As I’ve mentioned before (and will probably say it a few more times) I just love the Christmas season! When I found out that Vicki Delany was releasing her new holiday-themed book, WE WISH YOU A MURDEROUS CHRISTMAS, I was elated… Besides, don’t you just love the clever play on Christmas carol titles?
Synopsis
Merry Wilkinson owns Mrs. Claus’s Treasures in Rudolph, New York. Rudolf is America’s Christmas Town and the place for year-round Christmas celebrations. The town is preparing for Christmas day with lots of festivities and holiday cheer. One of the elegant places to celebrate is at the Yuletide Inn and as Merry and best friend leave the Inn after dinner, they witness the owner, Jack Olsen, suffer a massive heart attack. Merry’s father, Noel, is Jack’s best friend and does everything he can to help his friend. Jack survives but has a long recovery so asks his son, Gordon Olsen, to help out at the Inn. But once Gordon arrives from California he does everything he can to take control of the restaurant and Inn away from his father and step-mother.
When Gordon cuts corners and fires local vendors who supplied the restaurant and Inn with local fares, many of the townspeople are appalled. But when he brings in a budget hotel chain to discuss selling Yuletide Inn, someone is so angry they stab him to death and leave him out in the snowy garden late one night. The police set their sights on Noel, who was overheard threatening Gordon over ruining Christmas and their town. Merry likes the new detective but worries that since she is an outsider, Noel will take the blame for the killing. Merry starts asking questions trying to decipher long buried secrets that could destroy their town. Will she be able to find the grinch who stole Gordon’s life and save Christmas?
My Review
The town of Rudolph will definitely get you into the Christmas spirit! I loved the sights, the sounds, the smells of holiday cheer that Vicki Delany weaves into WE WISH YOU A MURDEROUS CHRISTMAS, along with a murderous plot that kept me turning pages and guessing until the reveal. There were plenty of suspects with believable reasons why they would have wanted Gordon Olsen dead, while the subplots added dimension to a terrific story without detracting from it. The author has also created memorable characters, especially with Merry’s father, Noel, who epitomizes Christmas and was born on Christmas day. By the end of this book, you’ll be left with a magical feeling that just maybe Santa does exist!
While there aren’t any recipes included in the book, Vicki has shared her own recipe for Molasses Spice Cookies. These delightful treats bring an incredibly delicious smell to your kitchen which will instantly put you into the holiday mood. And once you take a bite of these spiced chewy cookies, you’re bound to find you have a new favorite Christmas goodie! Vicki tells me that these cookies are sturdy enough to package and ship which makes them perfect for gift-giving this holiday season. Thank you, Vicki, for sharing your recipe for Molasses Spice Cookies!
A huge thank you to Vicki Delany for providing an autographed copy of WE WISH YOU A MURDEROUS CHRISTMAS to one winner. Limited to U.S. residents only. Contest ends Thursday, November 3, 2016 at 11:59 pm PST. Please use the Rafflecopter box located below the recipe to enter. The winner will be announced on this page and on Cinnamon & Sugar’s Facebook page, as well as notified by email (so check your spam folder!)
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1-1/2 cups sugar, divided
- 3/4 cup (6 ounces) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1 large egg
- 1/4 cup molasses
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees (F).
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt.
- In a shallow bowl, place 1/2 cup sugar; set aside.
- With an electric mixer, beat butter and remaining cup of sugar until combined.
- Beat in egg and then molasses, until combined.
- Reduce speed to low and gradually mix in dry ingredients, just until dough forms.
- Pinch off and roll dough into balls, each equal to 1 tablespoon.
- Roll balls in reserved sugar to coat.
- Arrange cookie balls on a baking sheet, 3 inches apart.
- Bake, one sheet at a time, until edges of cookies are just firm, 10 to 15 minutes.
- Cool 1 minute on baking sheet then transfer to racks to cool completely.
- If you bake 2 cookie sheets at a time the cookies will not crackle uniformly.
- These cookies are sturdy enough to hold up for shipping to family and friends!
- I like to add 1/4 cup of finely chopped candied ginger to these cookies.
- If dough seems too sticky for rolling, refrigerate for 30 minutes.
