Madeline Martin owns a bookstore in the town where years before she was horribly attacked, her best friend murdered, and 4 others missing. PodcasterHarley Granger comes to town to investigate the crime and re-opens wounds and questions about what happened that night.

I enjoyed this mystery with a backdrop of Christmas and a bookstore. There were lots of twists and turns that kept me guessing until the end!

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I love Lisa Unger and this book was the perfect novella. Definitely recommend for anyone who wants a shorter - but still thrilling - read!

Thank you, NetGalley and Penzler Publishers, for the Advanced Readers Copy (ARC) of Lisa Unger's novella, Christmas Presents. As a recent fan of the author, I knew I wanted to read her latest without even reading the synopsis, so I requested to read this novella and was ecstatic when I was approved to receive a copy for free in exchange for my honest review.

This novella falls into the mystery, thriller, and suspense genre but has a little romance and intrigue to it. Despite the genre, it even put me in the Christmas mood since it takes place during the holiday. It's the perfect book for those who love this genre and want a holiday read.

From the get go, I narrowed the killer down to two different people. As the storyline progressed, I did start to second guess myself and wondered if the narrator was unreliable. When the murderer was revealed, I was glad it was who it was . . . you're not going to get any spoilers from me. I will say that for all intent and purposes, Christmas Presents had a happy ending, and Lisa Unger did a nice job wrapping it up.

The story was told from alternating timelines. I don't always like it when an author does this because it can feel disjointed. However, Lisa Unger did a fabulous job with it because it had me on the edge of my seat wondering what really happened. It really helped move the story along.

Five out of five stars is what I gave Christmas Presents by Lisa Unger. Don't miss out on this fantastic novella . . . pre-order it today. You won't be sorry.

most novellas feel incomplete to me, but this felt like a full story. i was invested in the characters and their lives and i was hooked from the beginning. i do think a chapter at the end from the murderer’s POV could have clarified a few lingering questions, but overall great, quick read

Woah!! This book will creep you out during the most magical time of the year. I went in blind and that’s the best way to do it in my opinion. This was freaky and kept me on the edge of my seat!

While I wasn’t in the mood for a Christmas story yet, this was actually a really exciting read. It was based around Christmas, but didn’t feel out of place to read in the middle of august. I was hooked from the first chapter. There were many twists and turns and while I did figure out the ending before it came, there were many questions I wasn’t sure the answers to throughout. Overall another great read from Lisa! A little predictable, but still worth the time.

What a long NOVELLA. This was a good story I just had an issue with the pacing. It was a slow burn mystery for sure but the ending just happened so fast!
I did like the atmosphere and the setting as well as the backstory. I did want a bit more of the podcast bits but maybe it'll be explored in future books more!

Thank you to the publisher for an advanced copy for my honest thoughts.

This is not the joyous Christmas novel that the title may mislead you to assume. But we all know what happens when you assume.
Madeline's life hasn't really gone as planned. After a tragedy in high school where 3 out of 4 of her best friends were killed or presumed dead, by her high school boyfriend by the way, Madeline is still living in her hometown. She owns her own bookstore, where she meets esteemed podcaster Harley Granger, who makes her question everything that happened that night. Will her memories be preserved after all this time, or will a new story come to light?
It's not secret that I am a huge Lisa Unger fan, and this story did not disappoint. I honestly don’t have anything bad or constructive to say. It’s a good story, the Christmas theme is really only involved in a subtle manor so don’t go adding this to your holiday TBR list. But as a gift? Absolutely!
Thank you, Lisa Unger, Netgalley, and Penzler Publishers for this advanced copy!

This was a quick read but by no means my favorite Lisa Unger book. It didn't hook me and even though it was relatively short, I felt like it dragged on if that makes any sense.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review.

Thank you to NetGalley, the Publishers, and Lisa Unger for an ARC of Christmas Presents. This is a page turner and holiday murder masterpiece! I feel like recently I’ve hit the mark with holiday thrillers. I thoroughly enjoyed following Madeline around through past and present to find out what happened to her friends. It’s easy to piece together what happened in the beginning, but it was still an enjoyable ride. I did really like it’s from the victims standpoint and not from the murderer as a lot of books are done that way (still nosey and want to know their side, but they don’t get a side!) lol! Definitely would recommend as a quick Holiday Mystery!

