A thrilling and fast paced read, really enjoyed it and it keeps you guessing. I didn't read this during actual party season but it would be very fitting for then given that the murders are happening at Christmas parties.

This is the perfect festive mystery.

I loved the fast paced 'whydunnit' and while this was a quick read with not too much meat on it's bones it was throughly enjoyable

This is a fast paced thrilling read that turns the holiday/party season on its head. Quick and easy to read, this is a book that asks questions. The characters are great, the story well written, a page-turner for sure.

There is mystery, intrigue, thrills and more. It is a book you can read in one sitting easily. A great book, a great story and a great read.

Thank you NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book.

This was a very quick read - a good premise for a story and on the whole well written. It could have been more fleshed out with slightly meatier characters. There wasn’t a huge amount of suspense as the novel was written partly from the perspective of the murderer & all the elements tied together very neatly. Generally enjoyable though.

This had me gripped from the start. Not as much of a “whodunnit” as that becomes clear quite quickly, but a why, how many more, can the detectives catch her in time.

Some great rounded characters in there, good plot & well written. A solid 4-5 star read.

I absolutely loved this festive crime novel. I whizzed through it in a couple of days! Great plot, believable characters and multiple perspectives which I always enjoy. I'll definitely read more by this author!

I have a weakness for Christmas-themed novels, and I love Holliday's books, so this was bound to be my choice for a little seasonal mayhem. A sequel of sorts to her The Deaths of December, The Party Season picks up the stories of Detectives Eddie Carmine and Becky Greene.

Men are being killed at Christmas parties in the town of Woodham. Among the jolly music, holly - and the mistletoe - stalks a glamorous young woman in a party dress and heels who'll decide whether those men are naughty or nice... and act accordingly.

Carmine and Green are in a race against time to track her down before Christmas is ruined for the partygoers of Woodham.

I loved the contrasts in this book. There's slightly tawdry Christmasiness of everything (signalled by the inflatable snowman smuggled into Eddie's office early on), the debates about songs and films, the vendor selling dodgy Christmas trees from the middle of a roundabout on the by-pass. All excellent. I won't for a minute hear a criticism that all this vulgarity demeans Christmas - it has always been a raucous, roistering feast and I love to see that.

But there's another side, too. There's pathos here. Becky's mum turns up unexpectedly in a care home, near the end of her life. Becky's attempt to reintegrate the woman who abandoned her into her, before she dies, adds a real sense of coming loss and deepens the character, complicating what might otherwise be a full-on will they, won't they with Eddie (I have hopes they will, so let there be more books in this series!) The killer, too, it turns out, has suffered tragedies which are as one would expect a key part of what's driving events. But they take a while to expose so it would be spoilery to give too much detail. Indeed, unravelling that detail is what Carmine and Green are at through most of the story.

In a slickly written, page turner of a novel, Holliday introduces other themes too: a stalkery, unpleasant boyfriend, the stresses of office life (only magnified by the FOMO of Christmas parties and jubilations), a hint of a mystery from Eddie's past (I loved that Becky accepts there are things he won't reveal - these are partners who give each other some space) and a real injustice at the heart of things.

All in all this is entertaining, seasonal and fun, one of those books where you can't necessarily believe what you think you see. And it gives a hint of more to come, I have a sense the Holliday isn't finished with Carmine and Green yet...

The Party Season by SJI Holliday
Narrated by Imogen Church; Simon Mattacks was a brilliant audiobook and especially a great read or audiobook for this time of the year......It was the most gripping and twisty Christmas detective thriller for 2023 and once I started to listen to it, it was hard to stop the audiobook. It even went shopping with me!!!! Yes I know - but I was getting fed up with Christmas music in the shops lol. The Party Season is the second book in the Detectives Carmine & Greene series and I didn't even realise it until I was half way through the book - but don't let that put you off.........

Its December and Christmas party season is in full swing, Alcohol, rich food, mistletoe and Christmas crackers abound and especially as It's the dressing up season when the sparkling dresses etc and the glitter have come out.
A beautiful woman is putting on her sequin party dress ready to go out. She looks no different to any other woman who is going out, but she taking men back their hotel rooms to murder.

DI Eddy Carmine and DS Becky Greene are called to the scene and start the investigation.

They need to act quick before the killer kills again......

But the clock is ticking and Christmas is getting closer.......

Brilliant audiobook/book from start ti finish. I loved it

Big thank you to NetGalley and especially to Hodder and Stoughton for the much appreciated arc in return for an honest review.

This is a really good Christmas police thriller and the main characters are immediately likeable and have a huge amount of personality.

Focusing on the deaths of men at various Christmas parties the possibility of a serial killer being responsible sparks an investigation.

Great setting, realistic portrayal of the detectives including their own stories and backgrounds makes for great reading. The reveal of the serial killer and the reasons why they have committed the crimes was not a difficult one to guess but well written and engaging.

Thanks to Netgalley, the publisher and the author for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

Christmas is a great time for crime novels and SJ Holiday gives us a wonderful example of the genre. Entertaining with great relationships between the cops and a plotline that shows that murder is never the easy answer...

