Crafts and Life

This Yuletide season, there's no time for Angie Curtis and Patrick West to linger under the mistletoe. Patrick's being needled by his mother—movie star Skye West—to set the stage for a perfect white Christmas as she brings her costar, screenwriters, and director home for the holidays. With his mother's long list of wishes, Patrick's becoming unraveled. To help, the Mainely Needlepointers offer to decorate Skye's Victorian mansion and create needlepoint pillows as gifts for the guests.
 
But not long after the celebrity celebrants invade Haven Harbor, an unscripted tragedy occurs. Then some questionable Christmas cookies make Patrick sick. Before Santa arrives at the town pier on a lobster boat, Angie and the Needlepointers need to trim down the naughty list, catch a cold-hearted killer, and wrap up the case . . .

Angie and Patrick have now been going out for a few months and it is coming up to the Festive Season, Patrick's mother (Skye) has been working away and then she drops the bombshell that she is coming to Haven Habour for Christmas, that isn't the bombshell though, the bombshell is that she is bringing a group with her and wants the mansion Christmas ready (in about 3 days!), oh and needlepoint cushions for the half dozen people. Luckily the Mainely Needlepointers come to the fore and not only agree to do the needlepoint but also to help arrange the Christmas festivities.

Angie's Gram comes through with the name of someone to do all the cooking for the crowd and her new(ish) husband arranges for a choir to come along on Christmas Eve and sing carols.  So far so good, until Angie and Patrick discover someone dead in the woods of the mansion, Angie needs to try and sort out a large needlepoint order (from a Texan who turns up day after day asking about Skye!) and then Patrick is ill.  Who is being more than a Grinch this Christmas, Angie needs to find out and quickly before someone else winds up dead.

Lea Wait has pulled out all the stops again for this, the latest in the Mainely Needlepoint series, how a series can get better than 10 out of 10 consistently I have no idea but Lea Wait manages it!