According to Hercule Poirot, Christmas is a natural time for murder
Family members gather from afar. Personalities clash. People bring up past offenses. Tensions run high. Should we be surprised when all this tinder catches fire? No, says the logical Belgian.
In this book, we have a houseful of family members, and it seems that one of them has murdered the patriarch. This man is not nice. We are not sad when he dies. Simeon Lee, the head of the family, takes perverse pleasure in causing his family members distress. He’s never displayed high moral character—shady business dealings, extramarital affairs, etc. Now, it’s come back to bite him. To end him.
The trope of the Evil Parent is something that I’ve seen before in Agatha Christie. It’s also similar to the setup in Knives Out.
But who did it? It’s a locked-door murder, and everyone in the house is a suspect. Who stood to benefit from the old man’s death? Who hated him the most?
To solve this one, Hercule Poirot decides to take a close look at Simeon Lee himself, insisting that the character of the deceased often leads directly to the murderer.
There are red herrings and other deceptions that keep this book moving along. In my opinion, this is one of Agatha Christie’s stronger novels. It serves up just what I hoped it would, including justice.
My only complaint is that I wish there were more Christmas-y trappings to make it more of a seasonal read.
I listened to Faith Moore’s podcast series on A Christmas Carol this year and loved it. She does a great job of narrating the book as well as interjecting short “notes” to clarify what’s going on and bring out important pieces. So, reading her spinoff novel seemed like the perfect companion to the podcast.
This book reimagines Scrooge as a middle-aged workaholic woman named Karol. Unlike Scrooge, she has a family, but she has disconnected from them and isn’t interested in spending time with them. Christmas isn’t a happy time for Karol, as it causes her to remember her mother’s death and her estrangement from her sister. But she does find solace in her career as a lawyer, which is going very well.
Karol believes that her husband and kids don’t need her—they only need her to work to provide money to sustain their lifestyle. She likes the way she feels when she’s at work: in control, successful, powerful. She doesn’t like the way she feels at home: trapped, out of the loop, redundant. This leads her to where she is at the start of the book: A success at work, and a failure at home. But she doesn’t see her homemaking failures as a big deal. She’s a high-powered NYC lawyer…and that’s the very definition of success, isn’t it?
Karol calls her employees to work on Christmas Eve to handle an issue regarding a Very Important Client, but on her way to a meeting, she slips and hits her head in Rockefeller Center and ends up in the hospital—but it’s not your typical hospital. There, she has three separate encounters with the past, present, and future. These cause her to rethink her notions of success and confront the deep unhappiness that she’s been trying so hard to mask with money and makeup.
I really enjoyed this book because I’ve chosen to devote my talents and energies to professional homemaking. I’ve largely phased out of any type of money-making work. I stay at home with my kids and homeschool them. My days are dominated by parenting challenges and household chores. I have chocolate-chip banana bread in the oven as I type this book review. I’m one of those. Naturally, I enjoy reading books that reinforce my life choices.
But, I also believe that what Faith Moore is saying about finding joy is true. Investing in my husband and my kids is something I won’t regret. I may not make any money, but I save a heck of a lot of it. I know my kids inside and out, better than they know themselves. My husband and I agree that we have the best marriage of anyone we know. These are not small matters. They are what a fulfilled life is built on.
Are there days when I wish I could put my kids on the school bus and let someone else deal with them? Sure! Are there days when I die a little bit inside, knowing that I will perform grunt work from morning til night? Of course! Are there times when I look with envy at beautifully dressed women who have important jobs to run off to? Yes. But I wouldn’t trade what I have.
Let me be clear: This book isn’t saying that all women should be homemakers. It is saying that all women should prioritize the human connections in their lives over material gains. Making husbands and kids a priority (instead of an afterthought) will lead to a correct ordering of affection, which leads to joy and fulfillment. No amount of money or success can fill the void when husband and kids have grown cold and indifferent.
Some may find this message grates on them or feels too political, and it’s hard for me to offer an unbiased opinion because I agree with what this book is saying. But, if you value the home and the woman’s role in it, then I think you’ll find a lot to like in this retelling.
I read this book with my 7- and 9-year-olds for Sarah MacKenzie’s Christmas School this year. I was surprised by how much they were able to access, despite the old-fashioned language. This tale echoes through so many other stories that they’re familiar with, namely the Grinch.
I am a fan of The Muppet’s Christmas Carol movie, as well as Mickey’s Christmas Carol (I had a bootleg VHS recording of this as a kid), but I cannot abide the Jim Carrey version.
This quick Christmas romance brings second-chance love with You’ve Got Mail vibes
It’s not often you read a holiday rom-com about an estranged wife and husband getting back together, but that’s what happens here. Our protagonist, Fern Gale, is the town recluse. She lives in a gorgeous house in a small town, but ever since her mom died four years ago (and her husband abandoned her) she has been filling it with antiques with vague notions of selling them at some point. Maybe. She’s aimless and alone.
When a pipe freezes and bursts in her historic house, she calls the only person who knows where the water shut-off is buried under the new-fallen snow—her ex. They haven’t spoken in four years. Now what?
This is a simple, sweet book that will make you smile and get you into the holiday spirit. The only thing I wanted to know more about is why Fern’s husband left and stayed MIA for so long. I understand generally why, but I wanted there to be a bigger “last straw” that sent him packing and justified the years-long estrangement.
