaged in the solutions to the criminal activity of other forest creatures. I was hoping for a bit of nostalgia.
To add to my problem, there was a book store, a coffee shop, a shipping business, a newspaper office, police, and a church, and a shipping company, all run by animal characters. They ate human food, and especially loved pies from their bakery.
It was the time of the winter solstice festival. The biggest tree was chosen to be decorated and displayed in the town square, but it was stolen. A reporter for the newspaper, a vixen, her colorful clothing described, was following clues to discover the thief. I regret that this story was not for me.
Here they did not retain their animal characteristics, and I had to keep reminding myself they were not human. Many years ago, my mother would read me Nancy Drew mysteries and the animal adventures written by Thornton Burgess. I liked the idea that these books would contain forest animals busily engaged in the solutions to the criminal activity of other forest creatures. I was hoping for a bit of nostalgia.
To add to my problem, there was a book store, a coffee shop, a shipping business, a newspaper office, police, and a church, and a shipping company, all run by animal characters. They ate human food, and especially loved pies from their bakery.
It was the time of the winter solstice festival. The biggest tree was chosen to be decorated and displayed in the town square, but it was stolen. A reporter for the newspaper, a vixen, her colorful clothing described, was following clues to discover the thief. I regret that this story was not for me.
June 5, 2022
this was so cute!!!!! these books are so cozy and immersive and now i want it to be winter so bad😭 i didn’t realize this novella is a prequel of sorts so it’s best to read it before the rest of the shady hollow books but it was still super cute and fun. my only complaint is that it only comes as an ebook and my bookshelf neeeeeds this beautiful cover as a physical copy!!!!!
April 11, 2023
im so goshdarn in love with this series! to the point where i read this christmas story in the beginning of spring lol
December 24, 2025
This was medium, I didn’t like it as much as the others; in these stories, I normally enjoy meeting new characters and learning more about the town, and while I appreciated the Christmas tradition, it was lowkey too short to give any other new information to make this one stand out. But it was a nice Christmas Eve read while watching Elf and Charlie Brown and then accidentally pinching myself awake to finish
December 10, 2023
Such a cute novella in a wonderful and whimsical mystery series!
December 3, 2025
This is a cute short story themed around the Winter Solstice. I really love this series and the characters are just the cutest! The only thing that didn’t make sense to me is that I assumed this book, being 3.5 in the series, would pick up where the story left off after book 3. However, the main detail in book 3 was about Orville being elected police chief, but in this book 3.5, it has the prior guy Meade as police chief instead. It also ignored Vera’s relationship with Orville entirely which felt off. I suppose in a short story, there is only so much room for details though!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 23, 2023
The Christmas tale is adorable and sweet.
((((The authors excessive use of parentheses is distracting.))))))
((((The authors excessive use of parentheses is distracting.))))))
January 25, 2026
Someone stole the Shady Hollow solstice tree! Vera Vixen is on the case!
December 10, 2025
CUTE as always. So cozy I wish I was reading this at home in a blanket during this snow storm instead of while helping at a stupid band concert that should’ve been cancelled
March 27, 2022
The description of this story made it sound very cozy - a cozy mystery featuring anthropomorphic woodland animals as the main characters. While it was cute, the authors did not spend enough time on the descriptions for you really to get into that cozy, small town vibe I was hoping for. The characters are not really fleshed out at all - beyond naming what animal species they were, they really didn’t have much personality. I was also able to figure out the culprits at the center of the mystery at the beginning of the story- not a great thing for a mystery story. I read this to see if I wanted to try out the novels, but I think I’ll pass on this series.
December 26, 2022
Another adorable installment of this series. The solstice tree has gone missing, and Vera is determined to find the thief. Really looking forward to reading the rest of the series, but this was a fun, short, wintery story.
February 25, 2024
Always a wonderful read!
I love this series and this book was the perfect little tidbit of holiday cheer I needed. I loved that it was just a mystery and the community banding together.
I love this series and this book was the perfect little tidbit of holiday cheer I needed. I loved that it was just a mystery and the community banding together.
April 5, 2024
I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself when I run out of Shady Hollow books
January 15, 2026
3⭐️: a cute short story! I love this series, so cute and cozy and this was no exception! Short and sweet and a little sillier than others in the series but I still enjoyed it. I did think it followed book 3 in the series, being that it is called #3.5, but it seems to be a prequel to almost all of them? Or at least just after book #1. So some of what already happens from books 2 and 3 don’t line up. But it was good none the less ☺️☺️
April 3, 2025
4.25
it was cute and different as there was a crime but no murder, which is a nice change. a bit confused when the time of it takes place as i think its a prequel as certain things havent happened yet that was in book 1 and 3, but apparently its "book 3.5" when it shouldve been labled "0.5" maybe.
it was cute and different as there was a crime but no murder, which is a nice change. a bit confused when the time of it takes place as i think its a prequel as certain things havent happened yet that was in book 1 and 3, but apparently its "book 3.5" when it shouldve been labled "0.5" maybe.
