I really enjoy a holiday themed book. Add in a murder mystery and I'm set! I thought this book was well-written, I enjoyed the mystery portion against the backdrop of a play and the holidays. I loved the characters.

When their former professor sends them a packet of notes concerning a crime, Femi and Charlotte take time out of their fresh law careers to work out who is responsible for the dead body that makes an unexpected appearance at the yearly Christmas pantomime put on by the local theatre group the Fairway Players. The events leading up to the performance are told through various emails, texts, and group messages among the various members of the group. The Hallidays, who were previously in charge, are not happy at the direction of the group, and are doing anything they can to ensure the current production fails (so everyone will remember how much better things were when they were making all the decisions). This year's production of Jack and the Beanstalk is being put together by Sarah-Jane McDonald, who has her hands full wrangling not only the actors, but also the props. She was able to source an enormous beanstalk that had been used for another performance years before. The beanstalk becomes a major point of contention for being too big, too heavy, dominating the stage, and (possibly) containing toxic substances. So poor Sarah-Jane really doesn't need the added stress of Celia Halliday working behind the scenes to sabotage the production. When something goes terribly wrong on the night of the play, everyone is left scrambling for an explanation.

I really liked the way the story was told from different points of view as they sent of humorous message to each other. I didn't think the whole over-arching story of the retired lawyer trying to get his former students to work out "whodunnit" was necessary. The students then exchanged texts with each other here and there throughout the story as they tried to work through all the documents related to the case. I think the story would have been more enjoyable without that interruption to the action that popped up from time to time. Overall the story was funny and enjoyable with some twists and turns to keep the reader guessing!

Thank you NetGalley for allowing me to receive this book for an honest review.

Although I decided to read this after Christmas I see found it to be a fun mystery. It had a lot of Agatha Christie in it.

Even though its after the holidays I highly recommend this one.

This was a really cute book that I enjoyed reading. I had a little bit of a hard time getting started, but I really enjoyed it when we got more invested in the story.

This has a fun cast of characters and an interesting departure from the normal narrative structure with the epistolary approach. The mystery itself was slightly disappointing at the end and I felt it could've been way more satisfying.

A great mystery with fun included. It is humorous and I love the quirky characters.
Many thanks to Atria and to NetGalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

I love all of Hallett's books and this one is no exception. The writing style is always a blast and I love to see how everything pieces together one bit at a time. If you enjoyed Hallett's other works- read this one!

Cute follow-up to THE APPEAL that was more humor-based than mystery-based in my opinion. I struggled a bit with it because I didn't remember much from THE APPEAL after reading it ~2 years ago. Definitely a fun read for the holidays though.

This Christmas Crime novella was the perfect book to read over the holidays. I am a big fan of Janice Hallett and love her writing style and this book was no different. It does link with The Appeal but it's like a little added extra - fun, engaging and quirky. Even though I mainly read dark crime and thriller books, I really enjoyed the sarcasm and humor in this story.

As a fan of the appeal, I was very much looking forward to this novella! I had a good time all the way through, Hallett's witty writing and character made for a a very fun reading experience. I just felt the pacing to be a little off, there was a lot of build up for what felt like very minor action and resolution. The overall idea for the plot was really fun and well thought out but it could have used a few more pages to feel satisfying!

I enjoyed this quick, holiday read. I have not read The Appeal, but I don't feel like that took anything away from this story. Written in the emerging style of text and email messages, transcripts, new stories, etc, The Christmas Appeal follows what happens when a dead body is discovered during the local Christmas play. I would recommend it to anyone looking for a short, entertaining mystery for the Christmas season.

Thank you to #NetGalley and #AtriaBooks for a free copy of #TheChristmasAppeal by Janice Hallett. All opinions are my own.

I read this book without reading the previous book that introduced these characters. I thoroughly enjoyed the style the author used to write the story-emails, texts, transcripts. As a quick read over my holiday break, it was an engaging read that I easily followed without reading the previous book. I was curious to the outcome right up to the end. And since I did have a few questions about what happened before The Christmas Appeal, I read the original The Appeal from the library, which I found good but less satisfying. If I'd read them in order, the first book might have impressed me more.

I love the format Janice Hallett uses and this was a fun read.
Why don’t have the panto tradition in the US?
I loved the way the social pecking order and various character quirks gets revealed in people’s messages to each other.
I can’t wait for the author’s next book.
Thanks to NetGalley and atria books for this e-arc.

