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A Stocking Full Of New Christmas Novels Have Hit The Bookstores
By Barbara Murphy
Contributing Writer
The oft heard lament these days is that the internet is killing the printed word, that people don’t read books anymore and that the publishing business is headed toward extinction.
But, despite the grim predictions, the printed word will apparently survive as long as we celebrate Christmas. Every Yuletide brings a veritable tsunami of new Christmas books, which people must be buying or publishers wouldn’t keep printing them.
I searched my local library this year for new Christmas books and came home with a bagful of them — a bag so heavy I could hardly carry it.
The sampling I took home had something for everyone.
For those who still believe that Christmas is a religious celebration and that Christmas reading should reflect that, there’s Richard Paul Evans’ “Lost December,” which is a modern retelling of The Prodigal Son with bit of the Good Samaritan included. (Mr. Evans is also the author “The Christmas Box,” which was enormously successful a few years back and became a television as well as published hit.)
“Lost December” is the story of Luke Crisp, the only and much beloved son of Carl Crisp, CEO and co-founder of Fortune 500 Crisp’s Copy Centers. Carl Crisp not only knows how to make money but he also knows how to treat his employees — kindly and generously. When he retires, Carl expects his son to take over the business but first he wants Luke to see something of the world beyond the company, where Luke has been learning the copying trade since childhood. His father sends Luke off to the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School to get a business degree.
Unfortunately, Luke’s new girlfriend, Candace, persuades him to join her group of friends at one of the famous watering holes near the Penn campus. Luke, a shy and naive young man, falls under the sway of one of Candace’s friends, a charming smart and fast-talking con man named Sean, who persuades Luke that live is for living — and living is not a dull corporate existence. Sean gets such a psychological hold on Luke that Luke repudiates his father and takes possession of a million dollar trust which had been set up for him. He uses the money to fund a trip to Europe for himself, Candace, Sean and several other friends. The result is predictable. Sean causes Luke to lose every dime he has — along with Candace — and Luke winds up back in the states penniless and homeless. He is saved from death on the streets by a kind-hearted nursing home operator named Carlos Sanchez, who gives Luke a bed and a job.
If you know the Bible, you can guess how the story ends. Even so, Mr. Evans will keep you reading until the final page. “Lost December” is a religious story told simply and convincingly. It is a reminder why the parables of Jesus are immortal.
On the lighter side is “The Nine Lives of Christmas” by Sheila Roberts. As a cat lover, I enjoyed the book immensely. The hero is a tomcat named Ambrose, who is on his ninth life after eight near death experiences. Determined to hang on to the precious ninth life, Ambrose, who is wily, witty and undaunted by life’s challenges, realizes his only hope of living to old age is to attach himself to a human, who is either a cat lover or can be transformed into one and who also has a house where Ambrose can reside in safety and comfort.
How Ambrose succeeds in doing this makes for delightful reading. “The Nine Lives of Christmas” is a short snappy well-written and funny book that should provide an effective antidote to that widespread ailment, the Christmas blues.
For dog lovers (I’m one of those too) there’s “The Christmas Dog,” one of the three-in-one books in Melody Carlson’s “The Joy of Christmas.” The other two books in the trilogy are “An Irish Christmas” and “All I Have To Give.”
The Christmas dog is Ralph, a bedraggled stray who adds another irritant to the major irritant spoiling the Christmas celebration of Betty Kowalski.
As Christmas nears, Betty is painfully conscious that she is soaked in sin because she cannot obey her pastor’s command to “love thy neighbor.” Betty hates her neighbor, Jack Jones. They have been at loggerheads since an argument the previous summer over who was responsible for a rotting cedar fence between their properties.
Betty is wracking her brain for a way to get Jack out of the neighborhood when her scheming is interrupted by the sudden and simultaneous arrival of her step granddaughter Avery (who has run away from home) and of Ralph, a black stray dirt-caked mongrel dog.
Between her hatred of Jack, her love for Avery and her aversion to Ralph, Betty has a terrible struggle working up any kind of Christmas spirit. But what happens next shows that, given a chance, love always triumphs over hate and that Christmas can be celebrated joyfully in the most trying of circumstances.
Other new Christmas books in the bag that I filled in the library included Heather Graham’s “An Angel For Christmas,” describing what happens when the warring MacDougal family must provide shelter and care in a storm for an injured police officer; Shelley Shepard Gray’s “Christmas in Sugarcreek,” a love story in an Amish-Mennonite setting; and Fern Michaels’ “Christmas at Timberwoods,” about a women with a premonition that tragedy will strike a local mega-mall on Christmas eve.
