When Emily Lane isn’t busy running her charming Christmas-themed store, “Under the Mistletoe,” located in the quaint tourist town of Fletcher’s Grove, she finds herself compelled to investigate not so quaint local murders. On the surface, Emily is a perfectly lovely, good-natured puzzle-solver and mystery lover. But she is hiding a secret past from everyone in town. And when Emily begins her personal investigations, Detective Constable Sam Wilner, a smart and attractive local cop — with a crush on Emily that is not completely unrequited — begins to wonder if there's more to Emily than meets the eye.
Episode 1: The Cookie Crumbles Part 1, 38 mins Emily finds herself implicated in the death of a banker, who is found dead at a local Christmas tree farm. According to local police detective Sam Wilner, the murder instrument was a poisoned Christmas cookie…from Emily’s shop, “Under the Mistletoe”.
Episode 2: The Cookie Crumbles Part 2, 39 mins Emily’s close friend, June, the town veterinarian, is arrested in connection with the "poison cookie murder". With time running out to prove June’s innocence, and her own reputation on the line, Emily is forced to take a risk that could expose her secret past to everyone in town.
Episode 3: Hearts of Ice Part 1, 32 mins When the local bad-boy and teen heart-throb is found frozen in the river ice during a festive family skating event, police are quick to write it off as an accident. But Emily has reason to believe that there is much more to the young man’s death than everyone assumes.
Episode 4: Hearts of Ice Part 2, 34 mins Having convinced Sam that this accidental death case should, in fact, be treated as a murder investigation, Emily finds herself caught between two families connected to the troubled victim – two teenage girls who loved him, and their ambitious mothers who thoroughly despised everything he represented.
Episode 5: Walking With Ghosts Part 1, 31 mins It’s New Year’s Eve, and Emily and Sam are on their first official date at a local mansion, recently renovated into a haunted house-themed tourist attraction. The celebration ends in mayhem when at the stroke of midnight their host is stabbed to death. The primary suspect: the ghost of the Mayor who was famously murdered in the same spot decades earlier.
Episode 6: Walking With Ghosts Part 2, 39 mins A firm non-believer in ghosts, Emily is determined to unlock the mystery of who really committed the grisly public murder. In doing so, she inadvertently reopens old town wounds, which in turn threaten to reveal the ghosts of her own past.
Preview of Mustletoe Murders 2
Mistletoe Murders 2: Chapter 1, 33 mins You may have solved the crimes of Mistletoe Murders Season 1 but that’s only the beginning. More twists and turns await in Seasons 2 and 3 – both are available to download now on Audible. So get cozy and continue listening for the first chapter of Season 2 right here. Then get caught up on all three seasons of Mistletoe Murders.
I really enjoyed listening to this Audible story/podcast. Set in the Canadian fictional town of Fletcher's Grove, the stories caught my attention and imagination immediately. The full-cast ensemble was great and the production was equally impressive. It reminded me of those old timey radio shows/plays with all the sound effects that made me feel like I was actually in the story. Well worth listening to and not just at Christmas.
Solid 3.5*, via audible. So far, this is a series of 6 podcast-like episodes, with a very good full cast, that reminded me of good old radio theater shows, which I love so much. There are 3 stories, broken down into 2 episodes each. Setting wise, it reminds me of Midsomer Murders - small cute town, where everybody knows everybody, there are plenty of adorable shops (one of them owned by our female character Emily) and eateries. The murders mysteries are all built around human/family relationships, greed, miscommunication, the good old Agatha Christie territory. It appears quite obviously set in the USA, but there are situations that read like nods to the British Isles (one of the suspects drinks tons of tea, speaks in a very haughty manner, and uses “ghoulish” frequently).
Our main female character is Emily, who hides a big bad secret, moved to the bucolic little town less than 2 years prior, has a lot of unusual skills and abilities and likes to investigate. She also owns the local Christmas shop (which she does mostly neglect throughout the episodes). She fancies the local cop, who most of the town is innocently oblivious to her ability to get involved into the frequent local murders. She also employs the cop’s teenage daughter, for a bit of sidekick action and comic relief. Also, very importantly, she owns two cats and reads detective novels.
All in all, nothing too heavy or memorable, perfectly pleasant way to spend a cold afternoon.