November 18, 2025
Perfect short story for the holidays - I’ll be rereading for sure
December 22, 2025
saved christmas!
December 5, 2024
Such a sweet, little read that is perfect for someone looking for something light & cozy to read during the winter season. It's less than 100 pages and one that you can read even if you haven't read any of the Shady Hollow books. Throw this into your holiday TBR and enjoy with a warm beverage! •ᴗ•
April 8, 2025
This was cute <3
October 26, 2025
“In this cozy village, squirrels have bank accounts, foxes chat with mice, and the local grocer’s aisles accommodate all customers - from tiny sheds do burly bear. Indeed, if you find yourself puzzled by how such thugs are possible, take a breath, call the puzzlement wonder, and read on…”
October 23, 2025
merry Christmas I couldn’t help myself 🎄
May 5, 2025
I was rather confused about the timeline — it’s said to be book 3.5, but in the third book Orville becomes chief and in this short story he is still deputy (and also doesn’t seem to be dating Vera?) Perhaps I missed the note where it said this was a prequel, but it was just a bit confusing overall.
For (true) crime enthusiasts, this series is sometimes quite predictable. Which is fine, because it’s still whimsical and cozy, but this one was a bit too predictable in my opinion.
Nevertheless, I am not put off by the series and will still continue to read it. This one just didn��t do it for me.
For (true) crime enthusiasts, this series is sometimes quite predictable. Which is fine, because it’s still whimsical and cozy, but this one was a bit too predictable in my opinion.
Nevertheless, I am not put off by the series and will still continue to read it. This one just didn��t do it for me.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 5, 2023
Christmas vibes in the summer
A fun and festive cozy mystery to get you in the mood for the holidays! I will buy the upcoming Halloween short story as well!
A fun and festive cozy mystery to get you in the mood for the holidays! I will buy the upcoming Halloween short story as well!
November 24, 2023
Today is Black Friday in the U.S., that unofficial holiday after the official Thanksgiving Day holiday.
Traditionally, this was the day when holiday decorating ‘officially’ kicked off, and anyplace that had not already started playing Xmas carols started doing so with a vengeance. So, as this feels like the right day, at least to me, to start reviewing holiday books, I’m kicking off my holiday season with this Shady Hollow winter solstice story.
This is explicitly not a Christmas story, just as Phantom Pond was not explicitly a Halloween story. The historical and religious underpinnings of both of those holidays in our world don’t exist in the animal-centric world of Shady Hollow.
But that doesn’t mean that something like those holidays wouldn’t, doesn’t or hasn’t arisen in other cultures – and that particularly applies to the winter solstice. Many, many traditions have holidays around the solstice, and Shady Hollow wouldn’t be exceptional in marking the shortest day of the year – even if they might be a bit exceptional in just how they do that marking.
Along with the touch of mystery that makes the series so very much fun!
The tradition in Shady Hollow is to ‘walk’ the specially chosen Solstice tree from the surrounding woods to the center of town, where it will be decorated and feted and brightly lit to chase away the darkness of the longest night.
The trees are chosen decades in advance and tended lovingly by specially appointed treekeepers until their appointed day as the center of the whole town’s attention and celebration.
But someone has stolen this year’s tree – all FIFTY FEET of it – the night before its celebratory walk. The whole town is enraged, incensed, and practically in mourning over the loss of their tree.
It will take the efforts of every animal in town, from Police Bear Orville Braun to ace investigative reporter Vera Vixen to all the birds around town, led by night-owl Professor Heidegger and bookstore owner Lenore the Raven to find the tree in time.
The longest night comes early in Shady Hollow, and time is running out.
Escape Rating B: Shady Hollow may sound a bit twee, but it’s really a LOT more like Zootopia – at least if the movie had been set in Judy Hopp’s rural Bunnyburrow instead of Nick Wilde’s big city. A reflection that reporter Vera Vixen frequently makes herself, as she used to be a resident of one of those big cities but has found cozy Shady Hollow to be a lot more to her taste.
The Shady Hollow series as a whole, are lovely, charming, and very cozy mysteries – and Evergreen Chase is no exception. At the same time, the use of animals as people gives the author all sorts of opportunities to include comments about human behavior hiding in plain sight – or under the bare covering of a pawkerchief.
