Bernie and Libby Simmons, caterers extraordinaire, are hosting a televised cookie contest just in time for Christmas, but unfriendly rivalries cook up a cutthroat competition.

Over one hundred Christmas cookie recipes, plus tips on throwing the right cookie exchange party for you, to make your holiday season merry and bright. What special cookies evoke Christmastime for you? Gingerbread? Butter cookies shaped like stars? Chocolate chip cookies baked with red and green candies? All your favorite cookies and more are here! Very Merry Cookie Party contains more than 100 recipes for everything from brownies, spice cookies, and nut balls to cookie ornaments, slice-and-bake treats, and recipes for your special holiday stamps, molds, cutters, and cookie press. Learn how to throw a cookie exchange party with friends or at the office, from making invites to suggestions for choosing a worthy charitable cause to benefit during the holiday season. Your toffee-studded Oatmeal Brickle Nuggets, Chocolate Sandwich Cookies with Marshmallow-Mint Filling, or Mini-Eggnog Madeleines will disappear from the cookie table! All of your friends will want your special recipes for Macaroons with Almond Paste, Pistachio and Cranberry Biscotti, Candied-Fruit Florentines, or Father Christmas S’mores, shaped like Santa but oozing with gooey marshmallow filling. Multiply the joys of holiday baking this season. May your Christmas cookie jar overflow with good cheer!

“Fans of culinary cozies by Joanne Fluke and Diane Mott Davidson will enjoy discovering Crawford.”—Library Journal Bernie and Libby Simmons, caterers extraordinaire, are hosting a televised cookie contest just in time for Christmas, but unfriendly rivalries cook up a cutthroat competition… The feisty members of the Christmas Cookie Club Exchange are busy perfecting their recipes once again. And with the Baking for Life cookie contest on the line, the stakes are higher—and deadlier—than ever. When the odds-on favorite dies in a suspicious car accident en route to the show, Bernie and Libby start digging and are shocked to uncover a soap opera of sinister secrets and clandestine affairs. But they'll stop at nothing to get to the truth, because no holiday treat is sweeter than justice. Includes original recipes for you to try! “A chatty, cozy mystery.”—Library Journal

What a delicious assortment of Christmas cookies for kids to love - A SUPERHERO, a BEAUTY QUEEN, a CELEBRITY, an ATHLETE, - there's a cookie for everyone! This rhyming holiday story has a lesson about self-acceptance and avoiding comparisons too! It's what's on the inside that truly matters. A CHRISTMAS COOKIE EXCHANGE reveals how one fruit-filled oatmeal cookie learns not to get wrapped up in outside appearances, but to focus on one's character. Grab a mug of cocoa, and of course a cookie, and enjoy this fresh, seasonal tale that's fun to read aloud!

This guide to the Christmas cookie exchange, where everyone shows up with a few batches of homemade cookies to swap, includes more than 100 recipes, plus tips for decorating, planning, and throwing the party.

When Susie Katz, the crazy cat lady of Longely, New York, is stabbed in the back during an extravagant wedding ceremony for her two Russian blues, caterers and sisters Bernie and Libby Simmons must paw through the clues to catch a killer.