The Mousse Wonderful Time of Year

In addition to a clever, keep-the-reader-guessing plot, the author infuses her tale with humor, most notably near the end with a series of mishaps that had this reader laughing out loud. The characters stand out as individuals, with many humorously portrayed.

Gemma Rose won’t be spending Christmas with her boyfriend this year, but she has plenty to keep her busy. Besides working in her Little Stables Tearoom and Christmas shopping, she is also helping her mother clean, decorate, and prepare the food for their traditional Christmas celebration.

As if that is not enough, Gemma is also catering a party for under privileged children at the estate of Lord Hugh Morecombe. During the party it started snowing and then Gemma discovers the body of Ned Morecombe. Following the party and clean-up, Gemma and the “old biddies” find that due to the snow storm, they cannot leave the estate, nor can the police get to them.

Who would want to kill Ned? Why was he killed? Who stood to gain from his death? Could his death have been an accident? Can Gemma and the Old Biddies unravel the mystery?

H.Y. Hanna has written another winner with this Gemma Rose tale. She knows how to keep the readers on the edge of their chairs, intent on what the next paragraph will reveal!

I love everything this author writes. Every series is a wonderful escape to an enchanting part of the world. Her stories have a depth of character and are full of entertainment and challenge your inner sleuth. If you have not discovered H.Y. Hanna’s books you are missing out on some fantastic work.

The Mousse Wonderful Time of the Year earns 5+/5 Mince Pies…Proper English Fun!

H.Y. Hanna thrilled me once again with this tenth book…the perfect holiday cozy! This well-written drama puts a spotlight on “Me, too” issues, and fortunately karma steps up as judge, jury, and executioner! It starts with Gemma and an awkward chance encounter with a handsome stranger. Later Gemma‘s mother introduces her to Annabel Floyd, daughter of Sir Hugh Morecombe, and gets Gemma to agree to last minute catering for Annabel’s Sinterklaas Foundation Christmas party for underprivileged children at her family’s estate. However, during the event, Gemma is shocked to discover the stranger is the long-lost son of Sir Hugh Morecombe, Ned, who left decades ago. His return is met more with anger than tears of joy since it means a rewriting of Sir Hugh’s will. Cleaning up is interrupted by a massive storm stranding Gemma in the company of some very angry relatives, but the dead body in the library was not without its karmic influences. Gemma starts informally questioning everyone gathering clues until the police can arrive. She is surprised at the discovery of Ned’s questionable past and other family secrets that mean everyone has a motive bouncing from revenge to family disfunction to just plain greed made worse by the animosity from the detective-in-charge. If murder isn’t enough, there’s the Christmas lunch with the Rose family and some American cousins as guests that is well-worth rereading. The final solution was briefly on my radar, but well-devised misdirection sent me off in several directions enjoying realistic gathering of clues, spying, and entertaining “sticky” situations with the “Four Biddies.” In the end she reveals the solution in her best Miss Marple manner. Family is always prominent in the cozy genre, and Hsin-yi has created a marvelous group that lifts, inspires, and challenges. The proper English Christmas lunch with Gemma’s family, inebriated Uncle Ronnie, and what I saw as nicely depicted American cousins was delightful fun plagued with uninvited guests, accidents, and a stand-off with Muesli.

Bonus! As with most people, I matured finding some childhood “yucks” to be “yummy,” like my mother’s own version of mincemeat pie. H.Y. Hanna included a proper Christmas Mince Pie recipe in her book with directions for homemade mincemeat flavored with your favorite brandy and offering two pie crust recipe choices: Traditional Shortcrust Pastry and an Easy-Peasy Pie Crust. Enjoy the Chapter 20 scene with Gemma and her mother making “…a recipe your grandmother used to make…” Either way you are in for a proper Christmas treat worthy of being a family tradition!

