Santa's Little Thief

A Lily Sprayberry Cozy Mystery Novella

By: Carolyn Ridder Aspenson

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

When Lily Sprayberry and her friends decided to have a cookie baking girl’s night, the last thing they expected to find was one of Santa’s helpers dead in the walk in freezer of Millie’s Café.

None of them believed Santa was real, let alone his helpers, but the little guy’s pointy ears made them second guess themselves.

Against Lily’s better judgment, the women forego calling the sheriff, who just happens to be her husband, opting instead to take matters into their own hands. When they find an ominous note lying where the pointy-eared person once did, they know they’re in over their heads.

Soon they discover the helper wasn’t helping Santa, but stealing from the local lot of gifts for Bramblett County’s kids, and they don’t think he was working alone.

With the help of an usual source, the women work to catch the other gift grabber and return the goods in time for Christmas, but can they do it without winding up in the freezer themselves?

Thief

I got this series because of the story line and I was curious, that being said there was a few disappointments for me.
1. the virtual voice was a HUGE let down for me. It lacked the lilt for expression that I enjoy with a regular narrator.
2. I found the story often difficult to follow because the virtual voice didn't change the tone from one character to the next making it difficult to know who was speaking between characters. (ie 2 different females) Sometimes I had to rewind to listen again so I didn't miss a clue/or a conversation. Both funny one liners and sarcasm was lost due to poor virtual voice not having any sense of timing, or lilt in the reading - Think of it like Alexa reading you the newspaper -
3. Nothing is worse that getting a series and Audible doesn't identify which is book it is in the series. There is nothing in the titles to identify book 1 and book 2, etc etc etc - nor does it provide the link to follow the next in the series so you don't know how many books are in the series or what the name of the next book is - I find it annoying if I buy books and have them all but don't know the order - what's the point of getting the series if you don't know the order or how many in the series?