5 Winter Mysteries That are Cozier Than a Cup of Tea

This second book in a series finds American musician Gethsemane Brown working as a teacher in a small Irish village. With winter holidays coming up, she’s looking forward to a restful break from her recent amateur sleuthing. But then her ghostly companion takes off and her visiting brother-in-law is accused of stealing a valuable antique. In true Gethsemane style, she proceeds to accidentally summon summons the ghost of an 18th century sea captain…and wind up the suspect in a murder. Can she save herself and bring a thief and murderer to justice, just in time for the winter holidays?

This entry in the Raina Sun series finds the graduate student mentoring a foreign-exchange student just before Christmas. During a jaunt holiday shopping, Raina finds herself involved with a mysteriously abandoned baby. When the baby’s mother dies, Raina is the only one who thinks it might have been murder. She is determined to solve both the mystery of the baby’s identity and the woman’s death before the FBI takes over the case. The more she investigates, the more Raina discovers that everyone around her has a hidden secret or two. But luckily, she’s got her grandma and a dangerously sexy ex to help her along the way, to identify the baby and solve a murder…just in time for Christmas.

Samantha Washington owns a mystery bookstore, and keeps finding real-life mysteries to solve. In this adventure, she has just three weeks to help her mother plan her wedding. Enter the town’s controversial wedding planner…until she turns up mysteriously murdered, with Sam’s stepfather-to-be as the prime suspect. With her beloved and boisterous Nana Jo to help out, Sam sets out to solve the mystery, finish writing her own novel, keep her bookstore running, and ensure her new stepfather doesn’t spend his honeymoon behind bars!

April Claus, newly married to the real-life Santa, has a lot of adjusting to do in her new home, the North Pole. When a cantankerous elf is found dead from a spider bite, the authorities claim it was an accident. But then again, there isn’t much crime in Christmastown. April can’t stop herself from starting her own investigation. This leads to the expected complications, such as: will she ruin Christmas? And: if there is a killer on the loose, is April next on their lethally naughty list?

The beloved TV series Murder She Wrote may have ended years ago, but the resourceful Jessica Fletcher is still nosily solving cozy mysteries in this book series. This recent wintry installment finds Jessica stranded with 12 strangers in a hotel during a blizzard. In a story with nods to Agatha Christie, the guests find themselves targeted by a mysterious killer determined to take them down one by one. With Jessica on the case, rest assured the murders won’t be too distressing and the culprit will certainly be caught (and given one of her trademark disapproving looks).