Updated 1/21/20
I always challenge readers to become listeners having myself become a fan of audiobooks. I love being read to; it’s relaxing and often frees me up to better multitask those boring household chores. I am mesmerized by narrators who go beyond a traditional reading performance to include accents and dialects, age and gender tones, squeaks and squeals, and a wide range of emotions. That’s why I absolutely love Pearl Hewitt who is the resident narrator in the world of H.Y. Hanna’s work. Pearl Hewitt is my favorite narrator and here she has used her voice artistry to greatly enrich my enjoyment with a delightful tone in her voice and performing well the emotions and different personalities. She manages well the challenge of performing several British accents and dialects, a group of delightful Americans, more than a hand full of male characters, and Muesli’s “Meow.” I so enjoyed the emotions she performed throughout all the chaos, breaking and entering with the “Four Biddies,” and the “everything goes wrong” Christmas lunch. Her inebriated Uncle Ronny is my favorite! The whole experience was very entertaining! The one item missing in the audio version is the recipe for a proper Christmas Mince Pie…so pick up the print or eBook to make sure you have this special holiday treat!

I received a free copy from the author and voluntarily reviewed it.

The Mousse Wonderful Time of Year is the 10th book in the Oxford Tearoom Mysteries series. It’s a fun Christmas cozy mystery. The book has a slightly different feel than most books in this series, but it also has all the things I’ve grown to expect from this series from the mystery, to the funny scenes, The Old Biddies, Gemma’s mom, Muesli and more. And the main character Gemma who ofcourse gets dragged into another mystery.

The Mousse Wonderful Time of Year is set around Christmas. The whole book takes place over the course of only a few days, starting a few days before Christmas and ending on Christmas day. I liked the Christmas vibe this whole book. While there is a solid mystery, there also was a lot of attention to the Christmas festivities, traditions and food. I liked how this book gave a good feel what a British Christmas is like. I think this is the first Christmas novel set in the UK that I read, so it was really interesting to learn about British Christmas traditions and foods, things like mince pies, watching the queen and crackers. I liked getting a feel for what a British Christmas is like.

The other big part of the book was ofcourse the mystery. I thought the book started off with a bit of a forced set-up, it’s obvious all the main characters have to be in the same location at a certain point and it felt a tad forced at times. With coincidences and certain events conspiring to get everyone at the same place. And Devlin goes out of town for Christmas so he won’t be there (and can’t help Gemma with the mystery). A sudden snowstorm and doing the dishes makes sure there is no way to leave and then while they’re snowed in at the same house while a murder takes place.

Once the murder has started things improved a lot. I liked the locked room type of mystery, with it begin clear the murderer probably was on of the characters who had been snowed in. I also liked that they don’t stay stranded at the house for the whole mystery. The mystery felt a bit shorter or like it developed quicker than most of the books in the series, but maybe that’s just me or because the Christmas festivities also took up a big part of the story. There were some interesting clues, red herrings and plenty of suspects. It was fun to see how Gemma pieced everything together. I managed to guess the murderer correctly, but guessed the motive wrong, so I liked that revelation at the end.

This series has a fun cast of characters. I like reading about Gemma, how she gets involved in another murder mystery and how she also wants to think the best of characters. She does jump to conclusions at times, but I also like how she can be open minded and looks at the mystery from all sides. There are some fun scenes with her mother, Muesli and the Old Biddies as well. Although Muesli again got used as a plot device a few times to get Gemma to go to a certain place. I had fun reading the Christmas day scenes, while it might be a bit too much, it did feel realistic and funny with the way how the holidays not always go smoothly and everything that can go wrong goes wrong.

Due to certain events there was very little of Devlin and Gemma together in this book. There also isn’t as much about the tearoom as usual, but with the Christmas focus and the tearoom being closed that made sense and I think it worked here. I didn’t really care about the new characters the mystery circled around, but that’s probably because most are suspects and Gemma doesn’t really get close to them. It was interesting to see all the family dynamics and how they all had their own motives and almost everyone had something to hide.

To summarize: This was a fun Christmas themed cozy mystery read. I like how both the mystery and Christmas festivities take up a large part of the story. I thought it was fun and interesting to read about a traditional British Christmas and what traditions and foods play a role. The mystery also got plenty of attention, although it did feel like things developed a bit quicker than normally. I managed to guess the murderer right, but not the motive. I liked following Gemma along as she and the Old Biddies try to figure out what happened. There are some funny scenes as well and Muesli also makes some appearances. If you’re looking for a fun Christmas themed cozy mystery I would definitely recommend this one.