Fletcher's Grove, the quaint tourist town where Emily Lane runs her Christmas-themed shop Under the Mistletoe year-round, has a murder problem. This audiobook is the second season of the series that brought Cobie Smulders back to audio, and the production has the confidence of returning to a place that worked. Ken Cuperus, Canadian Screen Award winner, writes the mystery structure with enough misdirection that reviewer imronigirl found themselves jumping across possible suspects until the resolution arrived from an unexpected direction. That is what a cozy mystery audiobook in this format should deliver: the satisfaction of not having guessed correctly until the precisely calculated moment when you were supposed to.
The scene that sets this audiobook's tone is not the murder itself but the domestic routine around it: Emily at her shop, the Christmas decorations permanent regardless of season, and Detective-Constable Sam Wilner circling her with a crush that is not entirely unrequited and a suspicion that is not entirely unfounded. Cuperus is interested in the double life Emily runs, the perfectly lovely puzzle-solver on the surface and the secret past that shapes her investigative instincts from underneath. That duality provides the series with structural depth that pure whodunit plotting alone could not sustain across multiple seasons, and the second season deploys it with more confidence than the first.
What Stands Out
The full cast that distinguishes this audiobook from a solo-narrated mystery includes Ginny & Georgia's Raymond Ablack, Anna Cathcart from To All the Boys I've Loved Before, Enrico Colantoni of Veronica Mars, and Jean Yoon from Kim's Convenience. These are not celebrity names attached purely for marketing purposes. Reviewer CJ-MO specifically notes the excellent narration and the full-cast format as what makes this audiobook worth returning to no matter the time of year. The casting achieves what full-cast audio requires: distinct voices for distinct characters, ensemble chemistry that feels rehearsed rather than assembled, and a lead performance from Smulders that carries the weight of both the comedy and the darker undercurrents running beneath it.
The Dolby Atmos production, available on Audible, earns its place in this recording. The shop scenes have a layered warmth, soft bells, the hum of a small town, the sounds of permanent Christmas, that contrast effectively with the colder outdoor sequences where the investigation moves. This is a production where the sound design participates in the storytelling rather than merely accompanying it, and the spatial audio mix reinforces the division between Emily's cozy public world and the less comfortable places her investigations inevitably take her.
What to Watch For in Mistletoe Murders 2
Reviewer Hyacinth Palmer picked this audiobook up mid-series and found it engaging enough to want to go back and start from the beginning. That is a useful data point: the mystery is followable without prior listening, but the layers of Emily's hidden past are designed to accumulate across seasons, and understanding what she is concealing and why matters more in the second season than it did in the first. New listeners will follow the whodunit structure without difficulty; they will miss some of the texture of Sam Wilner's evolving suspicion and Emily's careful navigation of his interest in her.
The three-star review from Hyacinth Palmer underscores that entry point matters less for comprehension than for investment. The series rewards listeners who have been with Emily from the start and are tracking the slow revelation of her past alongside each season's central murder investigation. The holiday setting is permanent rather than seasonal, which means the cozy atmosphere is available year-round without feeling misplaced in July or August, a genuine advantage for a series built around Christmas imagery as its central aesthetic.
The cozy mystery genre has particular requirements for its audio adaptation that this production handles unusually well. The warmth of the setting, the specificity of Fletcher's Grove as a place with its own social ecosystem, and the central puzzle of Emily Lane's double life all translate to audio through the combination of Smulders's performance and the Dolby Atmos production. Where many cozy mysteries lose atmosphere in audio because they depend on visual coziness, the sound design here creates the warmth through layered environmental audio in a way that the format can actually deliver. The shop sounds, the town sounds, the contrast between those and the outdoor investigation sequences, these are production decisions that reward the audio format specifically.
Ken Cuperus's writing background in Canadian Screen Award-winning television is visible in how Mistletoe Murders 2 is structured. The scene cuts are clean, the character voices are distinct, and the ensemble scenes have the managed simultaneity of television dialogue rather than the more sequential quality of prose-adapted audiobooks. This was written for voices and production from the beginning, and that origin is an advantage rather than a constraint.
Best Suited For
Cozy mystery listeners who appreciate full-cast audio productions with strong ensemble casting and a central character whose secrets add structural depth to the whodunit format will find this audiobook operating at a high level. Fans of the first Mistletoe Murders season should listen without hesitation. New listeners can start here and follow the mystery, but starting at the first season is worthwhile for the accumulated character investment that makes the Wilner-Lane dynamic significantly more interesting. Skip it if you prefer solo-narrated mysteries where the texture of one voice carries the entire production, since this is fundamentally an ensemble piece and its pleasures are inseparable from that format.
In Brief
- Performance: Cobie Smulders leads the full cast with the same sardonic warmth that made the first season work, and Raymond Ablack and Anna Cathcart bring distinct energy to their roles; the Dolby Atmos production gives Fletcher's Grove a genuine sonic atmosphere.
- What it covers: Amateur detective, hidden identity, small-town holiday crime
- Feel: Cozy with a sharp undercurrent
- Our call: A well-cast full-production audiobook that improves on the first season by deepening Emily Lane's secret past while maintaining the puzzle-box pleasure of its whodunit structure.
Good to Know
Do I need to have listened to the first Mistletoe Murders audiobook before starting season two?
You can follow the mystery in season two without prior listening, as reviewer Hyacinth Palmer confirms from personal experience. However, Emily Lane's hidden past, which is central to the series' deeper tension, accumulates across seasons. Starting from the first audiobook gives you the full arc of Sam Wilner's suspicion and Emily's careful double life, which significantly enriches season two.
Is the full-cast format worth seeking out specifically in this audiobook?
Yes. The cast includes Cobie Smulders, Raymond Ablack, Anna Cathcart, Enrico Colantoni, and Jean Yoon, all recognizable from television roles, and the ensemble chemistry is a genuine asset to this production. Reviewer CJ-MO specifically cites the full cast narration as what makes this audiobook worth returning to. The Dolby Atmos production available on Audible adds spatial depth that reinforces the two-tone atmosphere of the series.
How does this audiobook handle Emily's secret past, and is it resolved in season two?
Emily's hidden past is a structural thread running through both seasons without full resolution, functioning as the series' ongoing central mystery beneath each season's specific murder case. This audiobook deepens the tension around her secret without fully revealing it. Listeners who need complete closure within a single audiobook session may find that ongoing mystery frustrating; those who enjoy long-arc character reveals will find it the series' most compelling element.
