Silver bells ring out, but in the air there's a feeling of...murder.

Pine Bluff, Oregon resembles a perfect cozy Christmas card. Sparkling Christmas trees line snowy main street. Wreaths, red ribbons, and colored lights adorn every door. Hardware store owner Dawna Carpenter is in a festive mood. She invites her elderly neighbor, Smitty, to join her and daughter April on the Christmas Light Tour, a trolley that takes guests through all the best decorated neighborhoods while they enjoy steaming mugs of hot cocoa and scrumptious treats.

But when Smitty spies one of the homeowners dead-a macabre decoration in an otherwise merry display-the cheerful ride turns somber fast. Dawna notices the ghost of the deceased woman standing next to the display, clearly angry over her recent demise. As snow blankets the valley and her newest employee is implicated in the crime, it's up to Dawna to find out who's been naughty and who's been nice-before it's lights out for her, too.

When Paula Charles isn't writing, you can find her reading and contemplating murder under the towering trees of the Pacific Northwest. She is the author of the Hometown Hardware Mystery series, as well as the Zen Goat Mysteries written as Janna Rollins, both cozy mysteries.

Paula is a member of Sisters in Crime, the national chapter, the Guppies, and the Columbia River chapter. She lives in Washington state with her extremely patient husband and a gaggle of furry and feathered creatures.