If you love Hallmark (or GAF) movies, then you’ll adore this short, sweet book. Blackstock uses dual narrators. We’ve got Finn, the crabby cabby (a cab driver with a bad attitude) and Sydney the stressed-out lawyer who needs to win a no-win case in order to keep her job. No pressure, Syd.
So, fun fact. In her author’s note, Blackstock describes how she was sitting in the waiting room at her actual doctor’s office when a man wheeled in an elderly lady and then headed toward the door. She asked if he was just going to leave her, and he responded: “Lady, I’m just the cab driver.” That was her inspiration for this book.
Finn gets a call to take elderly and disoriented Callie to the doctor. Who hires a cab to take Grammy to her appt?? Well, it turns out that Sydney does—on a day when she must attend an important work meeting or risk getting fired. That gets the ball rolling, and it’s sweet as figgy pudding front to back.
Callie is spicy and determined to get her way, no matter how sick she is. Finn is prickly on the outside and jello on the inside. Sydney looks like a successful attorney, but she’s broke and hanging on by a thread.
Worldview means a LOT to me when I’m reading a light book like this one, especially a romance. Why read a candy book if the author is saying things about life and love that you can’t stand? I can tell that Blackstock and I share a lot of the same beliefs, and it’s great to see those reflected here. I didn’t have to cringe at anything…you might, but I didn’t. There are a few moments that some people will find politically incorrect, but I actually agree with the author on most things, so I, uh, mentally high-fived her when I read those bits.
Blackstock is a Christian author, but this book does a great job of not getting preachy. There is no contrived altar call moment. We see both Finn and Sydney rethink their spiritual lives, going from dormancy to just waking up. They are on the brink of starting something good with Jesus, but the book isn’t about that. It’s a side effect of their interactions with Callie.
Well, Andrew Klavan co-authors one of my all-time favorite Substacks (The New Jerusalem), and I’ve listened to him on podcasts and interviews, and I knew that he was a novelist. But I wasn’t quite sure where to start with his fiction. Audible helped me by offering this entry point as part of the Plus Catalog.
This is the first in a detective series featuring Cameron Winter, a shadowy man who is both lethal and literary. He has killed people in his earlier days (military? Spy work? We’re not sure), but now he’s a university English prof. Okay, I’m in!
This book introduces us to the classically handsome (and classically read) Cameron, but it leaves a lot of unanswered questions about who he is and what haunts him from his past. He’s lethal. He’s cool under pressure. But he’s also carrying some serious emotional baggage. He has what he calls “a strange habit of mind” in which he clears his head, opens himself to empathy, and then allows all of the pieces of whatever puzzle he’s trying to solve fall into place, and they just do. This “gift/habit” is mostly a mystery.
An old friend asks Cameron for a favor. Can he help her with a murder case? Ex-military boyfriend kills girlfriend in a jealous rage and then confesses to the crime. Nothing to solve. But the facts don’t add up. Something’s off. So, Cameron starts sniffing around.
This is a short book that does a great job of balancing plot and character. You get a handful of plot twists, but there’s a wide range to the cast, and nobody feels like a cardboard cutout. I’m here for book two!
A gang of troublemakers want to be in the church Christmas program. Hilarity ensues.
Seeing this play with my Brownies Troop was one of the formative events in my childhood. I still remember the girl who played Imogen swinging the baby Jesus doll around and Mrs. Robinson urging her to hold him like he was precious.
Reading this story was just as good as it’s ever been for me. It asks the question: What would happen if the neighborhood hooligans showed up at church and wanted to star in the Christmas pageant? What is a funny romp for kids is quite convicting for the parents who are reading it. At least it is for me.
My boys loved this book and laughed a lot. We read one chapter a day for a week, and it was a great experience.
Content warnings: The Herdman children smoke, steal, lie, and set things on fire, but it’s all melodrama, not real.
How did Santa Claus get to be Santa Claus? Here’s a cute origin story for ya.
This was pure fun. It’s an origin story for Santa Claus, as imagined by Matt Haig, author of The Midnight Library. There’s nothing about Jesus or the reality of Christmas—just the North Pole characters associated with the secular winter holidays. Despite lacking any faith element, it’s a cute, heartwarming story that reinforces the value of life, looking on the bright side, and finding joy in giving to others.
My kids know that Santa isn’t real. Every year, we read Gail Gibbons’s book “Santa Who?” because it discusses all of the different traditions and legends that have contributed to who Santa has become, starting with Jesus Christ, then moving to Saint Nicholas, and then beyond. We treat Santa as a character more than anything—like the Grinch or Scrooge. We visit Santa at the annual Christmas tree lighting. We lay out cookies and milk. I don’t want to deprive them of any childhood magic. But I’m not going to lie and tell them he’s real when he’s not. So, this book provided some Santa fun, and I felt that it helps to reinforce him as a fictional character vs. a reality.
We listened to the audiobook narrated by Stephen Fry, and it was adorable. He reads like Jim Dale, doing all the voices.
Content warnings: Nicholas is mistreated and betrayed, but there is nothing troublingly graphic here. I also want to emphasize that this book is secular and unconnected to any other Santa myths that I know of. There is no mention of religion of any kind, not even St. Nicholas.
