It is December 1884, and we have a murder to solve.
First, a house: a brand-new country estate, with all the latest technological innovations – electric light-bulbs, running water, dumb-waiters, hydraulic lifts.
Second, a family: celebrated inventor Sir Russell Morgan, his grown-up children, his elegant new wife.
Next, their guests: the great and the good (well, the rich), dressed in all their finery, eager to celebrate Christmas at Clifftop House.
And finally: a body – for what festive mystery would be complete without one? Here lies one of the servants, laid out beneath the Christmas-tree, his hands covered in burns.
The police dismiss his death as an accident, but our heroine, Millie – kitchenmaid and keen reader of sensation novels – is not so sure.
Christmas Day is fast approaching. Can we solve the mystery of Clifftop House before another guest meets an untimely end?
The Christmas Tree Murders by Katie Lumsden is published on 5 November, 2026.
Katie’s written us a feature about the house that inspired this book, Cragside in Northumberland.
For more of this year’s new historical fiction, have a look at Historia’s list of over 210 books coming out in 2026.
