Book Review: Christmas on Union Street

by Kathleen Cranidge
292 pages • ISBN 978-1633634086

It’s a week before Christmas in Burlington, Vermont during an epic snowstorm. Ali, criminology student and amateur sleuth, running from a romance, wants to avoid the holidays. Due to low vacancy, she rents the attic bedroom at Gina’s, where she’s plunged into an old-fashioned Christmas.

Besides the mix of quirky residents, there’s a mysteriously preserved bedroom below hers that belonged to Nathalie, who fell to her death the year before. As strange events unfold, Ali questions if Nathalie really fell, jumped, or was she pushed?

Ali treks between Gina’s and the diner where she’s picked up shifts waiting tables. Everyone she meets seems to have a secret. And curiously, everyone links to Nathalie — even Joe, the cook at the diner. As her suspect list grows, Ali finds herself falling for Joe — but what’s his secret?

Meanwhile, Ali must find a guest for Gina’s Christmas Eve dinner. As tradition goes, everyone invites a stranger or someone who has nowhere to go that evening. There’s one person left to ask — the last person who saw Nathalie alive…