- I made a gluten-free / dairy-free batch of these by substituting with King Arthur's new gluten-free flour, Measure For Measure, along with Earth Balance Vegan Buttery Sticks. They turned out amazing!
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I received a copy in exchange for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
We go to our granddaughters’ home mid-morning Christmas day and open gifts while sipping mimosas. Later we have tamales and paella then laze around for the rest of the day, enjoying being with family.
On Christmas Eve, my grandchildren and I bake cookies for Santa, drive around to look at Christmas lights and displays, and read ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas.
One of my Christmas traditions is to use my Christmas dishes, which are exactly like those in the picture with the delicious molasses cookies!
I always loved my grandmother’s Spode Christmas tree china which I have and use. I have given some to my sisters and nieces.
Our family always enjoys riding around our neighborhoods and looking at all the beautiful Christmas lights. The colors and
inspiration others enjoy displaying bring the season into a brighter focus.
I love to read Christmas mysteries during the holidays. This book would be great.
Our favorite Christmas traditions and putting up and decorating the Christmas tree and then driving around and looking at everyone’s Christmas lights ~
My favorite Christmas tradition is putting up the tree on the day after Thanksgiving.
Favorite Christmas tradition is to get the family together for a home cooked meal and opening of presents. The grandkids always have such fun ripping off the paper!
Our holiday traditions are pretty basic; unwrap Christmas presents on Christmas Eve for our immediate household; unwrap gifts on Christmas day with my parents; Christmas dinner on Christmas Day; then a short three day/night trip to the beach between Christmas and New Years Eve.
Nice touch that the molasses is actually a flavoring, rather than the major sweetener.
The holidays are best spent with family.
great recipe, great giveaway! thanks!!!
Even though my kids are grown they still come over Christmas Eve to have cookies and eggnog. We then give them each a special Christmas Eve present to open.
Our tradition started by accident. I got tired of the kids having on old t shirts or whatever they wore to bed, so Christmas eve we let them open one present of their choosing and one on mine which was always new pajamas so Christmas morning when we took pictures of them opening presents they didn’t look like ragamuffins, LOL. When they got older I didn’t buy them one year, boy did I hear about that, I had never realized how much they looked forward to it, so the tradition continues.
Must read The Night Before Christmas every Christmas Eve. As the boys grew up and left home the book was put in Christmas boxes and mailed, taken along on visits and even read over the phone! Now it is emailed.
Putting up the tree on December 10.That’s what my mom did so 81 Christmas’ that what my family has done. I’ve turned all my ornaments over to my DIL for their tree but they live next door. I do a little village still with Hallmark Houses and Shops as I did a Hallmark Department for 30 years.
The recipe looks great. I love Christmas mystery stories!
My favorite Christmas tradition is buying for all new pjs or nightgowns and opening the package up on Christmas Eve. That way all are ready for Christmas photos in their new jammies. This has been a tradition for as long as I can remember, and I still do it today. My husband gets new long johns and I, a new nightgown.
Our Christmas tradition is to give the grandkids stockings instead of presents we put little presents inside. I love stockings and when i lived in my foster home i would of loved to get a stocking and not a present which we didn’t get anyway. When we went to peoples houses to deliver the paper i remember seeing the stockings in the windows and thought wow, When i went with my grandma she gave me presents which was so nice but no stocking. So when I started a family of my own i always put stockings all over the house and now i am hoping our grandchildren will have enough stockings to put up at their house when they get one as we give all diff types of stocking but they are all big ones. Wonderful recipe and thankyou for the giveaway! ptclayton2@aol.com
Most recently, we’ve been travelling to our daughter’s home for Christmas since she has two little boys. Seeing my grandchildren’s eyes at Christmas time is a tradition I wish would never end.
We always rented a cabin in the mountains for Christmas for years.
We do the one gift on the day before Christmas. Thank you for a chance to win a Autographed copy of We Wish You a Murderous Christmas.
I got the first in this series after Christmas last year and have been waiting until Christmas season this year to crack it open! I can’t wait! I’d love to dive into the second right after the first too. 🙂
I get together with family for Christmas in Michigan. We put up the tree and cook a special dinner for Christmas. It’s nice to have some quiet time catching up with family and enjoying the holidays.
