Christmas With The Knights - Hannah Langdon

Genre: Holiday Romance

A cold English winter, a sprawling house, the Lord and his son and grandson - could this be the perfect cure for Hannah Langdon’s Fallon in Christmas with the Knights? Fallon is exhausted; she has allowed her demanding event planning business to exhaust her. The doctor prescribes rest, away from work. While she’s not sure that spending Christmas with her ummm…  difficult mother the soap opera star at her boyfriend’s country estate, she finds herself there. Along with Runcible - her goofy loving dog, Fallon begins to relax into Christmas and all the events that come along with it. Along with renewed peace…will she find love?

Is that even a fair question for a Christmas rom com? But Fallon is perhaps a bit more complex than other romantic heroines. She had a somewhat isolated childhood and while she has maintained a relationship with her distant mother, she fears that she doesn’t have the kind of example she needs to look forward to motherhood herself. So she remains wary of relationships. Instead (much like her mother, uh oh!) she buries herself in her work. Even on holiday she finds herself taking on small event jobs. Will she ever relax? And even if Alexander the Lord’s Son is gorgeous, and his son inexplicable drawn to her, should Fallon risk involvement. These are not easy questions. She receives lovely help and support from the people around her. New friends - who will be part of her family when her mom marries and old friends - Sam and Talitha from work. Her dog is her rock. And English countryside Christmas abounds…if  ever magic was going to happen.

What a delightful read! I just really resonated with Fallon. (Like me, she could probably benefit from Kendra Adachi’s The PLAN - in terms of being more compassionate with herself!) I like that her changes came slowly - and believably. Christmas in England always seems extra lovely to me. She creates an inspirational setting filled with English treats and traditions that had me googling recipes. Take a minute from your busy holiday season and enjoy Hannah Langdon’s Christmas With The Knights, available on October 24. Thank you to NetGalley and Storm Publishing for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Christmas Cookie Wars - Eliza Evans

Genre: Holiday Romance

I enjoy cookies: baking and eating. I enjoy holiday rom coms: movies and novels. I certainly enjoyed reading Eliza Evans’ The Christmas Cookie Wars. Melody is struggling this year to find the Christmas spirit with her 10 year old sons. They seem to be growing out of some of the traditions that she has maintained so carefully after the death of her husband some 6 years earlier. When she learns that the Christmas Cookie Committee has disbanded, she risks the wrath of its former chair to take it over. To do so she must work with and then compete with Jonathan, the stuffy principal of her sons’ school who has historically made HER feel like a ten year old child. Baking, ice skating, snowman making, and love ensues.

Evans captures the spirit of Christmas in a big way. She creates a town that celebrates Christmas cookies for weeks. She gives us a spirited baking competition. She gives us a family that is experiencing growing pains, but that clearly love each other - and wanting what is best for each other. She gives us an enemy in Charlene who tries to rule the school with an iron fist. She gives us a mystery - someone is sabotaging the events. And of course, she gives us a lovely romance. I would rate it as Hallmark style in terms of romantic content. Just right for me.

Sometimes we just need a joy filled, escape from real life, holiday read. I needed one this week and The Christmas Cookie Wars by Eliza Evans was just right for me. Be sure to find it when it publishes on October 22. Thank you to NetGalley and G.P. Putman’s and Sons publishing for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Even After Everything - Stephanie Duncan Smith

Genre: Christian, Spiritual, Self Help

What a beautiful, complex, layered book is Even After Everything by Stephanie Duncan Smith.  Two caveats for readers. Smith is a believer and her faith is imbued throughout the text. A reader can certainly benefit from her ideas without sharing her faith, but the faith is leading the content in most ways. Also, she talks frankly and passionately about pregnancy and miscarriage. If as a reader you are in an uncertain place here, proceed with this knowledge. I am a long way from pregnancy. The lessons she teaches (and I don’t think she’d prefer that wording) are universal. I am finding it difficult to encapsulate the thesis of the book simply (beautiful and complex, right?). Smith discusses the need to love and hope even in the face of loss and inevitable death. She frames her discussion around the church’s liturgical calendar - arguing that we try to live in a linear way when the world invites us to live in a cyclical way: the seasons, the liturgy, women’s monthly cycles. 

I love this way of thinking. Raised a United Methodist, I have long had my worship framed by the liturgical calendar, but Smith’s insight takes it from a frame to a philosophy, and I am here for it. I have learned over a long period and with good counseling that for me grief is, in fact, cyclical (not what I was taught in Psych 101) and that trying to power through it with “positivity” was not working for me. I had not, however, made the connection to the cycle of liturgy that organizes my faith life. She points out how the loss is baked in and that we acknowledge it yearly. And suggests that we gain wisdom each time we move through cycles. I love that. Her reasoning is compelling and the idea is beautiful and points to a more hopeful way to experience loss and turmoil. Can I just advise you to read the book? 