Like many of the stories in this series, there’s a mystery, but it’s a gentle one. No one is dead, no one is likely to end up dead, but the town’s collective anguish is still VERY real, as someone has literally stolen one of their beloved traditions right out from under them.
That the town pulls together to celebrate the solstice with or without the tree is all part of the series’ charm. That they have their own solstice miracle just adds to the sweetness of both the story and the holiday season – both theirs and ours.
So this feels like its a short story for the many fans of the series, of which I am mostly definitely one. And it turned out to be the perfect start for my holiday reading. (As much as I enjoyed The Wishing Bridge reading it last week made me want to give myself a ‘ten-yard penalty for rushing the season.’ Reading Evergreen Chase felt like a ‘proper’ start to the season.)
It did also remind me of another lovely holiday story that uses animals to tell an entirely different but equally charming human story. If Shady Hollow sounds charming but you’ve never watched Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas, well, let this be the season to get the song, “There Ain’t No Hole in the Washtub” stuck in your head, just like it is in mine this time of year!
Originally published at Reading Reality
Traditionally, this was the day when holiday decorating ‘officially’ kicked off, and anyplace that had not already started playing Xmas carols started doing so with a vengeance. So, as this feels like the right day, at least to me, to start reviewing holiday books, I’m kicking off my holiday season with this Shady Hollow winter solstice story.
This is explicitly not a Christmas story, just as Phantom Pond was not explicitly a Halloween story. The historical and religious underpinnings of both of those holidays in our world don’t exist in the animal-centric world of Shady Hollow.
But that doesn’t mean that something like those holidays wouldn’t, doesn’t or hasn’t arisen in other cultures – and that particularly applies to the winter solstice. Many, many traditions have holidays around the solstice, and Shady Hollow wouldn’t be exceptional in marking the shortest day of the year – even if they might be a bit exceptional in just how they do that marking.
Along with the touch of mystery that makes the series so very much fun!
The tradition in Shady Hollow is to ‘walk’ the specially chosen Solstice tree from the surrounding woods to the center of town, where it will be decorated and feted and brightly lit to chase away the darkness of the longest night.
The trees are chosen decades in advance and tended lovingly by specially appointed treekeepers until their appointed day as the center of the whole town’s attention and celebration.
But someone has stolen this year’s tree – all FIFTY FEET of it – the night before its celebratory walk. The whole town is enraged, incensed, and practically in mourning over the loss of their tree.
It will take the efforts of every animal in town, from Police Bear Orville Braun to ace investigative reporter Vera Vixen to all the birds around town, led by night-owl Professor Heidegger and bookstore owner Lenore the Raven to find the tree in time.
The longest night comes early in Shady Hollow, and time is running out.
Escape Rating B: Shady Hollow may sound a bit twee, but it’s really a LOT more like Zootopia – at least if the movie had been set in Judy Hopp’s rural Bunnyburrow instead of Nick Wilde’s big city. A reflection that reporter Vera Vixen frequently makes herself, as she used to be a resident of one of those big cities but has found cozy Shady Hollow to be a lot more to her taste.
The Shady Hollow series as a whole, are lovely, charming, and very cozy mysteries – and Evergreen Chase is no exception. At the same time, the use of animals as people gives the author all sorts of opportunities to include comments about human behavior hiding in plain sight – or under the bare covering of a pawkerchief.
Like many of the stories in this series, there’s a mystery, but it’s a gentle one. No one is dead, no one is likely to end up dead, but the town’s collective anguish is still VERY real, as someone has literally stolen one of their beloved traditions right out from under them.
That the town pulls together to celebrate the solstice with or without the tree is all part of the series’ charm. That they have their own solstice miracle just adds to the sweetness of both the story and the holiday season – both theirs and ours.
So this feels like its a short story for the many fans of the series, of which I am mostly definitely one. And it turned out to be the perfect start for my holiday reading. (As much as I enjoyed The Wishing Bridge reading it last week made me want to give myself a ‘ten-yard penalty for rushing the season.’ Reading Evergreen Chase felt like a ‘proper’ start to the season.)
It did also remind me of another lovely holiday story that uses animals to tell an entirely different but equally charming human story. If Shady Hollow sounds charming but you’ve never watched Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas, well, let this be the season to get the song, “There Ain’t No Hole in the Washtub” stuck in your head, just like it is in mine this time of year!
Originally published at Reading Reality
August 7, 2024
Shady Hollow is preparing for the Winter Solstice. Everyone is excited for the big tree reveal and decorating party, but when the town goes to see this year's tree it is gone. But how does a giant evergreen just disappear, and who would want to steal their tree? Vera Vixen, star reporter, is on the case.
