‘Tis the Season to Be Scary- A Halloween Cozy With Christmas Town Charm
Last Updated on September 28, 2026
If you like your fall cozy mysteries with pumpkins on the doorstep, costumes, candlelight, cake pops, small-town gossip, and just the slightest suggestion that something supernatural might be lurking in the shadows, ‘Tis the Season to Be Scary by Vicki Delany is a very easy book to settle into.
Well, mostly. Because while Rudolph, New York might look like one of the coziest fictional towns you could possibly visit, someone has once again decided that murder is an acceptable addition to the local social calendar!
‘Tis the Season to Be Scary is the ninth book in Vicki Delany’s Year-Round Christmas Mystery series. This time, however, Christmas takes something of a back seat.
Instead, Halloween has arrived in Rudolph, bringing costumes, jack-o’-lanterns, orange lights, fall food and a rather grand masked fundraising gala at the Yuletide Inn.
This was actually my first visit to Rudolph and my first time meeting Merry Wilkinson and her large circle of family, friends, neighbors, and assorted local characters. That did create one issue for me, which I’ll come back to later, but once I got everyone straight in my head, I had a lot of fun with this one.
There is a proper mystery, plenty of suspects, some very funny small-town moments, a little romance, a very large Saint Bernard, an unexpectedly tense car chase, and a ghostly figure that may or may not be quite as imaginary as Merry would like to believe.
Halloween Comes to America’s Christmas Town
The main character in this particular series of books is Merry Wilkinson, owner of Mrs. Claus’s Treasures, a Christmas decor shop in Rudolph, New York.
Christmas is a year-round business in Rudolph, but this story begins just before Halloween, which gives the setting a fun clash of holidays. Merry’s store might still be thinking Christmas, but everywhere else it’s the spookiest time of year.
Merry’s best friend Vicky Casey is also celebrating something important. She has written her first cookbook, and Merry is proudly promoting it in her store, with a launch party planned for the following evening.
Before that, however, comes the big event of the week. The Yuletide Inn is hosting a costume Halloween gala to raise money for the local hospital and schools.
It is a great setting for a murder mystery because almost everyone is disguised, people are moving between the hotel and gardens, food and drinks are everywhere, and there are far more guests than Merry can easily keep track of.
Into all this comes Cynthia Eglington. And Cynthia has history with Vicky.
A Bad Review, a Cake Pop and a Very Dead Critic
Cynthia is a food and restaurant reviewer who has recently reviewed Vicky’s new cookbook. Badly. Very badly.
The two knew one another years earlier at culinary school, where their relationship was hardly friendly, and Vicky believes Cynthia’s review is personal, which makes things awkward when Cynthia turns up at the gala.
Sure enough, the two women have an uncomfortable confrontation, which would already be enough to produce some juicy Rudolph gossip.
Unfortunately, Cynthia then eats from the dessert buffet, becomes seriously ill, and collapses in front of Merry. Despite the presence of medical staff at what is, rather conveniently, a hospital fundraiser, Cynthia dies.
It eventually becomes clear that Cynthia was poisoned with cyanide and that the poison was most likely added to one individual dessert, with one of Vicky’s cake pops becoming particularly important to the investigation. Which is obviously not the sort of publicity Vicky wanted for her first cookbook!
Merry therefore has a very personal reason to take an interest in the case. Her best friend might not seriously look like a murderer to anyone who knows her, but rumors that someone died after eating food Vicky prepared could damage both her bakery and her new career as an author.
There Are A LOT of People in Rudolph
This brings me to the one part of the book I struggled with initially. ‘Tis the Season to Be Scary is book nine, and it feels like book nine.
That is probably wonderful if you have been reading the series from the beginning because Rudolph has become a fully formed community where people have relationships and history with one another.
Coming into it cold, however, I spent the opening chapters trying to remember exactly who everybody was. It’s also available on Audible, which might be easier, though I read the book, so I don’t know for sure.
I won’t go through each character, but when a book opens with an impending gala, you can expect a few names to be thrown around. I counted 21 off the top of my head – oh, and a dog! So, for the first few chapters I felt as though I needed name badges.
That is not really a fault with the series itself. If I had read the previous eight books, many of those names would have been instantly familiar. But as a new reader, there is definitely a settling-in period.
The good news is that once that passes, the characters are distinct enough that remembering them becomes much easier.
So, Can You Work Out Who Did It?
Yes. And I mean that as a compliment because the mystery is good, there are several reasonable distractions, and I changed my mind more than once.
I certainly would not call the answer obvious from the beginning, however, there is an unavoidable problem that comes with a long-running cozy series.
We know Merry did not do it. We know Vicky did not do it. We know their respective other halves didn’t do it. Neither are Merry’s lovely parents suddenly likely to be revealed as cold-blooded killers.
And the same applies to several other familiar Rudolph residents who clearly exist as continuing members of the series.
Once you mentally cross off the other various other beloved regulars, the genuine suspect pool becomes quite a lot smaller.
That is where I began getting much closer to the answer. The solution still works. The clues are there, the motive makes sense when everything is put together, and there are enough side stories to stop the answer becoming too easy.
But it is not impossible to solve.
The Fall Setting Is A Big Selling Point
Despite the series name, this really does work as an autumn cozy. There are pumpkins, Halloween costumes, trick-or-treating, and enough seasonal baking to make reading while hungry a questionable choice.
Yet Rudolph itself remains completely obsessed with Christmas, so you get an unusual mixture of the two holidays.
It should be ridiculous, but it’s not, and as an added bonus, the book also includes recipes at the back, keeping the food element going even after the mystery has ended.
Thumbs Up For ‘Tis the Season to Be Scary
This gets a definite thumbs up from me. ‘Tis the Season to Be Scary is fun, warm, seasonal, and very comfortable in its cozy mystery identity.
Vicki Delany has created a murder serious enough to keep the plot moving but still leaves plenty of room for friendships, family, food, and amusing side stories.
For anyone who enjoys Halloween cozies or small-town mysteries, this is a very enjoyable fall read.
Having started with book nine, I would happily go back to the beginning. Not least because I now want to know exactly how Rudolph reached the point where everyone seems remarkably calm when yet another perfectly nice community event ends with a police investigation!
