A couple years ago, I asked authors to write a post about their favorite Christmas mystery. This year, I asked them to tell us about their favorite holiday book. Lori Rader-Day, Mary Higgins Clark Award-winning author of Under a Dark Sky is sharing one of my all-time favorite books. Thank you, Lori.

There are holiday books with holidays in them—and then there are books that call you away from the Yule even though they have few holiday tidings within. I’m fond of a few of the first kind (“A Christmas Memory” byTruman Capote comes to mind), but my favorite is the latter, the books that warm without actual holiday plot lines, that inspire the activities of the holidays—blanket fort, hot tea—but don’t necessarily have, you know, elves in them.

            The book I re-read almost every year around this time is 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff. No elves.

            I’ll warn you: this is sad book. If you don’t like sad, please don’t read this and then @me on Twitter about how I ruined Christmas. Christmas has a minor role in the book, as does Easter, stories from mythology and the classics, women’s hosiery,and powdered eggs.  Foremost, though, this short epistolary nonfiction book is about bookselling and reading, about friendships and distance, and about writing. The collection of letters(remember letters?) shows the development of a friendship between Hanff, an acerbic writer in New York, and a solicitous bookseller in London, and the ways their relationship creates a community during hard times.

            The real question may be…why do I love this rather non-holiday book around the holidays? Is it because it’s short and maybe I’m trying to get one last read in before the end of the year? Don’t judge. Beyond that, though, this book is about kindness and connection, and isn’t that what the holidays are really about? Or should be?

*****

Thank you, Lori. Helene Hanff’s 84, Charing Cross Road is available through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2Q2P2MX

Lori Rader-Day’s award-winning books are also available through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2Pa2pFO

Mike Lupica is the latest author to write a Robert B. Parker book. The new Sunny Randall book, Robert B. Parker’s Blood Feud, is the Hot Book of the Week at the Poisoned Pen. Lupica is at the Poisoned Pen on Thursday, November 29 at 7 PM, joined by author Marc Cameron who has continued Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan series. The authors will talk about that and sign books. You can get signed copies of the books by both authors through the Web Store. https://store.poisonedpen.com/

Here’s the summary of Robert B. Parker’s Blood Feud.

Robert B. Parker’s iconic and irresistible PI Sunny Randall is back, and the stakes are higher than ever as she races to protect her ex-husband–and his Mafia family–from the vengeful plan of a mysterious rival.

Sunny Randall is “on” again with Richie, the ex-husband she never stopped loving and never seemed to be able to let go, despite her discomfort with his Mafia connections. When Richie is shot and nearly killed, Sunny is dragged into the thick of his family’s business as she searches for answers and tries to stave off a mob war. But as the bullets start flying in Boston’s mean streets, Sunny finds herself targeted by the deranged mastermind of the plot against the Burke family, whose motive may be far more personal than she could have anticipated…

Last February, there was a blog post about Storyknife and Dana Stabenow’s plans to build a community where women writers could retreat and find support. https://bit.ly/2PV3map

The community is hoping to break ground in April 2019. Check out the latest post and the connection to supporting women writers. https://bit.ly/2SgplFj

Marc Cameron, author of Tom Clancy Oath of Office, will be at the Poisoned Pen on Thursday, November 29 at 7 PM to discuss and sign the book. If you can’t make it to the bookstore that night, you can still order a signed copy through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2jUhlLw

Before I send you to an interview at The Real Book Spy, here’s the summary of Tom Clancy Oath of Office, the 19th in the Jack Ryan series.

Marine officer. CIA analyst. President. Jack Ryan has devoted his life to protecting the United States. What if this time, he can’t? President Ryan and the Campus return in the latest entry in Tom Clancy’s #1 New York Times-bestselling series.

Freedom may have finally arrived in Iran. As protests break out across the country, the media rejoices over the so-called Persian Spring. Western leaders are ecstatic. Members of Congress and the Cabinet clamor to back the rebels. Only President Jack Ryan remains wary. 

Meanwhile, he has plenty to handle at home. A deadly strain of flu is ravaging the United States as spring floods decimate the Southeast. An unethical senator wants to bring down the Ryan presidency and is willing to lean on fabricated bot-planted stories to do it. 

But the scariest story is the most closely guarded one. Two Russian nuclear missiles have been hijacked. The Campus gets their first break when Jack Junior connects with a rogue Russian intelligence officer in Afghanistan–only to be abducted soon after arriving. John Clark and the rest of the Campus team race to track the missiles and rescue their colleague.

As sensationalized stories spin out of control and the stolen missiles remain out of reach, President Ryan’s toughest challenge emerges: How do you meet an enemy head on, when he won’t even show you his face?

*****

The Real Book Spy recently asked author Marc Cameron five questions. You can find the interview here. https://bit.ly/2P682oN

It’s not too early to get your tickets to Cassandra Clare’s book signing and conversation with Diana Gabaldon.

Cassandra Clare in conversation with Diana Gabaldon!

