ARC Review--Miss Frost Solves a Cold Case by Kristen Painter

Welcome to Nocturne Falls, the town that celebrates Halloween 365 days a year.

Jayne Frost is a lot of things. Winter elf, Jack Frost’s daughter, Santa Claus’s niece, heir to the Winter Throne and now…private investigator. Sort of.

Needing someone he can trust, her father sends her undercover to Nocturne Falls to find out why employees at the Santa’s Workshop toy store are going missing.

Doing that requires getting to know the town, which leads to interesting encounters with a sexy vampire, an old flame, and an elevator that’s strictly off-limits. The more Jayne finds out, the more questions she has, but the answers lead her deeper into danger.

Will her magic save her? Or will she come up cold?

I received this eARC from the author in exchange for an honest review. I was in no way compensated for this review.

Prepare to return to Nocturne Falls in an entirely new way! This is the first full length novel of the series and Jayne Frost, a new heroine is our leader at the helm in Miss Frost Solves a Cold Case. I quite enjoyed the new cast of characters to this already beloved world! And of course, seeing a few familiar faces was an added pleasure as well!

Jayne Frost is the daughter of Jack Frost, and you’ll never believe who her Uncle is! Think round and jolly! *wink, wink* Life at the North Pole has been a little dull lately, so her father decides to give her a new task. Down in the states, are a set of toy stores run by elves. These are pretty much the hot spots for Christmas intel and such, to figure out what toys are hot and not. And this particular store, located in Nocturne Falls has been missing its employees lately. As in they are literally going missing over the past two years. So after a series of calls are made, Jayne is given a new identity—for Jayne is a princess and her father is the Winter King—and is sent to do some mystery solving.

It was quite fun to return to Nocturne Falls in this way. Jayne is already well acquainted with magic and such, but supernaturals are a whole new bag. The toy store where she works definitely has that Christmas kind of magic and the few employees who are working there all seem to enjoy it. She’s going to have to do some heavy investigating to gather any information for her father.

While getting adjusted to her new environment, Jayne meets a vampire named Grayson, who’s quite the charmer and naturally you start to see some sparks flying. If that wasn’t enough, she also learns her ex-boyfriend from college is also here working as a fireman. She and Cooper ended on bad terms, when he dumped her with little to no reason. Though, since she’s wearing a disguise, Cooper doesn’t know she’s Jayne, she uses a different name as well. And she starts to see a different part of Cooper that doesn’t mesh with the guy she used to know.

This was quite a fun mystery to read as well! Though I will say there were a few more down time moments than I expected; dates with Grayson, a date with Cooper. It was hard to tell which guy Jayne was falling for; the mysterious and romantic vampire, or the summer elf she used to know and love.

There’s quite a few secrets to this mystery as well. Though I found it a bit harder to “investigate” along with Jayne. I pretty much didn’t have the whodunit pegged down at all. I was maybe a wee bit correct, but it remains to be seen if there was any accuracy in my guess, for we only catch the bad guy(s), we don’t get see convictions or anything like that.

Jayne was a fun character to read about! She’s already well versed in the magical world, in a sense, but as I said other supernaturals outside the elven community are a new breed to her in a way. Her enjoyment of the town that celebrates Halloween 365 days a year, was fun to see. And like all the Nocturne Falls books, we do get to see some sweet romantic moments between Jayne and her supernatural fella!!

I hope that this is not the last of Jayne’s adventures or mysteries in Nocturne Falls because I quite enjoyed her story in this one! The only minor issues I had were a bit too much downtime moments and not enough buildup into the mystery itself. There was plenty of secrets and clues laid out, but I had a hard time trying to piece it all together and the suspect list was a little short as well, with little to go on. But to me, these were minor things because the story-telling was still phenomenal and the cast of characters were as enjoyable as every Nocturne Falls novella has been! I am definitely hoping for more in this series because it’s just too good! Each and every read has been a delight and I’m not ready to say goodbye to these characters or world yet!

Overall Rating 4/5 stars