I absolutely loved this book. It was really well written and it was also surprising. Thank you for the arc. I really appreciate it.

A really quick and entertaining read. Just like Hallett’s book The Appeal, this short novel is about the same UK small town theater troupe, set a few years later, and told all in the form of emails and texts. And once again, it’s told all in the form of emails and instant messages, and once again you don’t really know what the mystery is going to be.

It’s actually not a particularly Christmas-y though its set in December - it’s just about the troupe putting on a Christmas pantomime which I think is a British thing - basically just a one night only show for families. It’s so short that the mystery is not very deep - by the time you figure out what is going on, you find out the answers fairly quickly. But it was a very enjoyable read which you literally can knock out in a few hours.

The Christmas Appeal by Janice Hallett is an intriguing epistolarian mystery that feels like a nod to the past, but set in the present. This author is known as the modern Agatha Christie & I totally can see that.

This is book #1.5 in The Appeal series. This is the first book I’ve read by this author & I think it would’ve been easier if I had read the first book & known the characters. I struggled to get into the story because I had trouble keeping track of everyone.

The Christmas Appeal is great for fans of…
🎄 Immersive Caper
🎄 Epistolary Novel
🎄 Christmas
🎄Agatha Christie

Although I struggled in the beginning trying to understand, I enjoyed when I got into it. It was a very quick read & easy to pass through in an afternoon. I appreciate holiday mysteries that aren’t too gory & this one delivered on that. It also provided humor, community & just a touch of drama.

If you’re looking for a holiday based mystery told only through texts, interviews, e-mails & various messages, I recommend The Christmas Appeal!


Massive thanks to NetGalley & Atria Books for the gifted copy, which I voluntarily read & reviewed.

Do you like it when books are narrated in unique styles? I had heard of The Appeal and really wanted to read it. I didn’t get to it yet, but I was excited to get a chance to review The Christmas Appeal. It is a unique story told through a variety of mediums including emails, text messages, police reports, etc. A full cast brought the story to life.

The Fairway Players are putting on a production of Jack and the Beanstalk for the Christmas season. The production is trying to get going with arguing players, missing players, egos, etc. During the first production, a dead skeleton in a Santa suit appears on stage bursting out from the beanstalk. How did the dead body get into the beanstalk and why?

I thought the way this story was told was very innovative. I also loved how the mystery went in one direction and was seemingly solved, but then the real story was revealed at the end. The story was very engaging on audiobook, and I enjoyed also reading along in the physical book. I loved trying to figure out the mystery, but I also loved the humor as well. This is a standout audiobook production. If you love audiobooks, you should definitely try this one out.

This is meant to be a follow-up to The Appeal, but I read it fine as a standalone novel. I do want to go back and read The Appeal now.

I recently discovered Hallett while reading The Twyford code. I love the way she writes a mystery. She is in a category all her own. The Christmas Appeal was a fun whodunnit that used email and text communication to tell the story. I really love when books change things up like that and it was so fun to try to figure out who and what was going on. I had no previously read The Appeal so I do suggest reading that first. I had a hard time keeping up with the characters.

Thanks to Netgalley for the eArc copy!

I have not read "The Appeal" but I was able to jump into this novella with no issues. It was written in the form of letters/emails/texts which was very interesting and lent itself well to the mystery, as two lawyers receive all of this information from their former mentor as a bit of a test to see if they can figure out what happened. There were a lot of characters but it was pretty easy to keep track of everyone and how they were connected. I may read "The Appeal" now; I'm sure reading this out of order may have some spoiled some things for me but the characters really don't talk much about what happened before so I don't feel like I already know what happened at all!

(3.5⭐️) Many thanks to @atriabooks for the #gifted free copy of this book.

Humorous and entertaining. This cozy mystery was a fun, escapist read amid all the chaos of the holidays.

The local theatre troupe, the Fairway Players, were hard at work in preparation for the upcoming Christmas pantomime. But a dead Santa found amongst the set, upends the cheer and festivity.

The formatting of this read, told through mixed media, was captivating and fresh. It allowed the primary characters greater depth than is typical in a novella.

And those dynamic characters, full of drama, snark and cynicism, kept me in stitches, solidifying this novella a delightfully amusing farce.

I went into this read blind, not realizing I needed to read The Appeal first. While I still enjoyed this novella completely, I do think the backstories found in The Appeal would’ve made this read even more enjoyable.