Christmas at Cliffhanger Inn [Paperback]

Christine Collier (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 25, 2003

Mystery always follows the women of the Writer's Club but this time with holiday flair!Bill and Tara Fields are ready to celebrate the first Christmas at their Bed and Breakfast, the Cliffhanger Inn.The Writer's Club will spend a few nights and celebrate the Inn's Open House, and also watch as the strange ivory mortgage button placed so long ago in the old staircase is removed. What will they find beneath it? The owner of a Christmas tree farm, Country Evergreens, will stop by the Inn. The tree purchased at his lot has its own mystery from the past. A bizarre find beneath the pine needles around the trunk of the near perfect tree will leave the Fields questioning events surrounding this happening. Tara discovers an old journal written by someone named Rebecca in the 1940s. Has she stumbled on a murder mystery that took place over sixty years ago? A last minute business luncheon at the Inn will end in near death. Was this event a coincidence or planned to get rid of an annoying employee? A demanding, unfriendly man will spend a week at the Inn, barely leaving his room except for meals. He will leave something in the room when he signs out that completely surprises Bill and Tara.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Christine Collier lives in Pine City, New York, with her husband Kent. She's the mother of Amy, Adam and Andrew and the grandmother of three little girls, Emma, Ellie and Grace. This is the third book in her mystery series, which includes, The Writer's Club and Mystery Is Our Shadow. Her middle grade chapter book is titled Adventure On Apple Orchard Road.

Product Details

• Paperback: 82 pages
• Publisher: iUniverse (September 25, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0595296912
• ISBN-13: 978-0595296910
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.9 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,192,593 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Warm, cozy, and suspenseful, November 17, 2003

By 

Jackie Adams (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Christmas at Cliffhanger Inn (Paperback)

My nine-year-old daughter and I have enjoyed reading every book in this series together. After reading Christmas at Cliffhanger Inn, my daughter said that Ms. Collier's books are "warm and cozy and make me want to curl up in a corner of the couch under the lamp with them." I would add that the stories in this book grabbed me and made me keep reading until each mystery was solved, and the book left me with a warm feeling.

1.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely Mystifying, December 4, 2011

By 

Copperfield (Santa Fe, N.M.) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Christmas at Cliffhanger Inn (Paperback)

I have no idea how this book got published. I hate to say anything negative because it was clearly written by a very nice grandmother and would probably be quite pleasant to read to a child. However, it would be a huge mistake to let a child read this by him or herself as it is some of the worst writing I've read in a long time with only the most primitive sense of punctuation and grammar. A few examples:

1) Statement by the host of the inn on Christmas morning: "This is exactly what I wanted, every since I went to that Ducks Unlimited meeting duck decoys have interested me. Thanks honey."

2) "It was considered a very important job, as the streets needed light for the people and the horses and buggy's' to travel." (I cannot fathom actually writing the word " buggy's' "- 2 apostrophes? Was there no editor who even perused this book?)

3)"Don't look at us Art, why would we do that and how could anyone know what creamer Gina was going to use let alone get anywhere near her purse."

Sometimes the author will put a comma where it belongs as in "Mrs. Fields, I left you something in my room." However, most of the time we find sentences such as "Do you write Mr. Fleming?" There is no consistency, and again it appears that no editor even got near this book.

Beyond those problems, the book, published by something called "Mystery and Suspense Press," has absolutely no mystery or suspense. It's a series of quaint vignettes. I kept thinking the book must have been written for children because it was so incredibly tame, naive and one-dimensional. It clearly was not written for children, however, as suddenly you'll hit on a vignette wherein a diary entry suggests that a husband may or may not be trying to kill his wife or another in which a woman discovers she's pregnant with a home pregnancy test.

I finished the book for one reason only, which is that I love to read books at Christmas time in which we find fireplace fires, Christmas cookies, snowy days, egg nog, etc. The book certainly does not stint on those images. It's chocked full of them and too many Christmas books miss the boat when it comes to providing atmosphere. But what I had hoped to find was some mystery. I like Christmas mysteries. This is not a mystery. As I said before, only buy this book if your intention is to read it aloud to a child on a cozy Christmas afternoon (although you might skip the home pregnancy test).

I apologize to the writer. It's clear her intentions were the best. I imagine she is a lovely grandmother who does bake Christmas cookies and who gives her grandchildren a lovely haven. I also hate writing negative reviews, but this book was just mystifying to me.

1.0 out of 5 stars Huh?, May 19, 2009

By 

Avid Reader (Worcester, MA USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Christmas at Cliffhanger Inn (Paperback)

I'm having trouble trying to figure out what is wrong with this book. Is it a mystery? If so it's really bad. Is it written for elementary students? If so they would have flung it out the window after the first 3 pages.
It's just a 'novella' with a lot of little vignettes which a 5 year old can see coming. Amazon has a lot of nerve to charge $9.95 for this.