I can hardly believe that the festivities are upon us once again. It seems to come around more quickly every year. So, whether you are celebrating Diwali, Chanukkah, winter or Christmas, I hope you will find something here to catch your reader's eye.
Without any further ado, here are a few Christmas/Winter time books, both old and new, that I would like to read. I am ever the optimist to think that I could fit this lot into my reading schedule.
Bea is fifty three, and she's just lost her husband after thirty years of marriage. To distract herself from grief, she throws herself into her work running the Reservoir Street Kitchen in one of Sydney's most fashionable districts.
But then an email from a cafe-owner in Edinburgh prompts her to take a trip to Scotland in the depths of winter. Her journey will be one of self-discovery, as she is drawn back to a secret past - and a secret love - that she has tried to forget.
Set between Sydney and Edinburgh at Christmas, this is a story of family ties, lost love, and the power of the past.
Grace Dawson is completely over her ex, Christina. But that doesn’t mean she wants to plan her wedding proposal to another woman.
Grace dreams of the day she’ll have a romantic proposal like those she plans for her clients at Tie the Knot. She’s spent the last year reading a boatload of self-help books. No way she’s going to fall back into old patterns and date someone afraid of commitment ever again. When it comes to everlasting love, Grace is all in.
Bridget Cartwright, Christina’s personal assistant, will do anything for Christina with the hopes of getting a promotion, even plan her proposal. So what if she knows zilch about romance and doesn’t even believe in happily-ever-after? There are companies for hire that do that sort of thing.
When Grace and Bridget end up stranded together on Mistletoe Mountain, Grace has no chance to escape. Not from her painful past, not from her attraction to Bridget, and definitely not from all the romance in the air.
It's the dark nights in the run up to Christmas, and sailing sleuth Cass Lynch's first night on dry land is disturbed by strange noises outside her isolated cottage. Tiny footprints in the moonlit snow trail from her front door before mysteriously disappearing. Soon Cass learns others were visited by the same tiny feet in the night.
It looks like ingenious local teenagers playing tricks - but what happens when festive games turn deadly?
Cass soon finds out as a schoolboy disappears, leaving only a trail of footprints into the middle of a snowy field. She's determined to investigate, but uncovering the truth will also put her in danger . .
In this stunning reimagination of an entire season, acclaimed and award-winning author and photographer Cedric Pollet presents 20 of the most beautiful winter gardens across France and the UK.
Winner of the Garden Media Guild - Garden Book of the Year award, Pollet showcases these breathtaking winter gardens which are at their best when most gardens are at their barest.
Rich with blazes of colour and light, these gardens use creative structural planning and subtle textures to create masterful visual and sensory ensembles.
From berries and barks to vibrant shrubs and evergreens, these gardens will delight and inspire in equal measure, all captured in extraordinary photographs by Pollet, one of today's masters of garden photography and accompanied by insightful text which picks out the reasons these gardens are so special.
The second half of the book is an illustrated directory of over 300 plants which encourage you to achieve these effects in their own gardens.
From the author of bestselling Bark: An Intimate Look at the World's Trees, this beautiful guide is a unique and unmissable book on some of the most creative and inspiring gardens around today.
The first fall of snow can be fatal…
A year has passed since DI James Walker cracked his biggest case yet, and he’s hoping for peace and quiet this festive season.
But across the fells, a local farmer returns home on Christmas Eve to find footsteps in the fresh snow that lead down to his unused basement – and no footsteps leading away. Days later, his body is found, alongside those of his wife and daughter.
Without a neighbour for miles, there are no witnesses and little evidence. And the crime scene has strange echoes of another terrible murder committed at the farmhouse, twenty years earlier…
James knows that to catch this killer, he needs to solve a case that has long since gone cold…
London, 1938.
As the festive season approaches at the luxurious Buckingham Hotel, romance is in the air. The hotel staff
are preparing for a once-in-a-lifetime event - the marriage of chambermaid Nancy Nettleton to debonair demonstration dancer Raymond de Guise.
As wreaths are hung and carols are sung, life at the hotel is busier than ever. Guests arrive from around the world, seeking comfort, relaxation and refuge as tensions build across Europe and whispered rumours of war grow louder.
Behind the scenes, the staff work tirelessly, ensuring the smooth operation of the hotel, not only keeping the
confidences of their guests, but also protecting their own secrets . . .
As Raymond takes Nancy in his arms for their first dance, one thing is certain - this will be a Christmas to remember.
Have yourself a truly Scandinavian Christmas... Of visions and prophesies seen in dark, dark woods. Of toys and trees come to life. Of trolls raising chaos, and of families torn apart -- only to be brought back together by festive cheer.
In this collection, classic tales from Hans Christian Andersen and Nobel Prize winner Selma Lagerlof blend with modern day stories from Karl Ove Knausgaard and Vigdis Hjorth. Each touch on the warm and wild spirit of Christmas, where the cosiness and contentment of the season can often give way to the unexpected, magical and sometimes mystical.
A smorgasbord of strange literary gifts, let A Scandinavian Christmas transport you to a winter wonderland in which fantasy, the fantastic and the festive combine for your reading delight.
Friendship can be the greatest gift you'll ever give...
Verity is embarking on a better-late-than-never gap year now that her sons have flown the nest, and dreams of turning a lifetime's hobby of knitting and crocheting into a profitable new enterprise at Lerwick Manor's gallery.
Nessie has returned to Shetland after two years spent retraining as a blacksmith on the Scottish mainland. She's determined to do whatever it takes to reignite the traditional craft and prove that gender is no obstacle to taking on her family's heritage.
Isla is fresh out of catering college, but she is desperate to prove she has what it takes to run Lerwick Manor's artisan café. Focused on perfecting her grandmother's traditional recipes, Isla has no time for anything else - especially not her pesky ex.
With the island's Yule Day celebration fast approaching, it's the ideal moment for their crafts to shine. But they can't do it alone - and their friendship might turn out to be their greatest creation yet...
A PINCH OF PARANOIA
It’s three days before Christmas, and detective-turned-chef Jodie ‘Nosey’ Parker is drafted in to cater a charity event run by a notorious millionaire at a 13th-century abbey on Bodmin Moor.
A DASH OF DECEPTION
Things get more complicated when a snowstorm descends, stranding them all, and the next morning they find one of the guests has been gruesomely murdered in their bed…
A MURDER UNDER THE MISTLETOE
Secrets mull in every corner – can Jodie solve the crime before the killer strikes again?
A Cornish Christmas Murder is a must-read mystery full of heart and humour – perfect for fans of Richard Osman and The Appeal.
Christmas has never been the most wonderful time of the year for Verity Robinson. When her younger sister sends her an invite to her Christmas wedding on the other side of the country in Vancouver, she decides to kill two birds with one stone and plans a ski trip to Whistler with some old friends. However, her dreams of a snowy Christmas on skis are thwarted by her sister’s dog sitting crisis.
Instead of spending Christmas enjoying the après ski alcohol, she is instead stuck minding Hamish McDuff for the next week. They say that every cloud has a silver lining and for Verity the silver lining comes in the guise of her sexy new neighbour, Nikau Taylor. Nikau seems determined to help Verity eradicate her ghosts of Christmas past, but what will happen when her time is up and it’s time to go home to Toronto?
(header photo courtesy of Unsplash)
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