By Barbara Murphy
Contributing Writer
The oft heard lament these days is that the internet is killing the printed word, that people don’t read books anymore and that the publishing business is headed toward extinction.
But, despite the grim predictions, the printed word will apparently survive as long as we celebrate Christmas. Every Yuletide brings a veritable tsunami of new Christmas books, which people must be buying or publishers wouldn’t keep printing them.
I searched my local library this year for new Christmas books and came home with a bagful of them — a bag so heavy I could hardly carry it.
The sampling I took home had something for everyone.
For those who still believe that Christmas is a religious celebration and that Christmas reading should reflect that, there’s Richard Paul Evans’ “Lost December,” which is a modern retelling of The Prodigal Son with bit of the Good Samaritan included. (Mr. Evans is also the author “The Christmas Box,” which was enormously successful a few years back and became a television as well as published hit.)
“Lost December” is the story of Luke Crisp, the only and much beloved son of Carl Crisp, CEO and co-founder of Fortune 500 Crisp’s Copy Centers. Carl Crisp not only knows how to make money but he also knows how to treat his employees — kindly and generously. When he retires, Carl expects his son to take over the business but first he wants Luke to see something of the world beyond the company, where Luke has been learning the copying trade since childhood. His father sends Luke off to the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School to get a business degree.
Unfortunately, Luke’s new girlfriend, Candace, persuades him to join her group of friends at one of the famous watering holes near the Penn campus. Luke, a shy and naive young man, falls under the sway of one of Candace’s friends, a charming smart and fast-talking con man named Sean, who persuades Luke that live is for living — and living is not a dull corporate existence. Sean gets such a psychological hold on Luke that Luke repudiates his father and takes possession of a million dollar trust which had been set up for him. He uses the money to fund a trip to Europe for himself, Candace, Sean and several other friends. The result is predictable. Sean causes Luke to lose every dime he has — along with Candace — and Luke winds up back in the states penniless and homeless. He is saved from death on the streets by a kind-hearted nursing home operator named Carlos Sanchez, who gives Luke a bed and a job.
If you know the Bible, you can guess how the story ends. Even so, Mr. Evans will keep you reading until the final page. “Lost December” is a religious story told simply and convincingly. It is a reminder why the parables of Jesus are immortal.
On the lighter side is “The Nine Lives of Christmas” by Sheila Roberts. As a cat lover, I enjoyed the book immensely. The hero is a tomcat named Ambrose, who is on his ninth life after eight near death experiences. Determined to hang on to the precious ninth life, Ambrose, who is wily, witty and undaunted by life’s challenges, realizes his only hope of living to old age is to attach himself to a human, who is either a cat lover or can be transformed into one and who also has a house where Ambrose can reside in safety and comfort.
How Ambrose succeeds in doing this makes for delightful reading. “The Nine Lives of Christmas” is a short snappy well-written and funny book that should provide an effective antidote to that widespread ailment, the Christmas blues.
For dog lovers (I’m one of those too) there’s “The Christmas Dog,” one of the three-in-one books in Melody Carlson’s “The Joy of Christmas.” The other two books in the trilogy are “An Irish Christmas” and “All I Have To Give.”
The Christmas dog is Ralph, a bedraggled stray who adds another irritant to the major irritant spoiling the Christmas celebration of Betty Kowalski.
As Christmas nears, Betty is painfully conscious that she is soaked in sin because she cannot obey her pastor’s command to “love thy neighbor.” Betty hates her neighbor, Jack Jones. They have been at loggerheads since an argument the previous summer over who was responsible for a rotting cedar fence between their properties.
Betty is wracking her brain for a way to get Jack out of the neighborhood when her scheming is interrupted by the sudden and simultaneous arrival of her step granddaughter Avery (who has run away from home) and of Ralph, a black stray dirt-caked mongrel dog.
Between her hatred of Jack, her love for Avery and her aversion to Ralph, Betty has a terrible struggle working up any kind of Christmas spirit. But what happens next shows that, given a chance, love always triumphs over hate and that Christmas can be celebrated joyfully in the most trying of circumstances.
Other new Christmas books in the bag that I filled in the library included Heather Graham’s “An Angel For Christmas,” describing what happens when the warring MacDougal family must provide shelter and care in a storm for an injured police officer; Shelley Shepard Gray’s “Christmas in Sugarcreek,” a love story in an Amish-Mennonite setting; and Fern Michaels’ “Christmas at Timberwoods,” about a women with a premonition that tragedy will strike a local mega-mall on Christmas eve.