Tis the season for grizzly murder! Christmas-themed thrillers are becoming increasingly prevalent it seems and this is definitely a trend I support. I love reading seasonal books and while the odd contemporary romance is enjoyable, if I can read holiday books in the genres I love then it's even better. I was very excited when I got my e-ARC of The Secret Santa because the premise sounded great. At a Christmas party, the guests have a White Elephant exchange and someone gets more than they bargained for when a gift relating to someone's dark past is unwrapped.
Sadly this book ended up being a huge disappointment. The writing style itself is pretty good. It flows well and the important characters are set up nicely. My only problem with that is that there are three POV characters and two of them are told in the third person and one is told in the first which is a bit of an odd choice.
The HUGE problem with this book is that characters are still unwrapping their presents 80% of the way through. The sinister gift from the blurb is only revealed at this point and then the ending is incredibly pedestrian following that event since there are very few pages left to deal with the fallout. I feel this would have been a much stronger story if the present opening had happened earlier and we really got a sense of tension and paranoia building between characters. Instead it all falls a bit flat which is such a shame.
Overall, I can't really recommend this book beyond a short read to kill some time around the holiday season. I would actually potentially pick up more by this author because there are some really good elements here but the plot is lacking almost entirely and that is too big an issue to overlook.
Overall Rating:
.5
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