Dinner w/ my family and gifts to each other.
We just moved out of state – so we shall see what kind of new traditions we come up with
One of my favorite traditions is hanging the stockings, with care, naturally! And all the seasonal baking! Thanks!
Making fudge & watching “It’s a Wonderful Life” & “Smoky Mountain Christmas” with family
Decorating the tree! Donamaekutska7@gmail.com
Watching Christmas movies and making cookies and desserts for christmas!!!l especially smokey mountain Christmas too!!!
We open 1 present the night before Christmas.
My favorite Christmas tradition is getting together with my mother and making lots of different cookies, which we give away as gifts.
Every Christmas Eve, we get to open ONE present…it is always pre-washed pajamas that we get to wear to bed. I’m 32 years old and my parents still do this for us!!
We had to wait upstairs on Christmas morning until my father went downstairs and turned on all the Christmas lights. It was like going down into a fairytale kingdom.
Our ‘thing’ is to visit nursing homes with cookies of a couple of types, plus decorated sugar cookies, and fudge and visit. Over hearing a comment made by an elderly lady at the library when I was a teen started my family on this tradition. A movie I had seen a couple of times in my teens has a scene I thought of just being in the movie. I didn’t really take it seriously. But when I heard the woman’s comment. It started me thinking and I mentioned it to my folks during dinner a couple of days after hearing that remark. And how sad it was. We have been going to nursing homes since. My kids love to do it to. The movie was The Trouble With Angels. Rosalind Russell was played mother superior and was comforting an elderly lady who was upset because her kids stuck her in there and basically forgot her. They kept saying they’d come to see her. But never did. I still watch that movie. It is one of my favorites. Along with Miracle on 34th Street with Maureen O’Hara. The newer one just does not have the same innocence and charm that older one has. Not nearly as good. Molasses and spice cookies are among our favorites. Thanks for that. And for a chance to get the book
I enjoy singing Christmas carols at my niece” home while she plays the piano.
I love that our grown children, their spouses, & all the grands come over and decorate our tree! Lots of yummies served along with the love & laughter. Is it perfect? no, lol, but who cares— the grands are always so proud of their “section”.
Some of our Christmas traditions is taking our children to look at Christmas lights at a local park. Making candies and cookies with my kids. Opening gifts on Christmas Eve and big dinners at my brothers house with my side of the family and then dinner at my in-laws on Christmas Day
Baking mood is setting in so going to have to try these. Thanks for sharing.
The book sounds great and the cookies sound delicious!
We watch A Smoky Mountain Christmas starring Dolly Parton every Christmas Eve! This is such a coincidence. I was considering the first book in this series as my December book for my book club. Thanks for having the giveaway!
harnessrose(at)yahoo(dot)com
I adore Christmas and besides decorating the tree and putting out all the decorations I like to buy little stocking stuffers and put in stockings. I also celebrate by exchanging presents with my four dearest friends from College…thank you for the chance to win this… the title and cover are wonderful…and how do you beat a Christmas cozy?
Marilyn ewatvess@yahoo.com
Christmas Eve is last minute “stuff”: wrapping, baking, spot cleaning, preparing for Christmas day – which is always a bit crazy.
Christmas morning we have a huge breakfast then open gifts. My husband leaves around noon to pick up his mom and dad (two different nursing homes) while I pick up my mom and aunt (two different houses). We bring them back to the house to finish organizing an early dinner and wait for the rest of the family and assorted friends to trickle in.
Dinner is served buffet style for about 70 people. Yeah…70. Folks come and go throughout the day, with everyone leaving with a small token. We have a lot of friends who are alone and the holidays are the perfect time for our family to reflect on how blessed we are to have such a wonderful extended family, as well as each other. After everyone has left, around 10pm, we take anyone home who shouldn’t drive.
Our kids are awesome (there be six of them) and usually have all the dishes and leftovers put away and the younger one bathed and tucked on bed. Kisses and wishes of good dreams precede passing out and sleeping until we all wake up the next day.
Just a normal crazy holiday in our house. LOL
My favorite Christmas tradition is decorating the Christmas tree and other decorations.