CHRISTMAS PRESENTS was a short and entertaining read by Lisa Unger, with a lot of plot packed into a novella. The podcast element added a fun concept to this story and the different viewpoints were engaging and easy to follow.

Obviously not as detailed as a full length novel, but still a good read! I’ll be looking forward to Lisa Unger’s next one.

Thanks to NetGalley and Penzler Publishers for the opportunity to read and review!

Review of Christmas PresentsChristmas Presents is a thriller novel about a true crime podcaster who chooses to look into a murder in a small town that happened ten years before around Christmas time. He believes it may be connected to other cases of missing women in the vicinity and a new case of a missing woman. The story is told from multiple points of view in both the present and the past with a friend of the original victim as the main character. I received an ebook copy from the publisher through NetGalley. It said it was a novella, so I thought it would be a quick read like Ring in the Dead by J. A. Jance (which I enjoyed), but it was a 250 page novel. I liked that the main character, a bookstore owner, has intriguing secrets right from the start. The way the facts are presented creates interesting dramatic questions with interesting details presenting connections a little bit at a time. The mixing of chapters in the present and chapters from ten years ago leading up to the night of the murder, mixed with chapters from the missing woman's POV all provided increasing suspense. The author also did a good job of creating doubt in each of the main characters and turning them into possible suspects, and possible victims. I think the only thing I didn't like was the Prologue, but once I got past it, I really enjoyed the book over all.  I highly recommend Christmas Presents to anyone who enjoys reading thriller novels.

I read this book in one sitting. Though this book is on the shorter side with only 224 pages, it doesn't lack in any of the qualities that make a suspense thriller great. This was the first book I've read by Lisa Unger, but it will not be my last. I loved the storyline. I loved the characters she created. The plot twist was a bit obvious to me. But how the author unfolds the story, keeping your attention until the very last page. That is what makes a good story great. I rate this book 4.5 round up to 5 stars.

I received this book from Netgalley for free in exchange for my review. All opinions are my own.

True Crime writer/podcaster Harley Granger arrives in a small town where ten years earlier, Evan Handy was convicted of the murder of a classmate and attempted murder of another on December 23rd. The same night sisters Ainsley and Sam went missing and were never found. Granger wonders if an accomplice took the sisters as more women have disappeared over the years.

Madeline Martin, the surviving victim of Handy, runs a bookstore in her hometown and takes care of her father, who recently suffered a stroke. He also happened to have been Sheriff when the murder and disappearance happened. He never believed Handy acted alone and was still working on the cold case up.

Christmas Presents is considered a novella, but it actually felt like a novel. It was an easy book to read, and there was enough intrigue for me to want to keep reading. It felt easy to figure out where the story was going, but because it was so well written, I didn’t mind being able to predict the outcomes.

There were a few things about the book I did not like. The first was the transitions between the characters' points of view. It went very long and then suddenly switched. I didn’t realize it and was very confused. I had to go back and see if I missed something. There was nothing to indicate a change of point of view. I wish it had been more obvious.

The other is very nitpicky. Madeline Martin uses the term “this town” multiple times to show how small it is, but it’s unnecessary. Plenty of other information and descriptions show how small it is.

Overall I enjoyed the story and recommend it to people who enjoy thrillers. And people that enjoy thrillers set at Christmas time.

Christmas Presents by Lisa Unger was an enjoyable thriller and a super quick read for those looking for something shorter. I basically read this novella on one shot because I became very invested in the story and wanted to see where it was going enough that I couldn’t stop once I got a few chapters in. It did take a few chapters to really hook me but once the plot really started going somewhere it was truly unputdownable.