A cozy little non-violent Christmassy mystery for the Shady Hollow residents. This felt like it came right after the first or second book as Vera and Orville aren't super close yet, it's her first winter in the community, and he's still a deputy (I'd label as 1.5 or 2.5 not 3.5).
Notes on content:
Language: None that I remember
Sexual content: None
Violence: None
Ethnic diversity: They are all animals, and only one (the Panda) seems to have an ethnic background
LGBTQ+ content: The inn owners are a m/m chipmunk couple.
Other: Greed and selfishness prove to be behind the theft.
A cozy little non-violent Christmassy mystery for the Shady Hollow residents. This felt like it came right after the first or second book as Vera and Orville aren't super close yet, it's her first winter in the community, and he's still a deputy (I'd label as 1.5 or 2.5 not 3.5).
Notes on content:
Language: None that I remember
Sexual content: None
Violence: None
Ethnic diversity: They are all animals, and only one (the Panda) seems to have an ethnic background
LGBTQ+ content: The inn owners are a m/m chipmunk couple.
Other: Greed and selfishness prove to be behind the theft.
December 27, 2024
This cute short story was the perfect way to spend an afternoon. It had all the cozy, Christmassy vibes, which I absolutely adored. I loved getting a peek at the holidays in Shady Hollow.
The mystery was a good one. The town’s special holiday tree was stolen! Since it’s the tallest and biggest tree in the area, there are lots of questions. How was it moved without being seen? Why would someone steal it? And most importantly, who did it? Who would do such a thing? I had my suspicions but wasn’t a hundred percent sure.
If you’re new to this series, this standalone short story is the perfect way to get a quick peek into this world and its characters. If you’re a fan of quirky cozy mysteries, give it a try! I loved it!
The mystery was a good one. The town’s special holiday tree was stolen! Since it’s the tallest and biggest tree in the area, there are lots of questions. How was it moved without being seen? Why would someone steal it? And most importantly, who did it? Who would do such a thing? I had my suspicions but wasn’t a hundred percent sure.
If you’re new to this series, this standalone short story is the perfect way to get a quick peek into this world and its characters. If you’re a fan of quirky cozy mysteries, give it a try! I loved it!
April 14, 2025
I said shady hollow always deserves a 5 but I'm giving this one a 4.5 ⭐️ because of some inconsistencies.
- this was meant to be book #3.5 of the series, coming after mirror lake, so Braun's the chief now and Meade's deputy and not vice versa as was done in evergreen chase
- lefty always calls vera "vera" and not "miss vixen"
- why are vera and orville not dating here? they seem super cold to one another and they were supposed to be together starting book #2 (cold clay) already
otherwise super cosy super cute and it delivered as best as a short story could on the general vibe of the shady hollow universe 🌲🌲❄️🌨
- this was meant to be book #3.5 of the series, coming after mirror lake, so Braun's the chief now and Meade's deputy and not vice versa as was done in evergreen chase
- lefty always calls vera "vera" and not "miss vixen"
- why are vera and orville not dating here? they seem super cold to one another and they were supposed to be together starting book #2 (cold clay) already
otherwise super cosy super cute and it delivered as best as a short story could on the general vibe of the shady hollow universe 🌲🌲❄️🌨
December 7, 2023
Aww, this was such a delightful and heartwarming holiday read! 🥹 Not to worry, there isn’t a murder to be solved in this one—only a case of a missing tree, threatening the celebrations of the upcoming winter solstice. This little novella features all of our favorite woodland creatures of Shady Hollow, but thrown into a nice, low-stakes, self-contained holiday special, with the promise of good cheer and a christmas miracle in the end. Overall a really enjoyable read!
March 19, 2023
What a joy it is to find a book after so long, and with the happy news that a new one is on its way!
This was a Christmas flavoured treat, a short one to boost, so it made my pre nap reading time a blast.
I missed Vera far more than I realised, can't wait to see her and the others again on the upcoming fourth book. Here's to hoping it'll be published soon 💖
This was a Christmas flavoured treat, a short one to boost, so it made my pre nap reading time a blast.
I missed Vera far more than I realised, can't wait to see her and the others again on the upcoming fourth book. Here's to hoping it'll be published soon 💖
December 29, 2023
It's such a fast and easy read this time around! Taking place after the second book and before the 3rd, I think? It's a short story that doesn't spoiler the first 2 if you haven't read them, so if you have friends who might like the series, this is a good start. I'm here for a fun environment and a little story, this book delivers.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 357 reviews