Cozy up with these four Christmas novels
'Tis the season for writers to pen holiday tales. Paste BN looks at four little Christmas novels - mysteries, romances and period tales. Oh, and Ebenezer Scrooge is back!
The Further Adventures of Ebenezer Scrooge
By Charlie Lovett
Viking, 106 pp.
***1/2 stars out of four
Before you say “Bah-Humbug!” to a sequel to Charles Dickens’ 1843 Christmas classic, give Charlie Lovett (The Bookman’s Tale) a chance. I have great affection for A Christmas Carol and old Ebenezer Scrooge (Alastair Sim, please!), but was thoroughly charmed by Lovett’s clever, merry, and, yes, convincingly Dickensian reimagining of this Victorian tale. “Scrooge was alive, to begin with,” the book opens. Not only is Scrooge alive – he now celebrates Christmas year-round, even in summer, annoying just about everybody. Jacob Marley, meanwhile, is still rattling around as an unhappy ghost… and Scrooge's nephew Freddie and former clerk (now partner) Bob Cratchit have their own holiday issues. So Scrooge summons some familiar spirits for help. The Further Adventures of Ebenezer Scrooge will help you keep Christmas well, all over again.
- Jocelyn McClurg
Dashing Through the Snow
By Debbie Macomber
Ballantine, 224 pp.
*** stars
Some of the best holiday gifts are the ones that you didn’t know you wanted. The same goes with books, and Debbie Macomber’s latest Christmas romance is an unexpected present. The author takes one of the most frustrating aspects of the holidays - traveling - and crafts a sweet, if at times silly, romantic take on the ‘80s film Trains, Planes and Automobiles. Grad student Ashley Davison is desperate to get home to Seattle from San Francisco to spend Christmas with her mother. Former army intelligence officer Dash Sutherland has a job interview in Seattle he can’t miss. After a series of mix-ups, the two strangers find themselves sharing the last rental car at the airport. Macomber balances what could be a cloyingly sweet romance with an almost slapstick subplot of mistaken identity. It’s so funny that at times the romance takes a back seat, but just temporarily. Dashing Through the Snow is a trip you’ll want to take.
- Mary Cadden
Away in a Manger: A Molly Murphy Mystery
By Rhys Bowen
Minotaur, 247 pp.
*** stars
Molly Murphy, the plucky star of Rhys Bowen’s mystery series about an Irish immigrant turned private eye in early 1900s New York, likes to fight for the underdog. And that makes her a worthy and likable heroine for this atmospheric (yes, it’s snowing -- endlessly!) holiday tale. Molly, her baby son Liam and 12-year-old ward Bridie hear a little girl, huddled in a city doorway, angelically singing Away in a Manger. Her older brother hovers nearby. Molly soon realizes that the children, who are English and seem well-bred, are no mere street urchins. Where is their mother? Molly juggles Christmas shopping with snooping to uncover a suspected murder, while her husband, police Capt. Daniel Sullivan, has his own battles to fight. Offbeat secondary characters like bohemian neighbors Sid and Gus (a cheery knockoff of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas) add to the period charm.
-- McClurg
The Mistletoe Inn
By Richard Paul Evans
Simon & Schuster, 320 pp.
**1/2 stars
In the latest in Richard Paul Evans’ sentimental holiday books, struggling romance writer Kimberly Rossi attends a conference in Vermont to figure out how to get published and finally meet the author who’s inspired her for years. And of course there is a nice gentleman to meet and the haunting past to confront along the way, too — the holiday has always had some baggage since she was a little girl, and it’s harder this year with her dad recently being diagnosed with colon cancer. Rather than immersing itself in melancholy, the book goes all-in with being "Christmasy" (a word whose usage is debated by its central couple), especially in the latter half of these ridiculously predictable pages. Like one of Santa’s elves jacked up on pixie sticks, The Mistletoe Inn is all over the place, moving in an entertaining but whiplash manner from parental drama to lovey-dovey meet-cutes to melodramatic misunderstandings and back again.
-- Brian Truitt