If you have a taste for gentle, simple tales of holiday romance, then The Mistletoe Mystery: A Maid Novella by Nita Prose and narrated by Lauren Ambrose may be a good audiobook to give or receive, or a mediocre one. Book 3 of the Molly the Maid series, this unabridged audiobook is a short 2 hour and 38 minutes listen. Akin to a Hallmark movie, Prose offers listeners a quick bite of candy-cane content to cast a glow of holiday cheer on a sometimes-miserable season. In truth, your enjoyment of her work will likely be proportional to your appetite for featherweight holiday romances where nothing really goes awry.
In The Mistletoe Mystery, Molly the Maid and her lover Juan Manuel set out to have the most note-perfectly festive Christmas season of their lives whilst working as staff at the Regency Grand Hotel. The story is mostly devoid of high stakes, save for the ponderings of Molly’s heart, as she is tasked to solve the greatest mysteries of all: What is the true meaning of Christmas, and what is true love?
I guess I am something of a scrooge for finding The Mistletoe Mystery a little too sweet and lightweight, because maybe that’s all it’s meant to be. A lot of people would enjoy listening to it as a fireside fun read or as naptime escapism. This listener did not.
Previous readers make note of the main character’s neurodivergence, yet there was little atypical or unique from this extremely basic stocking-stuffer tale of romantic insecurities. In previous iterations, Juan was an undocumented immigrant, and in this volume Molly fears his betrayal. Perhaps, for many, the real meaning of Christmas is worrying about if your lover loves you.
There are other mysteries afoot, such as who gave who what at a Secret Santa. If you are seeking saccharine mysteries as light as these for your holidays, then go for it. But if you want a little more depth in your holiday romances, this audiobook might feel a bit more like a lump of coal.
(2024 Random House Audio)
