So I finished "The Noel Letters" by Richard Paul Evas the Monday before Thanksgiving. Honestly, I wasn't impressed with this one. Not that it was boring; it wasn't. But I'm not putting it on my favorite list. A young woman, Noel Post, goes home to reconcile with her dying father, only she arrives too late. Suddenly, she has to decide whether to return to her life or stay and take over her father's bookstore; it's actually a simple decision, as she was laid off from her previous job as an editor. Her relationship with her father could be described as strained, at best. Noel blames Robert, her father, for her mother leaving (and ultimately dying in a car crash). The truth will eventually come to light with the anonymously written "Noel Letters" and some harsh insight from one of Noel's father's employees. Of course, Evans includes romance. Noel forms a relationship with a single father and his daughter. Whether or not it will last is something I will not spoil.
I was looking forward to reading "The Christmas Shoes" by Donna Van Liere this year, but was unable to procure a copy. I did, however, get my hands on a Christmas mystery, "A Christmas Carol Murder," written by Heather Redmond.
London, December 1835: Charles and Kate are out with friends and family for a chilly night of caroling and good cheer. But their blood truly runs cold when their singing is interrupted by a body plumeting from an upper window of a house. They soon learnt the dead man at their feet, his neck strangely wriapped in chains, is Jacob Harley, the business partner of the resident of the house, an unpleasnt codger who owns a counting house, one Emmanuel Screws. Ever the journalist, Charles dedicates himself to discovering who's behind the diabolical defenestration. But before he can investigate further, Harley's corpse is stolen. Following that, Charles in visited in his quarters by what appears to be Harley's ghost--or is it merely Charles's overwrought imagination? He continues to suspect Emmanuel, the same penurious penny pincher who denied his father a lown yers ago, but Kate insists the old man is too weak to heave a body out a window. Their mutual affection and admiration can accommodate a difference of opinion, but matters are complicated by the unexpected arrivial of an infant orphn. Charles must find the child a home while solving a murder, to ensure that the next one in chains is the guilty party...
I've read a few chapters already, and it's pretty good. It will most likely be the last book I read in 2020, and I'm looking forward to finishing this "journey" in time for the New Year!