This was a fun series of 3 short stories - each is about 1 hour long, broken into two episodes each. I started reading this with Mom but she abandoned me 😥😥. I could easily have finished this off before the new year but I was waiting for Mom. Ah well…
The mysteries were pretty simple but I enjoyed the mysteries themselves and the voice acting is well done, especially from Cobie Smulders. She plays our MC who runs a Christmas store and solves mysteries - because of course this small town attracts murders and all. I do think small town need to start kicking out amateur detectives because they are obviously the magnets attracting murder (see Murder She Wrote).
Mystery 1 and 3 were better than 2 but generally I had fun. 3 stars overall
I hope Audible produces more episodes because I do want to learn more about our main character and her backstory .
4.5 stars What's more festive than a small Canadian town featuring a Christmas shop owner with a past and a penchant for stumbling upon murders? Mistletoe Murders is a series of Christmasy audiobooks from Audible that are short, sweet and full of murder and mayhem.
If you're looking for something with a Canadian vibe, this is it! Written by Canadian TV writer and producer Ken Cuperus, this group of audiobooks are narrated by a trio of Canadian talent - actress Cobie Smulders (How I Met Your Mother and Marvel), Raymond Ablack (Degrassi, Ginny and Georgia), Anna Cathcart (To All The Boys, Descendants) and a full cast, complete with background sounds. Holy poutine, that's a lot of Canucks!
With solid mysteries that have bits of humour and larger story arcs, they will make you want to listen to the next book in the series asap. Each book has two sections and runs a total of about 3 hours making them great to listen to while you're wrapping Christmas gifts or stuck in looooong checkout lines at the mall this December.
Three fun mystery stories, all with Emily Lane up to her neck in Christmas decorations (she does run an all-year-round Christmas shop), crime and suspects.
Story 1. Finds us in a Christmas Tree farm, where we end up with the bodies stacking up.
Story 2. Ice skating for Emily ends with another investigation when a body is found encased in the ice.
Story 3. Is all about the New Year's Eve fun! That is until the party hostess is found with a dagger in her back!!
I have officially completed my transformation from twentysomething Seattleite who knew the up-and -coming bands and watched the arty movies and actually felt like he was cool on occasion to mid-forties dad in an affordable midsize city who’s gobbling down “Mistletoe Murders” like it’s freshly popped popcorn. How the mighty have fallen!
Nice full cast audiobook cozy mystery series starring Cobie Smulders aka Maria Hill from The Avengers and Raymond Ablack aka Joe the hot Pakistani/Indian guy from the Netflix series Ginny and Georgia. Smulders plays a mysterious year round Christmas store owner who has a knack for solving murders. Ablack plays a town cop and the will they won’t they love interest of the Smulders character.
Mmkay… so I tried this because I FELL IN LOVE with Hallmark’s new mystery series based on these characters and also called Mistletoe Murders.
The Hallmark series was spectacular. Superb casting & emotional acting. Clever mysteries. And a super cute small town feel. My only critique is that there’s more language than the typical Hallmark film (including a few uses of God’s name and d*mmit).
As for the audiobook… the voice cast was excellent and clearly talented. The mysteries were engaging, although only one of them matched the mystery from Hallmark series. I’m not sure why they felt the need to make the change except for the fact that maybe the audiobook murders were a bit more PG-13?
While I can recommend the Hallmark series with gusto and a caveat about the handful of language used, I can’t recommend this audiobook. The language was much heavier than anticipated and the innuendo/hook up culture was referenced much more openly than Hallmark standards. I missed a bunch of the language because I listen at super speed and it wasn’t always in every half episode (that I recall?), but, yeah, still not a fan of how much was unnecessarily used.
Content: language (everything from d*mmit and s**t to misusing Jesus’ name; there were no f-bombs but there was a word used to reference a part of the male anatomy); innuendo
I listened to 4 of the 7 first season episodes of this audio series--2 complete stories: "The Cookie Crumbles" and "Hearts of Ice." The 3 star rating is grading on a curve, so to speak--for this type of mystery, the stories are well done. There were some twists I didn't see coming. However, "a series of murders in a charming small town" is not my preferred subgenre of mystery. This sort of thing probably qualifies as a "cozy;" but, to me, there's nothing "cozy" about murder. It was an extra challenge to suspend my disbelief about 2 murders happening in a short period of time in a small Canadian town. A murder a week on Hudson & Rex is implausible enough, when in real life there are 1 or 2 murders a year on the entire island of Newfoundland. (But I watch that show because I like the dog.) That being said, the narrative and dialogue of Mistletoe Murders have some zip and snark. I like Cobie Smulders, so she was one of the main reasons I decided to try this. She does a very good job as the POV character/narrator. The other voice actors were fine.
