After finding a corpse in her larder, all Anna wants is a nice, quiet Christmas.

No chance of that happening.

There's a snowstorm on the way - and another body...

A brilliant sequel

Another Hoot..
The second in the Christmas Murder Mysteries series and this time Anna has decided, in her infinite wisdom, to take her whole family away for Christmas - but will relocating Christmas to the back of beyond really avoid all of the usual Christmas annoyances and, more specifically, a dreaded Christmas murder scenario ? As it goes, it will not. Another hoot, fast paced and very amusing and with a credible cast that will keep the reader thoroughly entertained and engaged. Christmas escapism,

I loved this . Did not realise it was book 2. Did not matter but I will read book 1 now. A lovely good fun Christmas murder book. Not scary just a great read. Loved the whole family. Ben was an ace son. Some of the working out was great to read. Hard to review murder books. Highly recommend it. Perfect Saturday afternoon escape.

Having enjoyed Happy Bloody Christmas last year I jumped at the chance to read the new offering from Jo Middleton to see if Anna’s Christmas this year was any better.

And of course it wasn’t as despite getting away for her dream Christmas break it was once more thwarted when she discovers a dead body again!

Reading the first book isn’t essential as this one does give the odd nod back to it to explain a few things, but I would recommend it anyway, mainly because it’s such a brilliant and funny read.

As soon as you get into the first chapter of this book you get a flavour of how good the author is at laugh out loud lines causing more than a few chuckles as you read. With a great story you fall in love even more with Anna and her family, not to mention her best friend Jennie who is just as funny from afar via FaceTime. As well as having some very witty and funny observations on life, this is once more a nice ‘whodunnit’ story that is summed up beautifully giving a satisfying conclusion.

An absolutely brilliant, hilarious read that is a must for the festive period, but was just as enjoyable in August! I’m looking forward to the next instalment already.

Many thanks to NetGalley for an ARC in return for an honest review.

Despite the title, this was a fun festive novel that had me smiling throughout. The story was easy to follow and had enough content to keep me interested and a great cast of characters. I highly recommend it and I look forward to reading more by the author.

this was a strong sequel in the Happy Bloody Christmas series, it had that mystery element that I was wanting and enjoyed the overall storyline that was going through this. I enjoyed the use of Christmas in this book and had me guessing what was going on with the whodunnit element. The characters continued to feel like they belonged in the world and continued to feel like they were supposed to. Jo Middleton has a strong writing style and these two books have been great getting into and was invested in what was going on, I hope there is more in this series and from Jo Middleton.

I was so looking forward to catching up with Anna, and book 2 in the series didn't disappoint. I loved it. Funny with some fabulous poignant moments.
Highly recommend.

Brilliant, even better than her previous book. What a superb sense of Humour mixed with intrigue & mystery!!******************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

This hilarious Christmas murder mystery will keep you laughing from start to finish. It will certainly help anyone dealing with tricky family members to get through the festive period! The plot and setting are familiar for a Christmas murder story: a country house, snowed in, the murderer must be in the house, etc, but this is part of its appeal. A must have book for fans of this genre.

I absolutely couldn’t wait to read this one, after enjoying the first one, I’ve never laughed so much!

This year Anna is determined to have a wonderful Christmas, no annoying extended family members and certainly no dead bodies in the larder. She insists on heading off for a quiet Christmas away from home. However, nothing goes as planned for Anna, and of course, another body turns up……

I love the style of writing in these books, witty and to the point. Intriguing but oh so funny.
The author really keeps you engaged and keeps you guessing. I love how the family pull together as a team to investigate, especially best friend Jennie.

The pace is really good and you will want to read it in one sitting, especially as you near the end and can’t work out just who did it!

As with the first book, the police’s roll is hilarious and fits the book so well.

All in all a fun, quick read. I think I loved the first one just slightly more, but it may be because the style and ideas were just so new and unique. Although the storyline is so different in this one, the humour is similar. I would definitely recommend reading it.

Was so excited to see this book on Netgalley.
I absolutely loved this first book and this was just as good!
I highly recommend this book.
Thanks Netgalley for letting me read this book for an honest review

I read Happy Bloody Christmas last year and loved it so there was no way was I going to pass on an opportunity to read this ahead of its October release date.

It feels so familiar being back with Anna and her family. I think she's brilliant and I couldn't read it without laughing out loud. She's seriously unlucky when it comes to Christmas and trying to organise something the good kind of exciting as opposed to the excitement of dead bodies popping up. It seems 'Christmas murder mystery' really is her trope and her sidekick Jennie just adds to the fun; although we only get her from a distance this time. We get double the comedy with those two and Santa paws was just a little extra to twitter at!!

