Welcome, to my kitchen. I’m Hanna Eastham and if you were here you would smell the delicious aroma of chocolate, vanilla, and spices wafting through the air. The scent almost makes me swoon. I’m a firm believer that chocolate can solve almost every problem. For example, a few year’s ago I was working as a chocolatier at my parents’ gift shop in Frankenmuth, Michigan. It felt like my bossy, German mother was stifling my creativity and I needed a break. I offered to make chocolates at the bookshop my sister, Alex, was planning to open in Harriston, Montana. I mean, books and chocolate, that’s a pairing everyone can love. Now, I work with my bossy identical twin, thanks to chocolate.

My day usually starts with an herbal tea and a sweet treat that Alex has ready when I get to work. I’m not really a morning person, so I’m rarely the first person at our store, Murder and Mayhem: Killer Chocolates and Book Shop. For the past month I’ve been crafting a new chocolate bonbon. If you think that’s easy, think again. Trying to find a new combination of flavors that harmonize with each other and are something a little different, but not too different, is no easy task. You’ll usually find me keeping our store stocked with our poison-themed chocolates. They have names like Strychnine Strawberry and True North Nicotine. It was my sister’s quirky idea to connect the chocolates to the mystery books.

When I’m really busy Alex helps with the chocolates, but I have to keep an eye on her because she’s been known to let her mind wander resulting in a choco-lot of trouble. Ha ha. Do you like the pun? My twin, our friend and employee, Maggie, and I often come up with these terrible puns. Between the bookshop, and the chocolates you’d think we’d be busy enough, but last year we also got involved in solving a murder. The sheriff actually thought my sister was a suspect. Can you believe that?

Today I’m working like crazy to prepare chocolates for the high school’s reunion weekend to celebrate completion of the renovations to the building. This event was supposed to have occurred month’s ago, but you know construction. So here I am slaving to stock the shelves for the Christmas rush and the weekend festivities. On top of that, Kyle, a handsy former football jock has been harassing me ever since I let him take me home from a town meeting. He insisted the reunion decorating committee meet here before heading to the community center. Ugh. At least this year we don’t have a murder to solve on top of all the other Christmas activities.

A Nutcracker Nightmare, A Killer Chocolate Mystery Book #2
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Release: October 2023
Format: Print, Digital, Audio
Purchase Link

Perfect for fans of Joanne Fluke and Laura Childs, when twin sisters Hanna and Alex help out at the local high school reunion, volunteering takes a turn when they find a former classmate’s dead body.

Hanna and Alex, owners of the Murder and Mayhem book and chocolate shop, are busy preparing for the Harriston High School’s reunion weekend. Neighbors will connect with old friends and perhaps try to avoid old foes. One person no one can avoid is Kyle, the former star quarterback, who is busy using his entire playbook to try and score with Hanna, even threatening her if she doesn’t play nice. At the reunion, Alex glimpses more drama than nostalgia as insults are flung around like a football at a Friday night game. The party is put on hold when Alex finds the dead body of none other than Kyle himself, bludgeoned to death by a nutcracker that the sisters admired earlier in the night.

Hanna quickly becomes the prime suspect—someone saw her slap Kyle in the face at the reunion dance. She’ll need her sister, their sleuthing canine, Watson, and their old friends and colleagues to help break this case wide open. While looking through old yearbooks and taking a stroll down memory lane, Alex uncovers a few secrets about Kyle, now, it seems like everyone had a motive to kill him.

But when the suspects start becoming the victims, Alex and Hanna know that they can’t melt under the pressure—they must find the killer before they become just another yearbook memory.

About the author
Christina Romeril is the author of the Killer Chocolate Mystery series. The series is set in Montana at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, one of her favourite places to visit. She and her husband live a few hours away in a small village in Southern Alberta. When Christina isn’t writing she loves to hike in Waterton Lakes National Park, or just hang out there eating gourmet hot dogs and ice cream. When the former banker isn’t enjoying nature, she loves to create and consume chocolate confections. Not necessarily in that order.