Très chouette écoute. J'ai trouvé cette petite "lecture" dans les gratuits de mon abonnement audible. J'ai tenté et j'ai passé un très bon moment. Il s'agit de petits cosy mysteries qui se déroulent à la période de Noël dans une petite ville au Québec. Rien à voir avec le saison du moment mais j'ai apprécié la mise en scène, les personnages, l'interprétation, bref, un petit goût de voyage qui ne prétend pas être de la grande littérature mais que j'ai trouvé très distrayante. j'enchaîne sur le tome 2 qui fait li aussi partie des offres gratuites de mon abonnement.
Parfait pour le temps des Fêtes, j'ai tout aimé de ce livre audio! 🎄 Léger, enquête, romance, avec une voix par personnage et des effets sonores, super immersif et accrocheur. C'est pas les enquêtes du siècle, mais ce livre remplit son rôle à 100%!
Great multicast cozy murder mysteries in a small town. 3 stories, 6 episodes at around 30 minutes each. This was a re-listen for me so I can move on to Mistletoe Murders 2. Finally!
I love this little series. They are true cozies, but I like that they have a little bit of depth to them. Each story builds on another and brings the town of Fletcher’s Grove into better focus. This story has three mysteries. They all start off quickly and even though semi-predictable I liked them. The narrators make this story, and it benefits greatly from a full cast of voices. Emily’s character grounds each story as she narrates the chapters.
Emily Lane is a great character, and she does a good job of being the narrator. She loves her little town but isn’t afraid to recognize that all places and people have issues. Including herself.
Sam had to grow on me. I didn’t really see much there but by the end of the third episode. I was sold on his and Emily’s burgeoning romance. He also seems like a decent police officer which is good because I don’t like cozies that make cops look like idiots.
Probably my favorite character though is Violet – she is great. A nice normal teenager. She doesn’t act like a spoiled teenager with an attitude. She has blends into the story naturally.
Just perfect! I did not even know I was looking for a cosy crime Xmas story until I found the series. Good speakers let us immerse into the lovely little town Fletcher's Grove with interesting and well shaped characters. The protagonists take you by storm. There is strong-willed Emily Lane who runs the local Christmas Store. She is a witty and sarcastic business woman with her heart in the right place. Then there is Detecive Constable Sam Wilner, one of the good ones both in his job and in private life, whose patience is challenged by a for his taste way too nosy befriended certain shop owner. Also the side characters are well thought-out and last but not least the cases, Xmas-style titled, have just the right level of cosy thrill. It is just fun to listen to. Solid 5 stars!
Ce premier tome se découpe en 6 épisodes et donc 3 histoires avec 2 épisodes par histoire. Alors autant vous dire que même si l'ambiance est plutôt sympa, les personnages également, cela manque cruellement de développement dans l'enquête. Mais cela m'a permis de mettre un pied dans les cosy mysteries et j'aime beaucoup !
My final festive holiday read of the series was the three audiobooks that made up Mistletoe Murders. Each audiobook is three distinct hour-long mysteries focused on Emily Lane, the owner of a Christmas-themed shop in a small Canadian town who has a mysterious background and a particular set of skills that have nothing to do with decking the halls. Each "episode" felt like an episode of a procedural television show (and they've since made a Hallmark show based on the audiobook series). They were all cute and entertaining despite the mysteries themselves being a bit absurd.
It was a fun, easy listening series. It was also free to listen on Audible plus.
The mysteries were not very mysterious or complicated, but that was a good thing. I had the feeling of listening / watching Midsomer Murders. There were crimes, but nothing was over-dramatic.
The full cast narration was great.
I only listened to seson 1, as my final audiobook on Audible. Not a bad choice.
Her sensible hybrid deserving a casting credit. I wish I listened to this during Christmas, it’s so cozy and comforting (minus the whole murdering plots). The entire production is such an incredible experience!