Becca Robbins sells her jams and cookies at Bailey’s Farmers’ Market, but being busy baking, canning, and selling doesn’t curtail her curiosity or prevent her from investigating a murder that occurred at the market. Her forthright personality just makes her forge ahead, regardless of possible dangers. This Christmas cozy has it all: great characters, an intricate plot, clues for the reader to follow, accurate background material about the press in the 1980‘s, tasty recipes, and a dog named Hobbit. What more could you want? This cozy makes me want to read the rest of the series. ( )

Merry Market Murder is the fifth book in the A Farmer's Market Mystery series.

Christmas is just around the corner and everyone is looking forward to decorating Main Street and Christmas Trees that will auctioned off at silent auction. The Ridgeway family has been given an exclusive contract to sell Christmas trees at Bailey's Farmers' Market this year. As they are unloading their trees, Reggie Stuckey, another tree farmer in the area, arrives and claims to also have an exclusive sell contract. The next morning Reggie is found dead, stabbed with a Christmas tree stake in the back of his truck.

When Reggie arrived the first day, Becca noticed that Billie Ridgeway was really upset to see Reggie arriving. Also Brenton Jones, one of the vendors at the market was also very upset. So Becca sets out to do her own investigation so that the murder will be solved and so that the Monson can have a successful Christmas Tree parade. Then when she starts getting tree ornaments, secretly left, she knows they have to clues pointing to the murderer.

Most of the characters from previous books are standing by to once again help Becca find the culprit. Things are progressing very nicely with her relationship with Sam her policeman/boyfriend.

Shelton does a very good job of updating the reader as to what has happened in the past and without over doing it.

Delicious sounding recipes included.

Will be watching for the next book. ( )

This series started a bit slow for me; I didn't like the protagonist right off, so her relationship with other characters felt off kilter as a result. But by the third book the author found her groove and dropped the love triangle she was playing with, the MC got more likeable, and the books got much better.

Merry Market Murder, is, of course, a Christmas themed mystery and there is plenty of Christmas to be found throughout the story: trees, ornaments, snow, and a man who looks like Santa. From the standpoint of Christmas cheer and mood, this book suffers only for having followed Duck the Halls in my reading list order. (Really, Duck the Halls should have been saved for the 23rd of Dec.)

As I mentioned above, the author was toying with a love triangle at the beginning of the series, but it's resolved itself quickly and Becca is now in the "honeymoon" phase of her relationship with the town police chief. If you prefer your cozies have some semblance of realism when it comes to police procedure, you're probably going to be aggravated by this one; Sam plays fast and loose with the rules by involving Becca in quite a bit of the investigation. I don't mind it at all simply because one gets a bit tired of all the contortions authors often put the MC through trying to find out what the police know. Cooperation is a nice change of pace on occasion.

The murder plot was, eh, so-so. While I wasn't absolutely sure who the killer was, I had a pretty good idea. It's not screaming obvious, so I think most people are still in for a good mystery; the plot ends up being delightfully twisty and a couple of old secrets are outed.

Overall, Ms. Shelton writes a good book: solid characters, a well-done plot, tight writing. She doesn't torture her readers with info dumps, or paragraph after paragraph of introspection, internal dialog, and/or plot summations. I'd happily recommend this book for lovers of cozies or light mysteries looking for a Christmas theme. Just read it before you read Duck the Halls. ( )

Competing Christmas tree farmers set the stage for a holiday themed mystery at Bailey's Farmer's Market. A year round market, the holiday wares help draw more customers to the area and when one of the farmers is found murdered, Becca decides to help investigate. The book meanders through several new characters, some old family South Carolina politics and scandals, which leads nicely to a hard to guess ending. ( )