From Goodreads:  For the people of Hulis, Missouri, the Christmas holidays are Hell.

On December 22^nd, 1975, something unthinkable happened in the small northern Midwest town of Hulis, Missouri—something so heinous that it turned the holidays into a waking nightmare.

Now, 35 years later, it’s happening all over again, and for those involved, Christmas will never be the same…

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Willow Tree Press has been extremely gracious in allowing me to read an ARC of this novel, and I must say I am in awe of M.R. Sellars.  This is a riveting read, and I highly enjoyed it, especially the many twists and turns in this “whodunit” murder mystery. 

The first section of the novel deals with events as they are happening in 1975, yet most of the novel is spent in 2010, and I thoroughly enjoyed that the novel remains in the present tense throughout both timeframes.  This allows the reader to actually become a part of the story, becoming privy to background knowledge that not all the characters in 2010 are privy to.  It also allows the reader to make pertinent connections between the past and the present as much of what happens in 2010 revolves around what happened in 1975. 

Constance and Clovis are two wonderful characters that really add to the story.  I enjoyed them very much, especially as Constance is such a strong female lead, and Sheriff Carmichael is a modern day Sherlock Holmes.  Watching FBI agent Constance unravel the mystery was a lot of fun, and I’ll admit that at times I had chills; Sellars is able to transport the reader to Hulis through his prose, and at times it felt very real; almost too real…

I also thoroughly enjoyed that this novel is a true murder mystery.  While we quickly learn what really happened to Merrie in 1975, the fact that it’s happening all over again, without the key players, creates an eerie foundation for the novel; one that I enjoyed very much.  The story itself flows very well and is extremely believable, though Sellars does throw in some supernatural aspects at the end, which caught me off guard.  As it was such a believable novel for the majority of the read, I have to admit that I struggled a bit with comprehending the ending, but in retrospect, so do Constance and Sheriff Carmichael , so I almost feel as if this were intentional on Sellar’s part. 

All in all, I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed this novel.  Yet, reader beware, this story does deal with a pedophile, which I wish I had known going into the story as I thoroughly dislike reading about things such as that.  However, while this portion of the story has strong bearings on the novel as a whole, it’s thankfully not flaunted in the face of the reader.  In other words, the pedophile’s actions aren’t explicitly written into the text, which is great, because I honestly wouldn’t have been able to read the story otherwise, and I’d have missed out on a fantastic story!  Four stars.