Two holiday novels provide the perfect combination of mystery and murder mixed with a generous helping of Yuletide cheer.

1. A Christmas Guest; 2. A Christmas Secret

A tranquil weekend party in early December at a magnificent country house is shattered by a suspicious death.  A young Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould must help her friend Isobel who has made a very cutting remark about Gwendolen Kilmuir on the night when she was supposed to be getting engaged.  Gwendolen flees the room and the next morning is found dead; suicide.  Isobel, accompanied by Vespasia, must make a journey of expiation to the Scottish Highlands, with an unexpected result...

Henry Rathbone arrives to spend Christmas at the Dreghorn family manor house near Ullswater.  He is greeted by the news that the master of the house, Judah Dreghorn, has died, presumed accidentally drowned.  Not only this, but Judah’s good name is being slandered by someone claiming to be the rightful owner of the manor and estate.  Rathbone and Judah’s brothers must investigate.

When vinegar-tongued Grandmama Ellison is obliged to spend Christmas away from home in the wind-swept Romney Marshes, with Charlotte Pitt’s parents, Joshua and Caroline Fielding, her mood becomes even more sour.  The arrival of Joshua’s cousin Maude does not bring out the best in Grandmama Ellison, but when Maude is found dead, she turns detective and learns something unexpected about herself...

Dominic Corde is thrilled to ‘fill the robe’ as substitute vicar in the village of Cottisham while the Rev. Wynter is away on leave.  Dominic and his new wife Clarice arrive during an exceptionally frigid and snowy season.  The welcoming and cosy vicarage and the hospitable neighbours seem all too perfect, until they find that the Rev. Wynter has not gone on holiday at all...

Superintendent Runcorn of Scotland Yard is spending Christmas on the wild and beautiful island of Anglesey.  While out on a walk he discovers the body of Olivia Costain, the local vicar’s sister.  Only an outsider could have committed such a heinous crime, he is assured, but as he delves deeper into Olivia’s past, he uncovers some disturbing secrets, and opens the door to a new future for himself...

With Christmas approaching, Emily Radley, Charlotte’s sister is suddenly called from London to be with her dying aunt.  Alone, she makes the journey to Connemara, on the west coast of Ireland.  A tragic legacy haunts this close-knit community and a lone shipwreck survivor threatens to unlock old wounds, but also to offer a solution to an old crime and bring peace and resolution to the community.

Anne Perry’s Victorian Christmas novels have attracted as many faithful readers as her two New York Times bestselling series featuring investigators Thomas Pitt and William Monk. A Christmas Promise is the seventh in Perry’s holiday series, and it will surely bring joy to this special season.

Three days before Christmas, in the freezing slums of London’s East End, thirteen-year-old Gracie Phipps encounters Minnie Maude Mudway, who is only eight, alone, and determined to find her friend Charlie.

However Charlie is no ordinary companion: He is a donkey who belonged to Minnie Maude’s Uncle Alf. Gracie is shocked to learn that only the day before, someone brutally murdered Uncle Alf and made off with his rag-and-bones cart and the beloved beast who pulled it. Now, come hell or high water, Minnie Maude means to rescue Charlie–and Gracie decides to help. But the path that Uncle Alf had taken to his death was not his regular route, and in his cart were not just the usual bits of worn silver and china but also, the children are told, a dazzling golden box. What its contents may have been no one can say, for, like Charlie and the cart, it too has vanished.

Uncertain where their four-legged friend may be, the children are drawn into an adult world far beyond their innocent imaginings. And in a shop gleaming with beautiful objects, they recruit an unexpected ally: Mr. Balthasar, who warns them that the shining prize may be a Pandora’s box of evil.

Set in the Victorian world where Anne Perry reigns supreme, A Christmas Promise culminates in a radiant finale that will remain with you long after the final page is turned.

In her beloved Christmas Novels, Anne Perry brings readers both the authentic Victorian charm and the nail-biting suspense that have made her Thomas Pitt and William Monk tales bestsellers for a generation.  Though rife with intrigue, these special seasonal stories beam with the blessed light of the holiday.

Ten days before Christmas, as an icy wind cuts through London, wealthy James Wentworth feels not joy but grief.  His reckless son, Lucien, has been lured into a deadly world of drugs and wild passion.  Wentworth's only hope, he believes, is his old friend Henry Rathbone, who volunteers to search for the prodigal son.  Rathbone knows nothing of the sensation-obsessed underworld where Lucian now dwells, but he acquires two unexpected new companions who do:  Squeaky Robinson, a reformed brothel-keeper who now works in Hester Monk's medical clinic, and Crow, a mysterious slum doctor who turns no one away, however undeserving.

Slowly this odd trio gathers clues - about Lucien's mad infatuation with a beautiful woman names Sadie and about Shadwell, the ruthless man who owns her and, like the Devil, never lets go of one of his own.  Rathbone, Squeaky and Crow even welcome into their little band a most valuable recruit: young Bessie, a teenager whose courage holds fast even in the depths of the slum.  And so they set forth on their odyssey into London's dark streets, on a mission whose outcome they cannot begin to guess.

Anne Perry's novels are supreme masterpieces of suspense, and A Christmas Odyssey ranks with the very best.  The days leading up to Christmas may prove to be fraught with challenges, but 'tis the season for comfort and joy and miracles.

A Victorian tale of murder and intrigue taking place on a snowy Christmas in 1897 ...

During a bitter snowstorm, a mysterious stranger decends onthe Netheridges' country home in Whitby, where a group of renowned actors have gathered to prepare a Boxing Day production of Dracula.  Amidst an atmosphere of competing theatrical egos and artistic disagreements, the unknown Mr Ballin is brutally murdered.

Determined to uncover the truth, but without help from the police who cannot reach the house through the show, Caroline Fielding begins to investigate the circumstances surrounding the puzzling affair.  Who was the victim?  Was his appearance at the house as innocent and as circumstantial as he professed?  And, whichof the guests knows more than they are letting on?