There is no better gift than the gift of reading.
More than ever, we need heartwarming and uplifting stories this year. So similar to what was done in December, visit here every Friday and view some great book recommendations to get a jumpstart on your holiday reading:
A Little Holiday Fling by Farah Heron
There are two things that Ruby Dhanji loves with her whole entire heart: Christmas and anything to do with the UK. For Ruby the holiday season means joy, generosity, and warm memories with her late mother. And now she’s on the verge of realizing the dream she and her mom always had: moving to England and opening a cozy inn. The only problem, Ruby needs some hotel experience first.
Rashid just doesn’t get all the holiday hype. But when he meets a woman dragging home a Christmas tree alone from the Winter Market, he has to offer to help–even if he soon finds Ruby adores all the things he dislikes. When Ruby discovers that Rashid’s family owns a luxury boutique hotel chain in Britain, she offers him a proposition: she’ll help him give his young nieces an amazing Christmas if he’ll facilitate an introduction to his family.
As Ruby and Rashid get closer, she realizes that the great big grump loves his large, eccentric family fiercely. And when their friendship turns to something more, she’s afraid she’s falling for someone weeks before she moves across the Atlantic and she’ll soon have to decide which dream she wants to chase. (Credit: Forever)
The Secret Christmas Library by Jenny Colgan
Mirren Sutherland stumbled into a career as an antiquarian book hunter after finding a priceless antique book in her great aunt’s attic. Now, as Christmas approaches, she’s been hired by Jamie McKinnon, the surprisingly young and handsome laird of a Highland clan whose ancestral holdings include a vast crumbling castle. Family lore suggests that the McKinnon family’s collection includes a rare book so valuable that it could save the entire estate—if they only knew where it was. Jamie needs Mirren to help him track down this treasure, which he believes is hidden in his own home.
But on the train to the Highlands, Mirren runs into rival book hunter Theo Palliser, and instantly knows that it’s not a chance meeting. She’s all too familiar with Theo’s good looks and smooth talk, and his uncanny ability to appear whenever there’s a treasure that needs locating.
Almost as soon as Mirren and Theo arrive at the castle, a deep snow blankets the Highlands, cutting off the outside world. Stuck inside, the three of them plot their search as the wind whistles outside. Mirren knows that Jamie’s grandfather, the castle’s most recent laird, had been a book collector, a hoarder, and a great lover of treasure hunts. Now they must unpuzzle his clues, discovering the secrets of the house—forming and breaking alliances in a race against time. (Credit: William Morrow Paperbacks)
Christmas Pudding and Pigeon Pie by Nancy Mitford
In Christmas Pudding, an array of colorful characters converge on the hunt-obsessed Lady Bobbin’s country house, including her rebellious daughter Philadelphia, the girl’s pompous suitor, a couple of children obsessed with newspaper death notices, and an aspiring writer whose serious first novel has been acclaimed as the funniest book of the year, to his utter dismay. In Pigeon Pie, set at the outbreak of World War II, Lady Sophia Garfield dreams of becoming a beautiful spy but manages not to notice a nest of German agents right under her nose, until the murder of her maid and kidnapping of her beloved bulldog force them on her attention, with heroic results. Delivered with a touch lighter than that of Mitford’s later masterpieces but no less entertaining, these comedies combine glamour, wit, and fiendishly absurd plots into irresistible literary confections. (Credit: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group)
Murder At The Christmas Emporium by Andreina Cordani
It’s Christmas Eve at the Emporium, a bespoke gift shop hidden in the depths of London’s winding streets, where a select few shoppers are browsing its handcrafted delights.
But when they go to leave, they find the doors are locked and it isn’t long before they realize this is no innocent mix-up. The shoppers have been trapped here by someone who knows their darkest secrets, someone will stop at nothing until they have all been unwrapped—and there is a gruesome gift waiting in Santa’s grotto . . .
For those that survive the night, it will be a Christmas to remember. (Credit: Pegasus Crime)
Golden Age Christmas Mysteries edited by Otto Penzler
Christmas has served as a fertile background for mystery fiction for a very long time, perhaps because it has the appearance of a time of peace and love while being so at odds with violence, crime, and even murder.
This delightful seasonal anthology includes holiday tales from some of the greatest Golden Age mystery authors. It offers such giants of the genre as Ellery Queen, Mary Roberts Rinehart, John D. MacDonald, and John Dickson Carr while introducing lesser-known writers such as Norvell Page, Meredith Nicholson, and Pat Frank. With chronicles that range from truly chilling to heart-warming to hilarious to puzzling, this volume highlights a variety of subjects and styles as each author brings their own approach to the most wonderful time of the year.
Featuring fourteen outstanding stories of Yuletide mystery selected and introduced by Edgar-winning anthologist Otto Penzler, Golden Age Christmas Mysteries offers hours of cozy reading, best enjoyed on a cold, snowy night, in a comfortable chair near a blazing fire. (Credit: American Mystery Classics)
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