The Fall semester is quickly winding down at Wayland. Classes are finished in Plainview and all that remains are finals and turning in grades. I cannot wait to be done! It’s been a long semester and I’m ready for some down time with family.
Thankfully, the last week of classes aren’t insane for me. Mostly, I’m just making sure everyone knows what will be covered on their finals and scheduling piano juries. That means that I had lots of time to do some reading. So I was a very happy little bookworm until the respiratory infection made another appearance at week’s end.
What I Finished This Week
The Twelve Days of Christmas by Debbie Macomber. On Tuesday, I took a quick trip to the local library to see what kind of Christmas themed book I could find that I could read fairly quickly to complete one of the prompts for the December mini-challenge on The 52 Book Club. I had seen Macomber’s name on shelves many times before, but I don’t think I have ever read any of her works. It seemed like the perfect time to give this short novel a try. Julia lives across the hall from Cain, a curmudgeon who is bringing down Julia’s joyful Christmas spirit. After describing her interactions with her personal “Ebenezer” to her best friend, she is given the advice to “kill him….with kindness.” As Julia launches her Kindness Project on Cain, she also decides to blog about the experience. Since it is a Macomber romance novel, of course the two will fall in love. Will their love be strong enough when Cain discovers what Julia has said about him in the blogosphere? This was a really cute book that warmed my heart without playing too hard on the romance.
How My Neighbor Stole Christmas by Meghan Quinn. As I shared in my introduction to this book last week, this novel centers around a local contest to see which of the villagers has the most Christmas spirit. With clear references to Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas, the narrator speaks in rhyming couplets and regularly speaks directly to the characters. Quinn’s novel is humorous and filled with spirit. It is also very mature in its content. This is not an “open door romance”; that term does not adequately express the extremely spicy content. Reader, beware of your surroundings!
What I’m Currently Reading
The Cinnamon Bun Book Store by Laurie Gilmore (p. 186 of 347). When the December Mini Challenge arrived in my email on Monday evening, I made my way directly to Barnes and Noble to see what Christmas books were on display that might grab my interest and fulfill one of the prompts. I was disappointed to find that only holiday romances were prominently featured. (What does this say about our society? Do only those who read romance novels want to be in the holiday spirit? I digress….) Since one of the prompts has to do with seasonal treats, the title caught my eye; what I failed to notice is that the cover clearly indicates an autumnal setting. What’s most funny is that this novel’s opening is at the end of summer…so I completely missed the prompt. Anyway, I have the book so I’m reading it and must admit that it is cute. Hazel, the manager of the bookstore, will soon turn 30. She feels as though her 20s have slipped away and she hasn’t had much adventure in life. It seems as though she is being prompted to be more adventurous as she is finding books shelved in the wrong places with dog eared pages and highlighted passages. Hazel takes these as clues to her personal adventure (yeah…it’s as cheesy as it sounds). In a blueberry patch late one evening, Hazel has had too much to drink and tells the handsome fisherman, Noah, about the clues she has found. Noah agrees to follow the clues with Hazel to see where they may lead.
A Christmas Murder by Mary Grand (p. 66 of 317). My reading life began with mysteries. I spent many hours in the pages of books featuring Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys. Somewhere along the way, I ventured away from the mystery genre. It was partially because of the violence and the suspense. (In case you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m not a fan of things that go bump in the night!) Since I am on a bit of a romance overload at the moment, I decided this was a good time to try out a mystery. Set in an English manor during Christmas, Grand’s novel features the members of a large, wealthy family who are coming to the countryside to celebrate Christmas together. As I have forced myself to get started in the book, I am realizing why I tend to avoid this genre. The novel opens with the murder that must be solved before jumping back in time to slowly bring all of our parties together in the manor. I’m still in the “introductions” stage when what I really want to know is what happens to the corpse that has been discovered. It just feels that mystery writers take forever to fully develop their characters before moving forward with the plot. I’m hoping that this book gets better quickly and that I am mistaken in my assumptions about mysteries since I have a few of them on my reading plan for 2025. I guess I’ll just have to let you know how things turn out as I continue to plow ahead in A Christmas Murder.
JFK Jr.: An Intimate Oral Biography by Liz McNeil and RoseMarie Terenzio (6:18 of 14:54). I did a little more listening this week about JFK Jr. This week explored his entry into the spotlight, being named People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive in 1988. From this point on, people were aware of his relationships with Brooke Shields, Julia Roberts, and Daryl Hannah. It was also around this time that John made his entry into the political landscape, introducing his uncle at the 1988 Democratic National Convention. As I have said for several weeks now, my hope is to make significant progress in this audiobook while driving home to Arkansas later this week.
There you have it. Hope you all have a great week of reading!
~Kennith
Reading for Me 
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