For a novella I found it stood up really well as a full story, not feeling too rushed or as if it was missing depth, both to plot and characters. That isn’t to say that some things didn’t seem to wrap up too perfectly, particularly characters discovering evidence that somehow was missed for 10 years, and I definitely found the culprit very predictable and easy to suss out right from the beginning, but I also found the story itself good enough that this wasn’t actually something that bothered me. For this reason I feel it was a great read and it made me want to dive into more of the authors books, because enjoying a novella so much makes me feel she would be a good author to follow with my tendency to bypass novellas.

Christmas Presents is a multiple point of view read, told from the perspectives of; Madeline, Harley, and Lolly. Madeline is the only surviving victim to a crime that took place in the small town that this novella is set in 10 years previously, though the events still hang over her head, she tries to forget it ever happened. She has built a life for herself, owning her own bookstore and taking care of her ailing father who has suffered a stroke and is working on his recovery. It’s at her bookstore she meets Harley, an author of nonfiction crime who also runs a podcast on this same topic. He has come to this small town to dig up the past on this crime, who’s perpetrator is Evan Hardy, in jail though he claims to be falsely accused of said crime. Harley hopes to uncover if he is in fact innocent, or if there was someone else that took part in his murder spree of a decade previous, as two girls went missing and were never found either dead or alive, and Evan claims to be unable to reveal what happened to them.

Finally, there is Lolly, a college dropout who has been working at a topless dance bar while she tries to figure things out, and the latest victim after 10 years of silence in regards to women disappearing. Her chapters are scattered throughout every once in a while showing her situation and really added tension and intrigue to the story. I really enjoyed these small snippets because she was such a badass even for the very few pages she actually made an appearance and it gave a bit of an inside look to the individual who was holding her against her will.

All together I found all the points of view pretty enjoyable and it was paced well between each of them to the point of often leaving you on a cliffhanger with one character and desperately needing to read through to find out what happened. Though this was the case, it never felt like a slog having to read through a different character’s chapter to get the answers from said suspenseful cliffhanger, because every time I felt like I needed to contribute with one character’s story, I would end up sucked in to the next character’s storyline and forget all about what I was desperate to know more of prior.

Christmas Presents by Lisa Unger ended up being a very interesting read and I’m looking forward to reading more of the authors work, hopefully full length novels next. I recommend this book to lovers of thrillers as I think it’s one that many will enjoy.

Thank you @netgalley @mysteriouspress for the #gifted e-arc.

Thank you @netgalley @mysteriouspress for the #gifted e-arc.

I am a big fan of Lisa Unger’s books so jumped at the chance to read this one! This book is about a woman with a tragic past who survived a killer and his accomplice when she was younger and who wants nothing more than to move on with her life now that she’s grown. She has opened a book store called The Next Chapter and right before Christmas a podcaster shows up to ask question and starts digging up details she’d rather just leave buried.

I thought the premise and plot of this book sounded like a book that I would absolutely love. The beginning of this book grabbed me and of course I didn’t want to put it down. I wanted to understand more about what and who has terrorized this town. I certainly did enjoy this story but I personally left feeling like I wanted to know more about the characters, especially Evan, the dangerous killer. I wanted to know more of what drove his actions and his personality. Same could be said about his accomplice. I think because this was a novella it lacked some of those details we would otherwise get if it was a bit longer. The ending wrapped up a bit quicker than I had hoped albeit I was still satisfied. I did enjoy this book I just wanted it to be longer. This is only my 2nd novella however so maybe it’s a learning curve for me. 😅

Lisa Unger has herself a hit! This book was so fun to read, I wish it had been longer, I couldn't get enough!

In the beginning I was super iffy, because they was lots of going back and forth and it was hard to keep up with but this book really turned out to be super good!

Lisa Unger is a very good writer, and this novella is a good story. The story is about a cold case, a horror filled night ten years ago, and goes back and forth to the present time. It is dark and compelling. Recommended for fans of Lisa Unger, and those who will become fans.

This is a novella set during the week of Christmas. An
older murder resurfaces at the same time a stripper goes missing and a true crime podcaster comes to town to research the old murder. It took me a bit to get the time frames straight. I liked it and it was a pretty quick read. Thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for the ARC