The Twelve Clues of Christmas by Rhys Bowen

On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me-well, actually, my true love, Darcy O’Mara, is spending a feliz navidad tramping around South America. She may be 35th in line for the throne, but Lady Georgiana Rannoch cannot wait to ring in the new year-before a Christmas killer wrings another neck… Get this audiobook free when you try Audible: A very enjoyable cozy mystery/historical fiction with likeable main characters.The Twelve Clues of Christmas by Rhys Bowen on Audible: The common thread to these killings was inventive and caught me by surprise, even though all the clues were there to see. This is very much a character-driven story as we get involved in the Christmas party and Georgiana’s life, with the murders occurring almost as an aside. But Georgiana doesn’t believe it even when it’s learned there’s been a prison break from Dartmoor prison and the escapees are believed to be in the area. Deaths begin to occur in the area, one per day, that everyone chalks up to accidents.

The best thing is that the home is in the same quaint village that her mother will be staying in with Noel Coward as they co-write a play.

Not eager to spend the holidays w/her brother’s family and his in-laws, she answers an advertisement for a job to assist a hostess with a large Christmas party. Her family home now belongs to her married brother, and her sister-in-law heartily dislikes her. Lady Georgiana Rannoch is 34th in line for the British throne but has no income of her own and no place to call her own. This is the 6th book in the Royal Spyness mystery series, and takes place in Dec 1933/Jan 1934. Looking forward to them finally getting their much deserved HEA. Georgie and Darcy's romance is finally getting somewhere and it was good to have him front and center after his being virtually MIA in the previous book. That said, it takes Georgie far too long to catch on to this particular twist. The mystery is very entertaining with the deaths occurring in accordance with the Twelve Days of Christmas song. This is such a wonderfully zany series and Katherine Kellgren's narration never fails to have me laughing out loud at Georgie's antics. Is all of this merely coincidence or does someone have a grudge against the townsfolk? Unfortunately, things go awry early on when a young man is found dead in a tree and several others in the village die from apparent accidents. Lady Georgiana Rannoch manages to avoid spending Christmas with her idiotic brother and priggish sister-in-law by agreeing to act as hostess to a posh house party in Tiddleton-Under-Lovey.