Christmas Thriller

When Robert Catesby, the charismatic son of a Catholic gentleman, marries heiress Catherine Leigh and inherits the rich Oxfordshire manor house at Aston from his grandmother, it seems that the future happiness of the couple must be assured. However, Robert’s deep involvement in plots to overthrow the Protestant queen Elizabeth I and his increasingly dangerous behavior threaten the lives of his wife and their young son.

As I walk into the pine-scented air of my seaside childhood home, gripping my husband Neil’s hand tight, I have a brief moment of hope. Maybe this Christmas will be different — for once my family might get on fueled by mulled wine and festive cheer. But the sound of happy carols are replaced by my older sister Christy’s over-loud laugh and slurred words. Rebecca, my younger sister, stalks out of the room as soon as I enter, as though I’m the Grinch here to steal Christmas. And their husbands, brash and arrogant, slap Neil’s back in a way that promises torment rather than welcome.

Why can't they just leave Christmas alone? Kris Kringle left behind his mercenary life to atone and accept the responsibility of delivering presents to the children each year. The children will smile on Christmas morning at all costs. Someone has set a trap for Kris Kringle - but the problem is, Kris is willing to go anywhere to get those gifts to the children. Including to his dark place. Be careful, world. You don’t want to piss off Saint Nick.

Everleigh Beckett’s plans for Christmas are simple: Forget her ex is getting married to another woman, keep her cat Roscoe in the lifestyle he’s accustomed to, and hunker down until all the Yuletide cheer is over. Hoping to forget the season, she agrees to work extra shifts in the Missing Persons Division so her partner can spend time with his family. What Everleigh doesn’t realize is that one of the most infamous baby-snatching cases of 1986 is about to land in her lap.

Tommy and Evelyn Christie are looking forward to a quiet Christmas holiday at the home of Hugh Norton-Cavendish, the 9th Earl of Clifford, who recently married Tommy's cousin, Elise. However, the suspicious death of Albert Lewis, a businessman hoping to buy land from Hugh, means the Christmas festivities are quickly over. Tommy is distracted by his sister's new relationship with a man he distrusts. Evelyn is busy with her pack of dogs, brought for the traditional Boxing Day shoot.

Natalia Chase just wants the first family Christmas with her husband and his pride of unruly lion shifter brothers to be perfect. But a simple trip to pick out a Christmas tree turns into a rescue mission when they discover three shifter wolf cubs abandoned in the forest. Between finding the cubs' parents, a surprise Christmas Eve visit from Mama Chase, and Natalia's increasingly difficult pregnancy, will the Chase pride get everything they've asked for from Santa, or will their perfect holiday be a perfect disaster?

When her beloved dog passes away just before Christmas, Gloria isn't sure about her best friend's advice. Holiday hilarity ensues when a new cat shows up on her doorstep each day. Who's leaving the cats? And why? Will Gloria's Christmas go up a poof of pet fur, or will it prove to be the most purrfect holiday ever?

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The festive month is kicking off in style, and Pearl is rushed off her feet with her restaurant, The Whitstable Pearl. She’s also busy planning her own family Christmas and providing mulled wine for a charity church fundraiser when Christmas cards begin arriving all over town - filled with spiteful messages from an anonymous writer. Pearl’s curiosity is piqued, but having pledged not to take on a case at her detective agency before Christmas, she reluctantly agrees that Canterbury’s DCI Mike McGuire should take over, poisoned pen cards are after all a matter for the police.

David Murphy never knew much about kids. But when his brother dies unexpectedly, he is granted custody of his six-year-old nephew, Troy. He already has his hands full running his business, and he has no idea how to help the grieving boy. When Troy runs off one day, David finds him at a park playing with an adorable and rambunctious dog - who leads him to Sophie.  

Hank and Josie own a small nursery in Mays Landing, New Jersey. They have three kids and a house with a mortgage. Josie has worked hard making and selling wreaths to make money for Christmas presents. Two days before Christmas, while she is collecting pine cones for her wreaths, she finds a woman named Helen lying in the woods behind her house. She is bruised and beaten, but won't let Josie call for help.

Christmas has never brought out the best in the MacDougal family. Still, year after year, they gather together in the Blue Ridge Mountains to try to make the season merry and bright. But this year is an especially strained one, with Shayne’s impending divorce, Morwenna’s slavish devotion to work and Bobby’s reluctance to face what life has to offer. They’ve never felt less like a family. Then, in the midst of a snowy sibling shouting match, a mysterious stranger appears.

As the Christmas decorating season approaches, Thyme & Seasons proprietor China Bayles feels overwhelmed. While she tries to balance her new roles of wife and step-mom with the demands of her thriving herbal shop, her business partner and best friend, Ruby, mysteriously disappears. Soon China's cantankerous mistletoe supplier Carl turns up dead. With Ruby missing and friends suspected of murder, China must investigate before tragedy strikes again.

Christmas is a time for family and giving, and a wealthy woman in Adelaide, Oklahoma, is about to embrace both. Discovering that she has a young grandson, the dowager decides to change her will to leave the bulk of her fortune to the young boy, an alteration that stuns the rest of her family. But a scrooge of a determined heir makes sure she never signs the new document. When she is found dead, it's up to that irrepressible spirit Bailey Ruth to save Christmas.

Detective Jock Mitchell, after serving eight years in the Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police Department (DCPD), left DCPD to pursue a career as a homicide detective. He landed in the historic city of Fredericksburg, Virginia, with his wife, Latisha. After being named the sheriff department's only homicide detective, his work was largely relegated to solving B&Es and robberies. Detective Mitchell hadn't found the fulfillment he sought. On a cold winter morning in December, Detective Mitchell found himself at the center of a brutal and terrifying killing.

It’s December in Cornwall, and Mousehole harbour is illuminated with its famous Christmas lights. Ally Bright is among the crowd listening to the carol singers—and then to the piercing screams that rip through the darkness. A body has been found, brutally murdered and dumped in a fisherman’s boat.

It's the Christmas season, and Mr. Timothy Cratchit, not the pious child the world thought he was, has just buried his father. He's also struggling to bury his past as a cripple and shed his financial ties to his benevolent "Uncle" Ebenezer by losing himself in the thick of London's underbelly. He boards at a brothel in exchange for teaching the mistress how to read and spends his nights dredging the Thames for dead bodies and the treasures in their pockets.

PI Jackson Rivers and Defense Attorney Ellery Cramer have barely recovered from last November, when stopping a serial killer nearly destroyed Jackson in both body and spirit. But their previous investigation poked a new danger with a stick, forcing Jackson and Ellery to leave town, so they can meet the snake in its den. Jackson Rivers grew up with the mean streets as a classroom, and he learned a long time ago not to give a damn about his own life. But he gets a whole new education when the enemy takes Ellery.

Mildred Kilgore and Earlynne Biddle are planning to open a bakery on the square - if they can come up with the right recipes. Charlie Dickens faces two of the biggest puzzles of his career as an investigative reporter, and one of them involves his wife. Cute little Cupcake's talent as a singer and dancer makes her a tempting target for an unscrupulous exploiter. Lizzy must enlist the Dahlias to protect her while she herself is confronted by a romantic puzzle. And Sheriff Norris is forced to reopen a puzzling mystery that the town thought was solved.

When Gina Temple decides to go Christmas shopping for her girlfriend, Detective Sergeant Kate Brannon, in the Norfolk town of King's Lynn, it seems like an easy enough task. If only life were that simple. A split-second event, months in the planning, tips their safe world upside down.