At the Library: Recommended ho-holiday reads at the Captiva Library
In honor of the Christmas holiday, the Captiva Memorial Library will close at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 24 and remain closed all day Thursday, Dec. 25 and Friday, Dec. 26. The library will reopen for business at 9 a.m. on Saturday, Dec. 27.
This time of year Christmas themed books abound:
“An Island Christmas”
by Nancy Thayer
“As the calendar counts down to Christmas, Felicia heads to Nantucket to marry the love of her life, Archie. The twinkling lights that beckon from every window, the snow dusting the beautiful streets, the gorgeous red and white satin dress — every detail is picture-perfect for a dream wedding. The only problem is, this is not Felicia’s dream. Happier hiking in shorts than tending to hearth and home like her more traditional sister Lauren, Felicia has only agreed to a lavish winter wedding to make her mother Jilly happy. And while Jilly is thrilled her daughter’s found love, she still has reservations about the brawny, bumbling Archie — especially when Jilly learns that he and Felicia plan to move far away to California after the wedding. To help take her mind off the impending move, Jilly’s husband George brings home a charming but mischievous cat named Jock. But when Lauren shows up with high-spirited kids and plenty of judgments in tow, not even Jock’s furry antics can keep the already-high family tensions from skyrocketing. Just when it seems like this family is fated to wake up on Christmas morning to stockings full of coal, a holiday surprise brings them together for a very merry celebration” *
“The Mistletoe Promise”
by Richard Paul Evans
“Elise dreads the arrival of another holiday season. Three years earlier, her husband cheated on her with her best friend, resulting in a bitter divorce that left her alone, broken, and distrustful. Then, one November day, a stranger approaches Elise in the mall food court. Though she recognizes the man from her building, Elise has never formally met him. Tired of spending the holidays alone, the man offers her a proposition. For the next eight weeks-until the evening of Dec. 24-he suggests that they pretend to be a couple. He draws up a contract with four rules: 1. No deep, probing personal questions 2. No drama 3. No telling anyone the truth about the relationship 4. The contract is void on Christmas Daylonely Elise surprises herself by agreeing to the idea. As the charade progresses, the safety of her fake relationship begins to mend her badly broken heartjust as she begins to find joy again, her long-held secret threatens to unravel the emerging relationship she might not be the only one with secrets” *
“Jane and the
Twelve Days of Christmas”
by Stephanie Barron
“Christmas Eve, 1814: Jane Austen has been invited to spend the holiday with family and friends at The Vyne, the gorgeous ancestral home of the wealthy and politically prominent Chute family. As the year fades and friends begin to gather beneath the mistletoe for the twelve days of Christmas festivities, Jane and her circle are in a celebratory mood: Mansfield Park is selling nicely; Napoleon has been banished to Elba; British forces have seized Washington, DC; and on Christmas Eve, John Quincy Adams signs the Treaty of Ghent, which will end a war nobody in England really wanted. Jane, however, discovers holiday cheer is fleeting. One of the Yuletide revelers dies in a tragic accident, which Jane immediately views with suspicion. If the accident was in fact murder, the killer is one of Jane’s fellow snow-bound guests. With clues scattered amidst cleverly crafted charades, dark secrets coming to light during parlor games, and old friendships returning to haunt the Christmas parties, whom can Jane trust to help her discover the truth and stop the killer from striking again?” *
“Winter Street”
by Elin Hilderbrand
“Kelley Quinn is the owner of Nantucket’s Winter Street Inn and the proud father of four, all of them grown and living in varying states of disarray. Patrick, the eldest, is a hedge fund manager with a guilty conscience. Kevin, a bartender, is secretly sleeping with a French housekeeper named Isabelle. Ava, a school teacher, is finally dating the perfect guy but can’t get him to commit. And Bart, the youngest and only child of Kelley’s second marriage to Mitzi, has recently shocked everyone by joining the Marines. As Christmas approaches, Kelley is looking forward to getting the family together for some quality time at the inn. But when he walks in on Mitzi kissing Santa Claus (or the guy who’s playing Santa at the inn’s annual party), utter chaos descends. With the three older children each reeling in their own dramas and Bart unreachable in Afghanistan, it might be up to Kelley’s ex-wife, nightly news anchor Margaret Quinn, to save Christmas at the Winter Street Inn. Before the mulled cider is gone, the delightfully dysfunctional Quinn family will survive a love triangle, an unplanned pregnancy, a federal crime, a small house fire, many shots of whiskey, and endless rounds of Christmas caroling, in this heart-warming novel about coming home for the holidays.” *
“Ho-Ho-Homicide”
by Kaitlyn Dunnitt
“Business is booming at the Scottish Emporium in Moosetookalook, Maine, and Liss MacCrimmon Ruskin couldn’t be happier-or busier. A romantic getaway at a rustic Christmas tree farm is just what she needs. But the property’s mysterious past has her feeling less than merryLiss is surprised when an old friend from high school asks her to spend a week at the Christmas tree farm she recently inherited from a great-uncle. Realizing it would be the perfect chance for her and her husband Dan to get away from work, Liss happily accepts the offer and packs her bags for the tiny town of New Boston. Upon their arrival, Liss and Dan are greeted by a ramshackle farmhouse and unfriendly townsfolk. It’s hardly the idyllic vacation locale they’d hoped for, especially when needling neighbors start raising questions about the farm’s dark history. Who was the man whose body was found neatly netted in a shipment of Scotch pine? Why did the owner vanish into thin air? And why are the trees growing so close together, forming a maze more twisted than a Celtic knot? The rumors pile up faster than snowdrifts in a blizzard, and as Liss starts un-wrapping the truth, she discovers something even more scandalous than murder hiding beneath the town’s humdrum faade. When a series of ‘accidents’ strikes the farm, she’ll have to spring into action faster than a Highland Fling to find the killer who’s been lurking among the pines-before she ends up in a pine box herself” *
“A Catered Christmas
Cookie Exchange:
A Mystery With Recipes”
by Isis Crawford
“Bernie and Libby, caterers extraordinaire, are hosting a televised cookie contest just in time for Christmas, but unfriendly rivalries cook up a cutthroat competitionThe feisty members of the Christmas Cookie Club Exchange are busy perfecting their recipes once again. And with the Baking for Life cookie contest on the line, the stakes are higher-and deadlier-than ever the odds-on favorite dies in a suspicious car accident en route to the show, Bernie and Libby start digging and are shocked to uncover a soap opera of sinister secrets and clandestine affairs. But they’ll stop at nothing to get to the truth, because no holiday treat is sweeter than justice!” *
* Book jacket/publisher description
-Senior Librarian Ann Bradley is branch manager Captiva Memorial Library