Really enjoyed this book, I wish I had known before I started that there was one before this as I would have read that first. I am a big fan of books with a Christmas setting at this time of year, Kept me up as I couldn't put it down! Thoroughly recommend thank you.

this is the follow up to another novel but it can be read as a stand-alone. A fast paced and gripping thriller, a closed circle mystery.
I enjoyed it and it kept me guessing.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

A Christmas crime thriller that is actually the second book in a series. The first book was written 6 years ago, and funnily enough, there were a million references to book 1 and what happened 6 years ago, so I wish I had known it was part of a series as I would recommend reading it first before delving into this one. Especially because this book did not wrap up everything entirely (one being something that happened 6 years ago), so I'm expecting a book 3. There are a lot of characters to get to know. It flowed well and it was an enjoyable read, but it didn't try to hide anything. I knew who The Party Girl was pretty early on. It was lacking some mystery/thriller elements for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for this eARC.

The Party Season is the sequel to a book which I have not read. I did not know that when I first started reading it but it did not matter as I had no problem with reading this as a stand alone story.
I found this to be a fast paced page turner with none of the normal big twists that I would expect but it was still very engaging and enjoyable.

Thank you to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for my ARC.

When I requested this book I didn't realise it was a sequel to Deaths of December so I was delighted when I realised we were back with the characters from that book - I always hoped there would be a follow up! This novel follows the detectives dealing with the potential changes to their department when a call comes in about a suspicious death in a hotel. We then follow the detectives as they investigate, the glamour girl who is meeting up with random men in hotels, and a man whose girlfriend is very cagey about her life outside of work. I loved this novel, it had me hooked from the start and I read it all in just two sittings as I just didn't want to put it down! The thing I loved most was being back with Eddie and Becky, and I'm already keeping everything crossed that they appear in another book in the not too distant future! I loved this mystery thriller and I highly recommend it!

We all look forward to party season, don't we? But the last thing we expect is for there to be a murderer out on the prowl!

Christmas is fast approaching and, just when police detectives would like to have a little time off, someone seems to be going around hotels bumping men off. DI Eddie Carmine and DS Beckie Greene, along with the rest of the team, want to get this on wrapped up quickly - but can the really work it out?

Well, this is a cracking read! There's such a lot going on, various different threads all twisting together and keeping the doubts swirling in the reader's mind. I thought I knew what was going on - I was wrong but it had me completely enthralled all the way through. A stunning read, beautifully written and so well planned out. Very exciting all the way through and one I heartily recommend and which merits all five glowing stars.

My thanks to the publisher for my copy via NetGalley; this is - as always - my honest, original and unbiased review.

Way back in the dim and distant past (2017) I read a book by this author which featured two detectives (The Deaths of December). I said in my review at the time that the way it was written looked like a series opener. Well, it has taken a fair few years but we finally have a followup book staring DI Eddie Carmine and DS Becky Greene. Not that it is billed as such but, if you know, you know!
We start in a hotel, at a works Christmas do. A stunning young woman is approached by a man at the bar. He's a bit worst for wear and we all know how that can affect certain men. He starts to chat her up, not knowing that it will be one of the last conversations he will have...
Enter our detective duo to investigate. Sadly though, they have only just started when, in a different hotel, the same woman is being chatted up by a different man...
My main issue with this book was that there was no mystery to be found as it was blatantly obvious from the word go who the glamour girl was. Unknown for a while was the why, but to me there was no oompf, which I think is necessary for a thriller! Despite that, it was a decent enough read all the way through nearly to the end when there was a scene that really just didn't work for me at all. Shame, but I do think that maybe the author could have got to where she wanted to go a slightly different way that, for me, would have been much more credible. That said, ignoring how we got there, the ending did work, just didn't quite leave me as satisfied as I could have been.
Other than that I did enjoy reconnecting with the characters. I like the way they work together and the banter between the two. The story itself was mostly well plotted and, apart from the aforementioned niggles, mostly well executed. There was no superfluous waffle or padding so it did get on with itself very well.
So yeah, mixed emotions with this one... My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

Absolutely devoured this in one sitting. A gritty police procedural with plenty of gallows humour. I now need to go back and read the first instalment. More please.

The Party Season is SJI Holliday’s latest crime thriller and whilst I didn’t realise it features the same detectives from her previous book The Deaths of December, this book can absolutely be read as a standalone.

The Party Season is about a female serial killer who is murdering men at their Christmas Office parties held at various hotels around the city. With no apparent link to the victims and without any leads, the police are struggling to stop this femme fatale before she strikes again.

I haven’t read The Deaths of December so I wasn’t familiar with the two police detectives on the case, but the author gives the reader enough backstory and references to their previous case that you don’t feel you are missing anything, with the exception of actually reading the first book, which I have now downloaded.

The Party Season is told through multiple characters points of view which kept me interested throughout. I’m not a particularly festive person and would not normally read a Christmassy book, but as this one features lots of murders, a female serial killer and some brilliant characters I made an exception.

“Yule” be mad to miss this as it’s currently priced at 99p.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

This is a gripping, action filled story, which is gripping from start to finish. Cleverly written with many twists, turns and dead alleys. I read it all in one sitting and this is definitely in my top ten of 2023.