December 10th, 2018

Madison Center for the Arts

5601 N 16th St

Phoenix, AZ 85016

This is an off-site, ticketed event.  Please click link to purchase tickets.

https://bit.ly/2r3dhvF

All first editions of QUEEN OF AIR AND DARKNESS will include exclusive reverse-printed jacket art, ten black and white interior illustrations, and a new short story!

Dark secrets and forbidden love threaten the very survival of the Shadowhunters in Cassandra Clare’s Queen of Air and Darkness, the final novel in the #1 New York Times and USA TODAYbestselling The Dark Artifices trilogy. Queen of Air and Darkness is a Shadowhunters novel.

What if damnation is the price of true love?

Innocent blood has been spilled on the steps of the Council Hall, the sacred stronghold of the Shadowhunters. In the wake of the tragic death of Livia Blackthorn, the Clave teeters on the brink of civil war. One fragment of the Blackthorn family flees to Los Angeles, seeking to discover the source of the disease that is destroying the race of warlocks. Meanwhile, Julian and Emma take desperate measures to put their forbidden love aside and undertake a perilous mission to Faerie to retrieve the Black Volume of the Dead. What they find in the Courts is a secret that may tear the Shadow World asunder and open a dark path into a future they could never have imagined. Caught in a race against time, Emma and Julian must save the world of Shadowhunters before the deadly power of the parabatai curse destroys them and everyone they love.

Cassandra Clare will personalize 1 copy of Queen of Air and Darkness and will sign one additional book from the Dark Artifices trilogy.  We will have Lady Midnight (book 1) and Lord of Shadows (book 2) available for purchase at the event.

Diana Gabaldon will sign copies of her books purchased at the event.

Sorry but no previously purchased books will be allowed.

Can’t attend event but wish to purchase a signed copy of QUEEN OF AIR AND DARKNESS?   Click Here!

Poisoned Pen Press author Maggie Robinson was recently interviewed in Bookreporter.com about her new mystery series. Robinson’s first Lady Adelaide Mystery is called Nobody’s Sweetheart Now. You can order a signed copy through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2r5nvfa

And, you can read the interview here. https://bit.ly/2r3x9ir

Here’s the summary of Maggie Robinson’s Nobody’s Sweetheart Now.

A delightful English cozy series begins in August 1924. Lady Adelaide Compton has recently (and satisfactorily) interred her husband, Major Rupert Charles Cressleigh Compton, hero of the Somme, in the family vault in the village churchyard. 

Rupert died by smashing his Hispano-Suiza on a Cotswold country road while carrying a French mademoiselle in the passenger seat. With the house now Addie’s, needed improvements in hand, and a weekend house party underway, how inconvenient of Rupert to turn up! Not in the flesh, but in – actually, as a – spirit. Rupert has to perform a few good deeds before becoming welcomed to heaven – or, more likely, thinks Addie, to hell. 

Before Addie can convince herself she’s not completely lost her mind, a murder disrupts her careful seating arrangement. Which of her twelve houseguests is a killer? Her mother, the formidable Dowager Marchioness of Broughton? Her sister Cecilia, the born-again vegetarian? Her childhood friend and potential lover, Lord Lucas Waring? Rupert has a solid alibi as a ghost and an urge to detect. 

Enter Inspector Devenand Hunter from the Yard, an Anglo-Indian who is not going to let some barmy society beauty witnessed talking to herself derail his investigation. Something very peculiar is afoot at Compton Court and he’s going to get to the bottom of it – or go as mad as its mistress trying.

“With ‘Wrecked’, Ide confirms that he’s among the most original new voices in today’s crime fiction.” That’s a quote from Patrick Anderson’s recent Washington Post review of Joe Ide’s third IQ mystery, Wrecked. https://wapo.st/2DFPoBS

If you’re thinking about a gift for yourself or someone else, there are still signed copies of Wrecked available through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2DFQpK

Here’s the summary of Wrecked, if you didn’t read the article.

In this outrageous novel from Joe Ide, “the best thing to happen to mystery writing in a very long time” (New York Times), the case of a young artist’s missing mother sets IQ on a collision course with his own Moriarty.

Isaiah Quintabe–IQ for short–has never been more successful, or felt more alone. A series of high-profile wins in his hometown of East Long Beach have made him so notorious that he can hardly go to the corner store without being recognized. Dodson, once his sidekick, is now his full-fledged partner, hell-bent on giving IQ’s PI business some real legitimacy: a Facebook page, and IQ’s promise to stop accepting Christmas sweaters and carpet cleanings in exchange for PI services.

So when a young painter approaches IQ for help tracking down her missing mother, it’s not just the case Isaiah’s looking for, but the human connection. And when his new confidant turns out to be connected to a dangerous paramilitary operation, IQ falls victim to a threat even a genius can’t see coming.

Waiting for Isaiah around every corner is Seb, the Oxford-educated African gangster who was responsible for the death of his brother, Marcus. Only, this time, Isaiah’s not alone. Joined by a new love interest and his familiar band of accomplices, IQ is back–and the adventures are better than ever.

Here in the United States, we’re celebrating the Thanksgiving holiday. The Poisoned Pen is closed, however feel free to browse and place orders online through the Web Store. https://store.poisonedpen.com/

Happy Thanksgiving!