For me, the use of poetry and literature to support Smith’s ideas is very powerful. I have long believed that literature can clarify so much about life if we would just allow it to do so. She also quotes other research and thinkers. She creates these beautiful metaphors based on her personal experience. I value her transparency very much. She, then, uses the stories and experiences of others to expand her ideas. Finally, she anchors these ideas with literature and research, speaking to the universality of them. Oh how Smith speaks to the English teacher’s heart here. Also, I love liturgy and church history. I cannot celebrate the joy of Easter without reflection on sacrifice during Lent. I love the advent approach to Christmas. I have been told by more evangelical friends that this approach seems quite old fashioned and out of step, but how it works for me.

I am fascinated by the fact that I have read about women’s cycles and periods in two different self help books in the last two weeks. Folks, we have ignored them long enough. When Smith wrote of the conditioning we have to be quiet and perhaps a little ashamed of our cycles, I felt it more deeply than I expected - do you remember trying to get to the bathroom at school - hiding the necessary supplies somehow? In The PLAN, Kendra Adachi, urges us to build our cycles into our planning - embracing the high and low energy times. Smith uses them as another illustration of how life, living and dying-hope and loss, is about cycles. Accepting the cycles instead of ignoring them is a key to a more effective life. I’d love to have had these insights as a much younger woman - I’d love to have passed them on to my daughter. 

I am grateful to Stephanie Duncan Smith’s Even After Everything for deepening my liturgical life and increasing my propensity to love and to hope in a difficult world. I appreciate how she encourages her readers to reframe how we live. I am thankful for the reminder that God will meet us where we are.  I recommend this title most highly. Thank you to NetGalley and Convergent Books for allowing me to read an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review. 

Book Cover of Even After Everything by Stephanie Duncan Smith

Rockin’ Around the Chickadee: A Meg Langslow Mystery - Donna Andrews

Genre: Cozy Mystery/Christmas

A Meg Langslow Mystery Series #36

Donna Andrews’ Rockin’ Around the Chickadee is my first introduction to the Meg Langslow Mystery series. Meg is celebrating differently this Christmas season.  Her sister Delaney is experiencing a difficult pregnancy, so the family is working to keep her quiet and calm. Simultaneously, her grandmother is holding a Presumed Innocent conference in a nearby hotel. When the man who is 100% opposed to the work of the conference is found murdered in Michael and Meg’s yard, the holiday, naturally, takes a turn. 

I liked Meg right away. She is frank and down to earth. She loves her family, and takes a fairly no nonsense view of managing them. Like many women she juggles her family with work and a variety of other commitments. I appreciate that even in her role as detective she enlists her twin sons in helping to solve the murder. It’s kind of adorable. What a fun and quirky community has been created around Meg Langslow. This book is my introduction to the series, and I sure hope to get to know them better. If you are new to Meg Langslow mysteries as well, I promise you can hop right in and enjoy the work - but be prepared to add to your TBR pile. The Christmas bits here were lovely…I will be especially seeking out the other Christmas books in the series.  I just love lights, celebrations, holiday songs, and all that goes with the genre.

If, like me, you enjoy a good cozy mystery, Rockin’ Around the Chickadee by Donna Andrews is a good one - with fun twists and turns and a family vibe. The Christmas elements add to the loveliness. Grab a copy for your holiday reading. Thank you to NetGalley and Minotaur books for the advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Death at a Scottish Christmas - Lucy Connelly

Genre - Contemporary Cozy Mystery

A  Scottish Isle Mystery Book 3

In Lucy Connelly’s Death at a Scottish Christmas, Dr. Emilia McRoy thinks she is going to have a long Christmas break from her job as doctor in the community of Scottish Isle - in this book, a cozy Hallmark Christmas town. She mostly thinks that she will be volunteering to help the locals with the wide variety of holiday events that this festive community hosts each year. As part of the celebration the internationally famous Scottish band with local roots has come to perform at the local pub; Emilia’s plans change abruptly when the band’s leader Bram is murdered. As the coroner she joins forces with the local constable Ewan - who is considered a suspect - to solve the mystery. 

While the book is part of a series, I was able to hop right in and understand this book from start to finish. While Connelly does a great job of situating book 3 for new readers, she also plants the seeds to lure readers into reading the first two.  The mystery here is very unique and quite grim in terms of the murder method. As McRoy interviews suspects and pieces together the scattered clues, the reader is engaged. I love the twist and turns this sleuthing took. The murder method was unique and the variety of suspects excellently developed. The detective work is punctuated by a series of Christmas events - the holiday must go on. The community works hard to honor a variety of traditions from a variety of cultures and seems like a place I’d love to visit in December. I have long wanted to explore my Scottish roots. The town and its residents are nicely represented as well. The reader can easily understand why Emilia is so at home there. I imagine that what we learn of each of the townspeople grows over the course of the series. I intend to find out. 

Lovers of a cozy mystery and/or a heartwarming Christmas read, need to pick Death at a Scottish Christmas by Lucy Connelly up as soon as it publishes on October 15. You won’t regret it. Thank you to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Book Cover of Death at a Scottish Christmas by Lucy Connelly