Christmas Past by Mary Burton

Pulling strings from the grave – yep – Nicole Piper’s evil deceased husband found a way to get her to make a trip that would endanger her life...again. Luckily she has Homicide Sergeant David Ayden beside her to, hopefully, save the day.

This is a novella length, action-packed, suspense filled thriller that had me from page one and kept me interested to the very end. I thoroughly enjoyed it and recommend it highly.

Thank you to Kensington – Zebra and NetGalley for the ARC – This is my honest review.

5 Stars ( )

Reading Christmas mysteries cozies is my yearly tradition. I started this year with Christmas Past, a romantic suspense novella by Mary Burton. I chose it based on the cover - it looked like it would be kinda eerie and creepy, sort of a touch of Halloween at Christmas. Unfortunately, it wasn't. It was originally part of an anthology but is being released as a standalone. Trouble is, it felt like it started in the middle of the story which might have been alright if the missing parts didn't seem so central to the story. It also had very little to do with Christmas which was more a backdrop there and gone than part of the tale. My biggest criticism, though,, and admittedly this is on me - I'm not usually a fan of romantic suspense but Christmas is one of the few times I make an exception. In this case, however, once I got the gist of what had occurred previously, it seemed like a decent suspense novel interrupted at the most inopportune times for romantic interludes. This tended to throw off the momentum of the story. Still, it's short enough that this didn't make me stop reading and, to be honest, I just skipped over the romantic bits to get to the action. My recommendation - if you're a fan of romantic suspense and are looking for short, fast read, you might want to give it a try.

Thanks to Netgalley and Kensington Books for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review ( )