Hey Bookish people!
It’s the holiday season! I have been jumping full into the Christmas Spirit this year. The tree and decorations were all up the day after Thanksgiving with Christmas music playing loudly the whole time. It’s probably the chill air we’ve been finally getting here that has been putting me in the mood, but I am all for it! I only have a couple of people left on my shopping list which I am super surprised about. I hope you guys have been lucky with your lists. You can always gift people with books if you don’t have any good ideas! Who doesn’t love getting books?
I have my husband’s book picked out and he has my book all wrapped for my little family’s Christmas Eve tradition. I would tell you his book but he does get this blast out also and I don’t want the surprise to be spoiled before hand! If you’re not familiar with what I’m talking about, there is a little tradition that my husband and I started when we married 7 years ago. (We found this idea from a tradition that happens in Iceland and just fell in love with it) We open a single gift on Christmas Eve and it is only allowed to be a book. We make up cups of hot chocolate or hot tea, bundle up in comfy PJs, pile up the blankets, and tuck in for a nice long night of reading the new book we just unwrapped. It is one of my favorite evenings I get to have every year.
I hope 2023 was a good year for you all! I felt like it was a better year than what I have had from the past couple. Life always likes to throw curve balls and of course ’23 was no different, but I think as a whole it was a year that flew by more from fun than from being too busy to enjoy it. I’ve have been able to find and connect with a bunch of new authors over the past months. My reading goal of 115 books is totally happening. At the moment, I’m sitting at 108 read so far – Heck yeah!! I’m pretty stoked about hitting that big of a number. Now to think about what 2024 challenge will be.
My husband and I got a few chances to travel throughout the year to places we’ve never been to before which was a ton of fun! Found a few new hobbies and games like Hiking, Arkham Horror Card Game, Pokémon Go, and Tipsy Painting – which is just a glass of wine, a Youtube video of How to Paint This … [fill in subject], and a few art supplies I picked up from the store. While of course mixing in a bunch of reading time!
I wish a wonderful Christmas to each of you and a fantastic Holiday Season!
Chat with you all in the New Year!
Reading Theme: Deck the Hall December
I feel like I needed to stick with the traditional holiday spirit this month. My festive mood just won’t let me skip out on all of the Hallmark style stories out there. So, grab those snow books and bring out the chilly stories, it’s time for the Christmas Season readings! The choices for this month actually go all over the place from some holiday mysteries to the adorable romance stories we know and love from the holidays. Hopefully I found a lot of good ones this month and that I’m not bringing a bunch of coal to everyone’s reading list this month.
Happy Reading Everyone!
My Reading List for December 2023:
Christmas Presents By Lisa Unger
Madeline Martin has built a life for herself as the young owner of a thriving business, The Next Chapter Bookshop, despite her tragic childhood and now needing to care for her infirm father. When Harley Granger, a failed novelist turned true crime podcaster, drifts into her shop in the days before Christmas, he seems intent on digging up events that Madeline would much rather forget. She’s the only surviving victim of Evan Handy, the man who was convicted of murdering her best friend Steph, and is suspected in the disappearance of two sisters, also good friends of Madeline’s, who have been missing for nearly a decade. It’s an investigation that has obsessed her father Sheriff James Martin right up until his stroke took his faculties.
Harley Granger has a gift for seeing things that others miss. He wasn’t much of a novelist, but his work as a true crime author and podcaster has earned him fame and wealth—and some serious criticism for his various unethical practices. Still, visiting Little Valley to be closer to his dying father has caused him to look into a case that many people think is closed—and some want reopened. And he has a lot of questions about the night Stephanie Cramer was killed, Ainsley and Sam Wallace disappeared, and Madeline Martin was left for dead, bleeding out on a riverbank.
Since Evan Handy went to jail, three other young women have gone missing, most recently a young college dropout named Lolly. Five young women missing in the same area in a decade. Are they connected? Was Evan Handy innocent after all? Or was there some else there that night? Someone who is still satisfying his dark appetites?
As Christmas approaches and a blizzard bears down, Madeline and her childhood friend Badger return to a past they both hoped was dead—to find the missing Lolly and to answer questions that have haunted them both, discovering that the truth is more terrible and much closer to home than they think.
The Snowman Killer By Wendy Meadows
Sarah Garland, a retired homicide detective who’s gone through a painful divorce, seems to have found her peace at last, as a coffeeshop owner, in the sleepy (and freezing) small town of Snow Falls, Alaska. What she didn’t expect, was for her past life to catch up with her. Or, for her new life as a mystery writer to inspire a deadly killer to target her.
Yet, when the killer leaves a frightening clue-a creepy snowman, donning a leather jacket and eating a peppermint candy cane, left in front of her cabin-Sarah begins to suspect Conrad Spencer, the new detective in town, who is pursuing a murderer of his own. Soon, it becomes obvious that the sleuths would have to join forces, in order to catch the killer.
Sarah and Conrad must put their tragic pasts behind them and find out who’s after her…before the trail becomes frozen.
The Christmas Bookshop By Jenny Colgan
When the department store she works in closes for good, Carmen has perilously little cash and few options. She doesn’t want to move in with her perfect sister Sofia, in Sofia’s perfect house with her perfect children and her perfectly ordered Edinburgh life.
Frankly, Sofia doesn’t exactly want Carmen there either. Her sister has always been sarcastic and difficult. But Sofia has yet another baby on the way, a mother desperate to see her daughters get along, and a client who needs a retail assistant for his ailing bookshop, so welcoming Carmen might still have some benefits for everyone.
At Sofia’s behest, Carmen is thrown into the daily workings of old Mr. McCredie’s ancient bookshop on the streets of the old dark city. Can she use her design skills to revamp the store and bring it back to popularity in time to benefit from Christmas shopping traffic? Can she choose between bad boy literary rock star Blair and quiet Quaker student Oke? And will she heal the rift with the most important people of all: her family?
Christmas Shopaholic By Sophie Kinsella
Becky Brandon (née Bloomwood) adores Christmas. It’s always the same – Mum and Dad hosting, carols playing, Mum pretending she made the Christmas pudding, and the next-door neighbours coming round for sherry in their terrible festive jumpers.
And now it’s even easier with online bargain-shopping sites – if you spend enough you even get free delivery. Sorted!
But this year looks set to be different. Unable to resist the draw of craft beer and smashed avocado, Becky’s parents are moving to ultra-trendy Shoreditch and have asked Becky if she’ll host Christmas this year. What could possibly go wrong?
With sister Jess demanding a vegan turkey, husband Luke determined that he just wants aftershave again, and little Minnie insisting on a very specific picnic hamper – surely Becky can manage all this, as well as the surprise appearance of an old boyfriend and his pushy new girlfriend, whose motives are far from clear . . .
Will chaos ensue, or will Becky manage to bring comfort and joy to Christmas?
The Christmas Spirit By Debbie Macomber
Peter Armstrong and Hank Colfax are best friends, but their lives couldn’t be more different. Peter, the local pastor who is dedicated to his community, spending time visiting the flock, attending meetings, and, with the holiday season approaching, preparing for the Christmas service and live nativity. As a bartender, Hank serves a much different customer base at his family-owned tavern, including a handful of lonely regulars and the local biker gang.
When Peter scoffs that Hank has it easy compared to him, the two decide to switch jobs until Christmas Eve. To their surprise, the responsibilities of a bartender and a pastor are similar, but taking on the other’s work is more difficult than either Peter or Hank expected. As the two begin to see each other in a new light–and each discovers a new love to cherish–their lives are forever changed.
