From the Bible’s original Christmas story in the Book of Luke through classics such as Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol and O. Henry’s Gift of the Magi to Wally Lamb’s new Wishin’ and Hopin’ the holiday story tradition lives on
From the Bible’s original Christmas story in the Book of Luke through classics such as Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol and O. Henry’s Gift of the Magi to Wally Lamb’s new Wishin’ and Hopin’ the holiday story tradition lives on from generation to generation. All told there is a rich body of Christmas literature to choose from. Book Buzz this week offers a selection of recent Christmas stories to warm your heart and usher in the Christmas spirit.
Happy reading.
The Christmas
Cookie Club
By Ann Pearlman
Every year on the first Monday of December, Marnie and her twelve closest girlfriends gather in the evening with batches of beautifully wrapped homemade cookies. Each friend has a story to tell, and they are all interwoven, just as their lives are. The story celebrates courage and joy in spite of hard times and honors the importance of women’s friendships as well as the embracing bonds of community. In another cozy Knit the Season: A Friday Night Knitting Club Novel by Kate Jacobs, Dakota Walker travels to spend the Christmas holidays with her Gran in Scotland accompanied by her father, her grandparents, and her mother’s best friend. It is a funny and moving celebration of special times with friends and family.
The Gift
By Pete Hamill
Holiday cheer is in short supply for Pete, a young sailor on leave for the holidays from the Korean War. He is back in his old Brooklyn neighborhood, his girl has left him, and his father is as distant as ever. Pete finally pays a visit to Rattigan’s the local bar where his father hangs out and there in a casual exchange between father and son Pete receives the gift that will make a lifetime of difference. Richard Paul Evans also wrote a book entitled The Gift. In his story Nathan Hurst hates Christmas. It is simply a reminder of the event that destroyed his childhood. Then a snowstorm, a canceled flight, and an unexpected meeting with a young mother and her very special son show him that Christmas is indeed the season of miracles. Nora Roberts’ book entitled The Gift offers a duo of heartwarming holiday love tales.
The Memory Quilt:
A Christmas Story for
Our Times
By T. D. Jakes
From the well-known televangelist comes this story of Lela Edwards who dreams of her perfect family Christmas. But life doesn’t always unfold in a perfect way, even for churchgoing people. Her favorite granddaughter Darcie is deciding to divorce her husband. And Darcie’s mother is upset that her own time-honored tradition of making a quilt to celebrate each family wedding is apparently going awry. Lela’s Bible study group focuses on the Virgin Mary and as the season progresses the Bible study offers important lessons. For another quilt story look for The Christmas Quilt, an Elm Creek Quilts Novel (#8) by Jennifer Chiaverinni.
Miracle on I-40
By Curtiss Ann Matlock
Lacey Bryant, the ever-hopeful waitress at Gerald’s Truckstop in Albuquerque, is far from her home and family in North Carolina. Eleven years ago Lacey, pregnant and unmarried, ran away from her angry father. Now she longs to go home again. Trucker Barry Cooper wants no part of traveling across country with two children but he has promised to help out a friend so he loads Lacey and her brood into his eighteen wheeler and heads on down Interstate 40. But it turns out to be Lacey who brings Cooper along with her family on a journey of the heart.
The Perfect Christmas
By Debbie Macomber
Cassie Beaumont, tired of the dating game turns to a professional matchmaker who requires her to complete three tasks before he will allow her to meet her perfect match. The tasks are all about Christmas. Despite a number of comical mishaps Cassie finishes the tasks and goes to meet her match but just like the perfect Christmas gift, he turns out to be a wonderful surprise!
Macomber also wrote A Cedar Cove Christmas and Where Angels Go. For more cozy Christmases try A Covington Christmas by Joan Medlicott or A Redbird Christmas by the gifted storyteller Fanny Flagg.
Plum Pudding Murder:
A Hannah Swensen
Mystery
By Joanne Fluke
The busy Christmas season provides the backdrop for this sprightly 12th Hannah Swenson holiday mystery. When Hannah, the proprietor of the Cookie Jar in Lake Eden, Minnesota, stops by the Crazy Elf Christmas Tree Lot one night she discovers the proprietor dead as a doornail inside Elf Headquarters. With the support of various friends and family Hannah investigates and survives a hair-raising confrontation with the killer to present an elegant Christmas Eve banquet. (Tempting recipes included). For other holiday murder and mayhem look for Santa Cruise: a Holiday Mystery at Sea by Mary Higgins Clark, Kissing Christmas Goodbye: an Agatha Raisin Mystery by M.C. Beaton, A Christmas Guest by Anne Perry or The Last Noel by Heather Graham.
Silver Bells
By Fern Michaels
The nuanced characters in this historical romance sparkle with the author’s wicked wit. It is the second in her Georgian-era Duchess series. There is also Silver Bells in which Fern Michaels headlines a quartet of established authors of the genre including Judy Duarte, JoAnn Ross and Mary Burton. There are stories of childhood sweethearts reuniting, a novelist stranded in a blizzard who meets a hunky hotelier, and a five-year-old daughter who is a determined matchmaker. Each short story contains a full-fledged romance with a happy ending. For even more steamy holiday romance try An Affair before Christmas by Eloisa James.
‘Tis the Season
By Lorna Landvik
This is the tale for readers who love snark. The boozy rampages of Caro, the gorgeous heiress celebuditz have made her notorious. Just in time for Christmas a trashy tabloid picks up a catty missive Caro tossed and prints it for the world to see. The ensuing firestorm of negative publicity and hate mail convinces Caro to give sobriety a shot.
The Shepherd, the Angel, and Walter, the Christmas Miracle Dog
By Dave Barry
The Pulitzer Prize-winning humorist spins a nostalgic tale about a boy and his dog on Christmas Eve, 1960. Junior high schooler Doug Barnes is playing a shepherd in the Christmas pageant at the bat-infested Episcopal Church. When the Barnes family dog dies on Christmas Eve, Doug and his father end up adopting a shelter dog, Walter, a charmer who manages to wreck the pageant. Along the same lines look for Christopher Moore’s heartwarming tale of Christmas terror in The Stupidest Angel.
Wishin’ and Hopin’
By Wally Lamb
It’s 1964 and ten-year-old Felix is doing his best to navigate fifth grade. With a new cast of endearing characters, the author takes his readers from the Funicello family’s bus-station counter into the halls of St. Aloysius Parochial School. But schoolwork moves to the back burner this holiday season with the sudden arrival of substitute teacher Madame Frechette, straight from Quebec. While Felix learns the meaning of French kissing, cultural misunderstanding, and tableaux vivants, the wise and witty story barrels toward one outrageous Christmas.
• Carolyn Larson, head librarian at Lihu‘e Public Library, brings you the buzz on new, popular and good books available at your neighborhood library. Book annotations are culled from online publishers’ descriptions and published reviews.
