Aaron is away this week, so longtime staff member Pat Tomasic is here to offer up some great holiday reading.
Time again to cozy up over the holidays with some of the library’s best and most popular books of 2016!
How else can an article about holiday books start other than with Debbie Macomber’s annual festive read where friendly, bubbly Julia Padden is determined to de-Grinch-ify neighbour Cain Maddox in The Twelve Days of Christmas.
Meanwhile, in Karen Swan’s Christmas on Primrose Hill, Nettie Watson’s memories of Christmas are painfully focused on what she once had.
In Karen Kingsbury’s The Baxter Family Christmas, the recipient of a woman’s heart is welcomed by the donor’s family.
Finally, it’s days before Christmas and all is calm on the small island of Roone in Roisin Meaney’s I’ll Be Home for Christmas, but things rarely go according to plan on the island.
Of course, not all holiday reading has to be about Christmas.
For suspense and intrigue readers, Broken Trust by W.E.B. Griffin investigates the suicide of an acquaintance of detective Matt Payne, who doesn’t feel the cause of death is valid.
When a Special Forces soldier is killed in Afghanistan, the US administration wants to forget the casualty, but his brother is out for revenge in Brad Taylor’s The Forgotten Soldier.
In Jeffery Deaver’s The Steel Kiss, a reluctant Lincoln Rhyme is back investigating a near fatal escalator malfunction which may not be an accident at all.
Harlan Coben questions if seeing truly is believing in Fool Me Once, when former special ops pilot Maya’s nanny cam shows her two-year-old playing with Maya’s husband, Joe–who had been brutally murdered two weeks earlier.
If you prefer reading about relationships, The Friends We Keep by Susan Mallery reveals the lives of stay at home mum Gabby, newly divorced Nicole, and heartbroken Hayley, and the boundaries of how much a woman can give before she has nothing left.
Recovering from a broken engagement and severe illness, Lady Helena Montagu-Douglas-Parr leaves the sheltered world of London to find adventure, passion, and independence in 1920s France in Jennifer Robinson’s Moonlight over Paris.
Meanwhile, the sleepy village of Rye, England, is expecting an unusual candidate to be the school’s Latin teacher, a young woman in search of a position after the death of her father, in Helen Simonson’s The Summer Before the War.
Set on the idyllic Spanish coast, Milena Busquets’ This Too Shall Pass follows Blanca, forty years old and recently motherless, who, having no idea of her future, embarks on a journey alongside those she loves most.
In non-fiction, we have a selection of titles to help instill gratitude for the comforts of a Canadian home.
Syria Burning by Charles Glass provides the origins and permutations defining the conflict, and a powerful argument for why the West has failed to understand its consequences.
Deborah Campbell travels undercover in A Disappearance in Damascus to report on the exodus of Iraqis into Syria following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Ahlam, a refugee getting information out to Western media, is seized from her home, and Campbell spends months desperately trying to find her—all the while fearing she could be next.
Rod Norland’s The Lovers: Afghanistan’s Romeo & Juliet is the story of Zakia and Ali, a young couple from different tribes, who defy their families, cultural conventions, and Afghan civil and Islamic law, marrying only to live under constant threat from Zakia’s large and vengeful family.
Finally, a couple of titles to help with New Year’s resolutions. Colin Beavan’s How to be Alive shows the true meaning of holiday spirit, to create a life where feeling good and doing good intersect. And Chris Bailey’s The Productivity Project lists over 25 “best practices” to accomplish more, good advice for the start of another year!
Happy Holidays and happy reading!
