When Sara Penhallow offered me a review copy of The Christmas Tree Farm Murders, I mentioned I rarely read mysteries, but I’m always up for a good story. I’ve also read shorter works by Sara Penhallow under another pseudonym so I was willing to take the chance. Imagine my surprise to discover the story both brought up fond memories of watching Murder, She Wrote and offered a sweet love story.

Cozy mystery readers may be laughing at me at this point, but remember I’m not so familiar with the main genre and I’m not sure how many cozy mysteries I’ve read, if any. My mystery reading has been more Sherlock Holmes where clues are scattered throughout for the reader to find and given little attention while this is a close third where the reader becomes the investigator.

My criteria for mysteries (and the reason I don’t read very many) is that the answer to the mystery must be available to the reader but not so obvious I’m frustrated at the characters taking too long to figure it out. I have enjoyed some mysteries where, even after figuring out the mystery too soon, the rest of the story remained compelling, but it’s a rare one that can surprise me.

So where does The Christmas Tree Farm Murders fall in this scale? Somewhere happily in the middle.

The characters are loveable and distinct from Isobel the lead to her cousin Michael who heads the police to Greg the romantic interest. And that’s not mentioning half a dozen characters at least who gain distinct natures, including feuding family members, good friends, nosy neighbors, and others to create a complex, enjoyable cast. The interplay between them is fun and revealing, such as when Isobel and Michael try to control the flow of information to their mothers both to avoid being harassed about it and reduce the amount of worrying.

What this means is the life going on around and through the murder mystery is strong and worth a read all on its own. This is where the sweet love story finds its ground, playing on insecurities, misunderstandings, and the messy interventions from family members. I thought the love story acted more as a shared main plot to the murders than a secondary plot and it is very interwoven with the mystery as well so action never stopped on one side or the other.

Had the mystery been easily solvable, the characters and the love story would have kept me reading. However, that was not the case.

The reader gets the information along with Isobel and we get to sift through the possibilities right with her. This creates an odd, but effective, situation where the information is seeded, and for some of it I predicted the meaning before the truth came to light, but the seeding and the analysis occurs almost simultaneously.

What this style offered to me is the ability to enjoy the sifting because I didn’t have any more answers than Isobel did, though I did sometimes pick up some possibilities she saw later. I never felt she was being blind to the clues, and the red herrings even offered information I didn’t know (unrelated to the mystery, but always fun to learn something new).

I will say I was a little surprised at how the big reveal came about. I asked my husband (who reads mysteries more often) and he said it’s one of the traditional methods, but I don’t recall having seen it before. However, I will say, the mystery and the book came to a satisfying conclusion, especially for the sweet romance element.

So, bottom line? I enjoyed the story, loved the characters, and the mystery worked for me (remember, I’m picky). It makes me curious about how the next books in the series will come together.

P.S. I was giving this title by the author in exchange for an honest review.