Festive fiction From romance to ghost stories to fantasy and beyond, holiday titles bring the magic of the season
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 21/12/2024 (292 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Whether you’re scrambling for a last-minute gift for the book lover in your life or are looking for distraction from the hustle and bustle of the season, there are a whole host of holiday titles sure to set your mind at ease.
Slim and spooky stocking stuffers, festive fables and a whole lot of love, actually — here’s a handful of holiday titles yule be sure to enjoy.
Seth
The ghosts of Christmases past, present and future that visit Ebeneezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol aren’t the only spectres haunting the holidays this Christmas season.
For the better part of a decade, Windsor, Ont. publisher Biblioasis has helped revive the Christmas ghost story tradition of Victorian times, releasing stocking stuffer-sized books featuring spooky tales illustrated by lauded Canadian cartoonist Seth under the Seth’s Christmas Ghost Stories banner.
Past stories have come from authors such as Arthur Conan Doyle, Edith Wharton, Daphne Du Maurier, Elizabeth Gaskell and, yes, Dickens. This year’s additions include The Amethyst Cross by Mary Fitt, Laurence Whistler’s Captain Dalgety Returns and L.P. Hartley’s Podolo (Biblioasis, various lengths, $10), all featuring handsome and slightly creepy illustrations by Seth. They’re the perfect size and length to read while cozied up next to the tree or under your blanket with a flashlight.
Milana Schaffer photo Meghan Quinn
Not surprisingly, the holiday season is big among today’s romance novels — the type made wildly popular by TikTok users in the BookTok sub-community.
Meghan Quinn’s How My Neighbor Stole Christmas (Sourcebooks, 480 pages, $27) is the latest from the bestselling and incredibly prolific author of the Port Snow series, creator of the Brentwood Boys and author of one other holiday tome, the cleverly titled story collection Resting Scrooge Face.
Cole Black isn’t like his fellow residents of Kringletown — he loathes Christmas. His new neighbour Storee Taylor is tasked with caring for her ailing aunt Cindy and decides to enter the town Christmas Kringle contest in her honour.
Cole dislikes Storee and is having none of it, deciding to enter the same contest to spite her, feigning a newfound love for Christmas and an interest in Storee, who follows suit to try and win the prize. But suddenly Cole and Storee’s fake fawning for each other starts to feel just a little too real…
Bringing another helping of coal this holiday season is another romance novel, this one from Virginia-based Sara Raasch. Having written eight books for young adults, she ventures into the world of the adult romance novel for the first time in The Nightmare Before Kissmas: A Royals and Romance Novel (Bramble, 368 pages, $27).
Nicholas “Coal” Claus was a big fan of Christmas until his father, Santa, turned it into a big spectacle and PR event. Slated to marry Iris, the Easter princess, Coal ends up making out with a handsome stranger behind a bar after a couple too many holiday tipples.
When Hex, the prince of Halloween, turns up to challenge Coal for Iris’ hand in marriage, Coal is in shock — it’s the handsome stranger. As Hex and Coal are forced to go through the motions jockeying for a wedding to Iris that neither of them want, they spend the rest of their time getting secretly, festively frisky with each other.
Florida-born, London-based Martha Waters has cut her teeth writing the Regency Vows series of romance novels, but in her latest, Christmas is All Around (Atria, 304 pages, $25), she hops forward in time to modern-day England for this festive fling.
Former child actress Charlotte starred in a holiday film that became a modern classic; now an illustrator, she flees to London to avoid the mounting pressure from fans to do a sequel.
After accidentally being left behind while admiring the holiday decorations of one of the film’s sets, Graham, the son of one of the owners, gives her a ride back to London. With Charlotte now working on commission to paint London holiday scenes from films, Graham offers to drive her around to check them out — and as they visit the iconic stops, their feelings for each other heat up.
Dahlia Katz photo Nita Prose
Nita Prose has taken the thriller world by storm with her books The Mystery Guest and The Maid, suspense novels featuring sleuthing by Molly Gray, maid at the Regency Grand Hotel. And while spring 2025 will see the release of The Maid’s Secret, fans who can’t wait that long can add The Mistletoe Mystery: A Maid Novella (Ballantine, 128 pages, $28) to the to-be-read pile.
Since she was a kid, Molly has loved the holidays, first with her gran and now with her beau Juan Manuel. But a Secret Santa gift exchange at the hotel raises Molly’s suspicions as to whether something fishy is afoot — and whether Juan Manuel can be trusted.
For the first time in 17 years, U.K. author Suzanna Clarke adds to the world of her Hugo Award-winning novel Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell with The Wood at Midwinter (Bloomsbury, 64 pages, $23), a slim but beautiful fable/fantasy featuring illustrations throughout by Victoria Sawdon.
Set just a few days before Christmas, the story follows Merowdis Scot, a 19-year-old young woman who can talk to trees and animals — and who prefers wandering the woods than talking to people. When she, her pig and two dogs are strolling through the woods one day, they meet a blackbird and a fox before a strange figure appears, changing Merowdis’ life forever.
In an afterword, Clarke says she was inspired by the work of Kate Bush, in particular the 2011 album 50 Words for Snow.
Norwegian author Ingvild Rishøi (Stargate) offers her slim and contemplative Christmas book Brightly Shining (translated by Caroline Waight, Grove/Atlantic, 192 pages, $31) for the holidays.
Melissa and Ronja are despondent when their father is once again out of work before Ronja, 10, catches wind of a job at a Christmas tree stand near their central Oslo home. Their family’s fortune improves as the father eventiually brings home money and food for their table.
But when the father slips into the night under the auspices of buying gifts, the girls reckon he’s set out to visit the local pub, which can lead to no good.
In order to (hopefully) save his job, the girls take his place at the Christmas tree stand, coming to understand their family will need resilience and a bit of luck to persevere this holiday season.
books@freepress.mb.ca
Ben Sigurdson
Literary editor, drinks writer
Ben Sigurdson is the Free Press‘s literary editor and drinks writer. He graduated with a master of arts degree in English from the University of Manitoba in 2005, the same year he began writing Uncorked, the weekly Free Press drinks column. He joined the Free Press full time in 2013 as a copy editor before being appointed literary editor in 2014. Read more about Ben.
In addition to providing opinions and analysis on wine and drinks, Ben oversees a team of freelance book reviewers and produces content for the arts and life section, all of which is reviewed by the Free Press’s editing team before being posted online or published in print. It’s part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.
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