The unexpected guests at Whispering pines bring disharmony to Anna's celeb but it's great how her and Oli switch into sleuth mode with Ben assisting. Definitely room for a family PI business and I can't wait to see what happens next Christmas 😂🤣

Such a light-hearted, fun, cosy mystery. I didn't put it down as I was enjoying myself too much.

I think this would come under the heading ‘cosy murder’, which is a bit of strange title, but this book definitely fits the description. Anna and her family head off for Christmas in a hotel in the middle of nowhere. She thinks she has got the place to herself until six more adults and two children arrive. On the first evening one of them dies and it is thought that he has had a heart attack until Anna starts to investigate and decides he has been poisoned with cyanide. Unfortunately there has been a bad snowstorm during the night and the snow is backed up against the house meaning nobody can enter of leave. This book keeps you guessing until the very end as a murder mystery should. It is full of humour and would be a great book to read in winter next to a roaring fire! I would definitely recommend it. The characters are interesting and there are plenty of twists and turns and red herrings. Thanks to NetGalley for allowing me an ARC of this book.

Another great Christmas mystery!

I was lucky enough to receive an ARC of Not Another Bloody Christmas (all thoughts are my own), and despite reading it in August, I felt myself getting into the Christmas spirit.

The location was fantastic and really set the scene with Christmas and snow sprinkled in. I loved the characters and their quirks, and it was great to see Anna and her family back.

This year, Anna is doing things differently. She’s hoping that by whisking the family away to a luxurious house over Christmas, she’ll escape the memories of last year. However, fate has other plans when she uncovers a body in the library.

A great murder mystery where everyone has a motive, and it had me guessing who did it right until the end.

Somehow, this book combines murder and comedy and still manages to be a cosy read. A great one to snuggle up with on a winter’s evening, and can easily be read as a standalone.

I absolutely loved the first book, so I’m not surprised to say I also loved this one.

Anna just always feels so real, and her humour is so dry but hilarious. I just kept giggling at her the whole way through.

I don’t have a huge amount to say, but I do hope we get more in this series!

After enjoying the first book in what appears to be a series, I was hopeful that this second book would not just cover the same ground and give the reader nothing new to latch onto. Fortunately, this couple of complete amateurs with a friend available via telephone, find fresh ways to bring all the clues together to solve the murder mystery. At times the writing is quite funny, despite the serious subject. Perhaps they should consider the murders at a different time of the year, but that may change the necessity for the titles in this series. I particularly liked the way the writer provides a wide range of characters and gradually you get to know them all. It's impossible to know whodunnit at an early stage, but the clues that are drip fed give you hope that you might be able to guess in the right direction. Suffice to say, this was a most enjoyable story and I'm looking forward to the third in the series.

Anna's family have no luck over Christmas, last year, a body in the Pantry. This year a body in the library. Over to a modern day, middle aged, Miss Marple, a.k.a, Anna to solve the crime. Brilliantly written, very very funny. I read it in a day because I simply could not put it down.

This is a Christmas Cozy Mystery, and this is the second book in the Happy Bloody Christmas series, and I have not read the first book in this series before picking up this book. I found this book fun to read, and I loved the characters. There is a ton of Christmas stuff in this book. I received an ARC of this book. This review is my own honest opinion about the book like all my reviews are.

I absolutely adored the first in this series. I laughed out loud so often while reading that I had to stop reading it at night because I kept waking my husband up! This second book was also enjoyable, but a lot of it tracked very closely with the elements of the first one - and where they were surprising and laugh-out-loud funny when they were new, they were a little bit less so in the reboot. I still enjoyed it, don't get me wrong, and would definitely read more in the series because I love the family dynamic and snarky sense of dark humor, but this one didn't quite hit it out of the park the way the first one did for me...

I just loved it! I absolutely loved the prequel (A Bloody Christmas) but I enjoyed this even more. Anna wants nothing more than a calm family Christmas, after finding a dead body in her house last year. But all her plans go out of the window when a double booking at their remote hotel location means a whole load of guests to have to share Christmas with.

When one of the guests in found dead, Anna and family must put their thinking caps on and get to the truth, especially as they are snowed in with all the suspects!

What's really great is that Anna is just a normal mum, and does and thinks all the normal mum things (like not giving her kids books of poetry for Christmas). It not only gives the book a humorous touch, but also the 'it's not just me' feeling.

Not Another Bloody Christmas is a brilliant read, at any time of year!

Not Another Bloody Christmas by Jo Middleton is a witty, cozy, and thoroughly entertaining festive mystery. I loved the humor, the quirky characters, and the clever twists that kept the story engaging from start to finish. It was the perfect mix of holiday charm and murder mystery. I truly enjoyed it and gave it five stars.

