Christmas Book Roundup!

This year I was determined to read more holiday books, and so far, I've read four! Last year I just barely finished one, so it's definitely progress.

Here are the books, and some thoughts on each:

First published in 1956, this much sought-after autobiographical recollection of Truman Capote's rural Alabama boyhood has become a modern-day classic. We are proud to be reprinting this warm and delicately illustrated edition of A Christmas Memory--"a tiny gem of a holiday story" (School Library Journal, starred review). Seven-year-old Buddy inaugurates the Christmas season by crying out to his cousin, Miss Sook Falk: "It's fruitcake weather!" Thus begins an unforgettable portrait of an odd but enduring friendship between two innocent souls--one young and one old--and the memories they share of beloved holiday rituals.

***

When I checked this out from the library, the librarian (my favorite librarian, in fact, because she once read Pride and Prejudice: A Babylit Counting Primer during an Infant Storytime my daughter attended,and I thought that was really awesome) expressed disbelief that Capote wrote a Christmas book. This led to a lively discussion about how traumatized we both were after reading In Cold Blood, and my hope that this book was no way, shape, or form like that! Thankfully, it wasn't. While short, I liked this the best of all four. Capote's reminiscing is sweet and interesting, with a bittersweet ending. 

Her captivating bestseller of loss and the healing power of love now re-issued with a stunning new jacket look. Elfrida Phipps loves her new life in the pretty Hampshire village. She has a tiny cottage, her faithful dog Horace and the friendship of the neighbouring Blundells - particularly Oscar - to ensure that her days include companionship as well as independence. But an unforeseen tragedy upsets Elfrida's tranquillity: Oscar's wife and daughter are killed in a terrible car crash and he finds himself homeless when his stepchildren claim their dead mother's inheritance.

Oscar and Elfrida take refuge in a rambling house in Scotland which becomes a magnet for various waifs and strays who converge upon it, including an unhappy teenage girl. It could be a recipe for disaster. But somehow the Christmas season weaves its magical spell and for Elfrida and Oscar, in the evening of their lives, the winter solstice brings love and solace.

***

Honestly, I expected to like this more. Elfrida is my sort of kindred spirit, and I do believe that I would like liked it a lot more if we had just stuck with her POV. Instead, we also get cousin Carrie, Carrie's niece Lucy, Oscar, and newcomer Sam. There was a bit too much, all at once. At the same time, I felt that the pacing lagged in places. I would like to read more books by Pilcher in the future, but this one was disappointing. 

Joy Candellaro once loved Christmas more than any other time of the year. Now, as the holiday approaches, she is at a crossroads in her life; recently divorced and alone, she can’t summon the old enthusiasm for celebrating. So without telling anyone, she buys a ticket and boards a plane bound for the beautiful Pacific Northwest. When an unexpected detour takes her deep into the woods of the Olympic rainforest, Joy makes a bold decision to leave her ordinary life behind--to just walk away--and thus begins an adventure unlike any she could have imagined.

In the small town of Rain Valley, six-year-old Bobby O’Shea is facing his first Christmas without a mother. Unable to handle the loss, Bobby has closed himself off from the world, talking only to his invisible best friend. His father Daniel is beside himself, desperate to help his son cope. Yet when the little boy meets Joy, these two unlikely souls form a deep and powerful bond. In helping Bobby and Daniel heal, Joy finds herself again.

But not everything is as it seems in quiet Rain Valley, and in an instant, Joy’s world is ripped apart, and her heart is broken. On a magical Christmas Eve, a night of impossible dreams and unexpected chances, Joy must find the courage to believe in a love--and a family--that can’t possibly exist, and go in search of what she wants . . . and the new life only she can find.

***

Comfort and Joy was a buddy read with my Mom. We don't usually read the same sort of books, but we try to read one holiday book together every year. Anyway, she loved this so much that, as soon as she was done, she went and borrowed The Great Alone, also by Kristin Hannah. She loved the romance aspect of Comfort and Joy and thought the whole thing was very well-written. 

I'm not a big romance fan, but I enjoyed the twist in this book, which saved it from predictability. I thought it was a really interesting concept, and made me forgive the insta-family premise, which ordinarily would make my eyes roll. I also know from Goodreads that Comfort and Joy isn't Hannah's strongest novel, so I'm looking forward to reading either The Great Alone or The Nightingale in the future. 

Semi-retired private detective Molly Murphy Sullivan is suffering from depression after a miscarriage following her adventure in San Francisco during the earthquake of 1906. She and her husband, Daniel, are invited for Christmas at a mansion on the Hudson, and they gratefully accept, expecting a peaceful and relaxing holiday season. Not long after they arrive, however, they start to feel the tension in the house’s atmosphere. Then they learn that the host couple's young daughter wandered out into the snow ten years ago and was never seen again. Molly can identify with the mother's pain at never knowing what happened to her child and wants to help, but there is so little to go on. No ransom note. No body ever found. But Molly slowly begins to suspect that the occupants of the house know more than they are letting on. Then, on Christmas Eve, there is a knock at the door and a young girl stands there. "I'm Charlotte," she says. "I've come home."

***

This is the 17th book in the Molly Murphy mystery series, but my first introduction to her world. I got caught up in the first few pages of backstory, and didn't really feel like I was missing anything. 

I loved Molly, but was instantly irritated by her husband, Daniel. He's SOOOO overbearing. I know, I know, it takes place in 1906, and apparently people thought suffragettes and single women were dangerous. But how can she stand it??? That says, Daniel pales in comparison to the other male characters featured in this book.

It has been a while since I read a cozy mystery, and this was very well done. I'm afraid I just committed myself to read another series, all remaining 16 books of it!

What holiday books have you read this season?