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Lottie Lemon sees dead… pets. She’s also the baker of Honey Hollow, and prepping for the Jingle Hop Ball, managing a love triangle, and being six months pregnant are enough to worry about without stumbling upon a corpse in the snow (again). With her entourage of animal specters and feuding boyfriends, resourceful Lottie must find the true killer before her own life is trifled with.

If you like Downton Abbey or Georgette Heyer’s detective fiction, you simply must acquaint yourself with Lady Georgie Rannoch, cousin to the royal family. A charming sophisticate with a knack for solving crimes, Christmas 1935 finds Georgie and her family spending the holidays with the Queen, the Prince of Wales, and the scandalous Wallis Simpson. When a series of bizarre and dangerous accidents begin plaguing the party, the Queen implores Georgie to set her wits on discovering the cause.

All holiday cozies are a little (okay, a lot) preposterous, but Liz Ireland’s latest might take the Christmas cake. April is an Oregon innkeeper whose recent marriage to Santa Claus means moving to Santaland to establish a regency government. With all of the talking reindeer, elves, and Christmas decorations to attend to, the last thing April needs is for her jolly hubby to be accused of elficide! But that’s exactly what happens in this very funny, enchantingly weird mystery.

The 40th book in Emily Brightwell’s beloved series set in Victorian England, Midwinter Murders finds Inspector Witherspoon and his devoted, far more talented household staff investigating the locked door murder of Mrs. Harriet Andover. Every person in the Andover household is delightfully unpleasant and a suspect, allowing for many twists and turns before the killer is revealed.

Ivy Culpepper is a baker and freelance photographer who’s been hired to shoot a Hollywood starlet’s Dickens-themed, seaside holiday party. Everything is glamour and fabulousness until a tabloid reporter is found dashed upon the rocks and all signs point to the starlet. With Ivy’s photos confiscated as evidence, will the starlet soon find herself in Marley’s ball and chain?

A true marriage of grisly and adorable, Frost’s third return to the bucolic if murderous town of Mistletoe, Maine, finds Holly White busy helping to run her family’s Christmas tree farm and open their new B&B. When grinchy reviewer Karen Moody is found bludgeoned to death with a nutcracker and stuffed into a trash bin, the prime suspect is Holly’s friend Cookie, whose fingerprints are on the weapon. Meanwhile, Holly’s boyfriend, town sheriff Evan Gray, is desperate to keep his plucky girlfriend of getting tangled in yet another murder mystery.

Andrews is an expert at crafting titillating mysteries with just enough flights of fancy to balance the stories’ creepier elements. In The Twelve Jays of Christmas, Meg is reluctantly hosting wildlife artist Roderick Castlemayne, a man so ill-mannered that his bloody murder is mourned only by his creditors. With a house full of holiday guests, Castlemayne’s legion of ex-wives hanging about (murderously?), a family wedding, and the titular jays flying through rooms, Meg once again has her hands full.

Arsenic and Adobo
by Mia P. Manansala

They say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, but the latter provides a pretty good vehicle for death by poison too — which is exactly the trouble Lila Macapagal finds herself in at the start of Arsenic and Adobo. Lila is just trying to impress her horrible ex-boyfriend/food critic with a new dessert when his less-than-enthused (read: dead) reaction lands her in trouble with the law. Filled with hunger-inducing dinner descriptions (you’ll want to grab a copy of this cookbook), a deftly explored intercultural romance, and a lively plot, this cozy is a ton of fun.

This mystery boasts from-scratch biscuits, a bookstore/soul food café in the PNW, and reunited twins.

Oh! Did you need more? When one of the twin’s foster brothers is murdered in public with no police leads, the daring duo work double-time to ensure that justice is the first dish served at their café’s grand opening.

And the puns don’t stop with the title. Everyone in the town of Shady Creek, Vermont, is excited when the Trueheart Renaissance Faire and Circus comes to town, including Sadie Coleman, proprietor of The Inkwell, a literature-inspired pub. But when Sadie’s employee is framed for the murder of magician Ozzie Stone, she has no choice but to turn sleuth, whatever the cost.

Granger’s debut walks a hazy line between cozy and amorous and is all the more fun for it. When Lizzie Hale, romance book expert (but love novice), stumbles upon the body of Tinker’s Creek’s most eligible bachelor, she finds herself in the middle of a murder mystery. To the delight of this reader, she also finds herself in the middle of a budding romance, as handsome Max Alvarez, pro baseball player turned park investigator (just roll with it), encourages her to solve the crime.

So cozy it’s meta! Samantha Washington owns a mystery bookshop and is awaiting the release of her debut historical cozy. Unfortunately, murder in North Harbor, Michigan, isn’t confined to the page, and when the mayoral candidate is found slain — and Det. Bradley “Stinky” Pitt is the prime suspect — Samantha, her grandmother, and a team of geriatric crack investigators hit the streets to clear Stinky’s name.

This supernatural mystery has a little of everything: gourmet meals, romance, intrigue, sarcastic grannies, and a magical small town. Chef Mia Malone is making a fresh start in Magic Springs, Idaho, but her catering business is almost immediately threatened by the murder of client. Identified as the prime suspect and next on the killer’s list, Mia must enlist the help of family and a hunky warlock grocer to find the true murderer before her goose is cooked.