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Goodreads Summary:

t's the first Christmas in Santaland for April Claus--but it may also be her last unless she can uncover a villain with a killer Christmas wish. . .

Love is full of surprises--though few compare to realizing that you're marrying the real-life Santa. April Claus dearly loves her new husband, Nick, but adjusting to life in the North Pole is not all sugarplums and candy canes. Especially when a cantankerous elf named Giblet Hollyberry is killed--felled by a black widow spider in his stocking--shortly after publicly arguing with Nick.

Christmastown is hardly a hotbed of crime, aside from mishaps caused by too much eggnog, but April disagrees with Constable Crinkle's verdict of accidental death. As April sets out to find the culprit, it'll mean putting the future of Christmas on the line--and hoping her own name isn't on a lethal naughty list 

Tee's Review

For all those that thought Santa wasn’t real…think again. He is alive and well, living in Christmastown in a big castle with his family and his new wife April.  April and Nick, that is the present Santa’s name, have been married for three months, and she is still getting used to her role and duties as Mrs. Claus when the unthinkable happens. 

Murder… 

Someone has murdered one of Santa’s elves. Yes, there are elves in this book, it is about Santa, so you’d expect a few elves right? There are also talking reindeer, some who are still playing games, and moving talking snowmen, some hundreds of years old, because it never gets above freezing in Christmasland.

To everyone's horror, an old snowman is also murdered. How do you murder a snowman you ask? Well….use your imagination.  And who do you think Jake Frost, no not Jack, but Jake, Jack is a distant relation, the detective is thinking murdered the two? Santa himself. So April sets out on her own mission to clear her husband's name.

Mrs. Claus and The Santaland Slayings is cute, quirky, and fun. The world-building was great, I felt like I was walking through the board game Candyland on a snowy day, the description was colorful and festive, and yep cold, it is the North Pole after all. There were a lot of characters, and sometimes that seemed to slow me down, trying to figure out which elf was which with their names like Jingles, Juniper, etc… but for the most part, the story was a fast easy read. 

The mystery is well thought out, and has several twists and turns as April questions the people of Christmastown, and gets some of their darkest secrets out in the open. Yep. Even Christmastown seems to have a dark side. The characters range from grieving widows to clumsy reindeer and they all have entertaining factors to them. 

If you are looking for a Christmas book with a bit of fantasy and some murder thrown in, who would have thought you could have all three in one book, then grab your cocoa or eggnog, pull a warm fuzzy blanket around you, and open Mrs. Claus and The Santaland Slayings, it brings on the Christmas magic in a new magical murderous way.