Who’s ready for the holidays? Our November/December book collection has murder mysteries, family bickering, death-defying thrills, time-traveling romance, and the Underground Railroad-- and these stories all take place during the festive season. Curl up with some cocoa and forget your to-do list for a while.
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Bed & Breakfast by Lois Battle: “Ten years of family secrets, misunderstandings, and recriminations have kept the Tatternalls apart - until Josie, a military widow suddenly alerted to mortality when one of her best friends keels over during a bridge game, impulsively invites her three grown daughters home for the holidays at her gracious South Carolina bed-and-breakfast.” (Publisher’s summary)
A Highlander for Christmas by Sandy Blair: “Boston antiques dealer Claire MacGregor is not looking forward to another solo Christmas. However, when she is fooling around with an old puzzle box, it opens and a gorgeous Scottish nobleman from the 18th century magically appears.” (Publisher’s summary)
Hercule Poirot’s Christmas by Agatha Christie: “Poirot is called to the family estate of Simeon Lee, after he is found lying in a pool of blood on Christmas Eve.” (Publisher’s summary)
The Miracle on 34th Street by Valentine Davies: Does this one need an introduction? “The lives of three people are changed by an old man who insists that he is Santa Claus.” (Publisher’s summary)
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen: “After almost fifty years as a wife and mother, Enid Lambert is ready to have some fun. Unfortunately, her husband, Alfred, is losing his sanity to Parkinson's disease, and their children have long since flown the family nest to the catastrophes of their own lives… Desperate for some pleasure to look forward to, Enid has set her heart on an elusive goal: bringing her family together for one last Christmas at home.” (Publisher’s summary)
Skipping Christmas by John Grisham: “In this hilarious look at the chaos and frenzy that have become part of our holiday tradition, a weary couple is about to discover skipping Christmas brings enormous consequences and isn't half as easy as they had imagined.” (Publisher’s summary)
A Different Kind of Christmas by Alex Haley: “A sophomore at Princeton in 1855, southerner Fletcher Randall meets a group of Quaker Friends and eventually becomes involved in the Underground Railroad.” (Publisher’s summary)
An English Murder by Cyril Hare: “Warbeck Hall is an old-fashioned English country house and the scene of equally English murders. All the classic ingredients are there: Christmas decorations, tea and cake, a faithful butler, a foreigner, snow falling and an interesting cast of characters thrown together. The murders and detective work are far from conventional though…” (Publisher’s summary)
Mistletoe Magic by Sophia James: “A paragon of virtue, Miss Lillian Davenport has an unrivaled reputation. So why has she offered to pay dangerous American, Lucas Clairmont, for a single kiss? Lucas refuses to be molded by society and often walks on the wrong side of right, but Lillian's pure goodness and pale, correct life fascinate him. He senses that beneath the manners there's a woman of rare sensuality. For Lillian, buying a kiss from Lucas has released a wildness within. Her ordered, virtuous world may never be the same again.” (Publisher’s summary)
Leaving Home by Garrison Keillor: “Revisit the beguiling comic world of Lake Wobegon. In the first collection of Lake Wobegon monologues, Keillor tells readers more about some of the people from Lake Wobegon Days and introduces some new faces.” (Publisher’s summary)
The Mind Game by Hector MacDonald: “When Ben Ashurst agrees to participate in a study of the biology of human emotions for his charismatic Oxford tutor, he can't begin to imagine what lies ahead. With a luxury resort on a beach in Kenya as the site of the experiment and his beautiful new girlfriend along for company, it seems the perfect way to spend the Christmas holidays. But paradise starts to lose its luster when, without warning, Ben finds the experiment veering from abstract scientific theory into terrifyingly real danger.” (Publisher’s summary)
Turkey Day Murder by Leslie Meier: “Amateur sleuth Lucy Stone investigates when Tinker's Cove's annual Thanksgiving festivities are interrupted by the murder of Metinnicut Indian activist Curt Nolan and uncovers a host of suspects while cooking up a holiday dinner for twelve.” (Publisher’s summary)
Winter Solstice by Rosamunde Pilcher: “Five people buffeted by life's difficulties come together at a rundown estate house in Northern Scotland during a revelatory Winter Solstice.” (Publisher’s summary)
The Old Country by Sholem Aleichem: “A thoroughly enjoyable selection of stories from the author who inspired ‘Fiddler on the Roof.’ The stories read as though told verbally, using a conversational style. It was amazing to see how completely the characters accepted the pervasive anti-semitism surrounding their shtetl existence as though it were simply inevitable, incorporating it even into their humor.” (Dallas, Goodreads review)