The second in the series, can be read as a stand alone.
As enjoyable and twisty as the first book.
Still as madcap and funny. The family dynamics between Anna husband Oli and the children Ben and lilly true to life and will make you smile.
The dysfunctional guests at the boutique hotel and the issues will leave you thinking about them and who you recognise in your own life.
A murder mystery who dunnit, that will make you smile .
Bring on the next one

Last year Anna, Oli, and their two children had a horrible (but very funny!) Christmas which included obnoxious family members and a dead body in the larder. Anna and her friend, Jennie became detectives and eventually solved the murder, but this year, Anna is determined to have a normal family Christmas.
Anna has booked the family in to Whispering Pines, an imposing country house hotel, where they should have been the only guests, but due to a mix up in bookings other people are also spending Christmas there. Anna and Oli are exploring the hotel where they discover a dead body in the library.
And so begins another festive whodunnit, a laugh out loud page turner as Anna once again turns detective, with a little help, or hinderance, from her family, and the faithful Jennie assisting from the side lines on her mobile phone. Really awful weather, dysfunctional families, a secret passage, and the mysterious housekeeper, Mrs Haddock, all contribute to the fun and games.
I had read the first novel by Jo Middleton and loved it, so I couldn't wait to read this one. I read it in one sitting and thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm also hoping for a third in the series, maybe next year?
Thank you for my advance copy.

This author certainly knows how to write an amusing, engaging novel The plots are totally far fetched and almost farcical, but they are totally rescued by the wonderful descriptions of family life. The family are so perfectly imperfect, that every parent will relate to their charming, down to earth exchanges and experiences. After a disastrous previous Christmas, when a dead body was discovered in the family’s house just before Christmas, it seems sensible to escape the drama and enjoy a blissful country retreat. Alas, it is not to be. Th3 first problem is that the hotel is overbooked, necessitating the entire family sharing on3 room. The second is that another body appears and it doesn’t seem as if he died from natural causes. Together, the family try to solve the mystery whilst ensuring that they all remain safe from the mystery murderer. A delightful, escapist novel, that had me laughing out loud.

Absolutely LOVED this book! I'd not read the first book but it made no difference to my experience of this one. The simple plot is spelt out at the start - last Christmas, Anna, Oli and family came across a dead body, so to try and eradicate the memories of that, they decided to treat themselves to a Christmas break at a remote location, to relax and enjoy the festive season... All was going well until - you guessed it - another dead body crops up!

The storyline and the writing were perfect; light in touch, with numerous funny bits, but underneath a well-structured and paced thriller, as they attempted to work out how and why the person is dead - and who was responsible. At times the family dynamic (and the dynamic with the others at the house) felt akin to the TV series Outnumbered (probably minus the Ben character in that show!). I sincerely hope that Jo Middleton is coming up with the storyline for book three as I need my fix! I've ordered the first book so I can find out what happened a year ago...

A worthy sequel to Happy Bloody Christmas, we follow Anna and her family to a country house hotel where they find themselves snowed in with a dead body and several suspects, not the quiet Christmas they were hoping for after last year’s debacle. Spiked with the author’s dry wit, I laughed out loud many times whilst simultaneously enjoying the murder mystery. Although I had a rough idea of what the motive was, I enjoyed the journey towards the denouement. As with last Christmas, Anna has to solve the mystery herself - with help from her family and her friend, Jennie (though on her mobile this time) - because the local police are more interested in their mince pies than they are in trying to attend the scene of the crime. Good fun and a good story - a perfect Christmas read!

With thanks to Avon Books UK and NetGalley for a review copy.

After the runaway success of the hysterically funny Happy Bloody Christmas, it is not surprising that Jo Middleton’s follow-up suffers from a few growing pains. The opening feels too strained, too striving for the same magic that accompanied the first.

Fortunately it is the perfect book to read on a wet, windy autumn day, when there’s nothing on tv, or to stream, and even your iPad has died. Getting through the first few opening chapters with a weird set-up and some uncertain dialogue, since the protag has a habit of talking to her mother in law on Whats App as well as sundry other people in the middle of other chaos… well, it was a bit of a strain. Fortunately, once the body has arrived, it all flows beautifully into an investigation that strains the most convoluted of rabbit holes.

Not that Anna is investigating a murder, of course not. She’s just unravelling who these people are, that managed to double-book the mysterious house she booked online. The author captures the anxieties of relationships, parenting, modern technology, and Christmas, plus mothers-in-law, in a beautifully observed, pacy narrative.

I’m not sure Ms Middleton should go to the well for a third time, but I’d recommend anyone who enjoys a Christmas murder romp to give this one a go.