Books like Let It Snow — picked by fans

This book has everything I love in a Christmas romance—a delightfully competent heroine, a deliciously grumpy hero, a cast of eccentric characters, and themes of found family and healing.

Holly, a widow, takes a housesitting job during the holidays at a remote house on the Lancashire moors. But then people keep arriving, and Holly finds herself being guilt tripped into hosting Christmas. When Jude, the owner, is forced to return home, blizzards hit, and they’re all snowed in.

I felt for Holly and Jude who both had good reasons to avoid Christmas, but beneath their prickly exteriors they’re kind, big-hearted characters. It was a joy to see them rediscover the joy of the season. In turn hilarious and emotional, this is a big warm hug of a book.

To my mind, category romances (those short romances written by publishers like Mills & Boon) provide the most glorious shot of emotion, highlighting all that is most fabulous about the festive season.

In this story Meg, PA extraordinaire, has accidentally stranded her intimidating and aloof boss, William, in Melbourne for Christmas. Convinced she’s going to lose her job, but unable to stand the thought of him being alone for the holiday, she invites him home to the chaotic family farm.

Here William is forced to see his PA in a new light, and finds the walls surrounding his heart starting to crack. For such a short book, this one is rich and emotional. Just a lovely read.

First of all—a holiday story set in New York City? Who can resist that? Like the heroine, I am one of those people who loves immersing myself in Christmas as soon as Halloween is over. That usually means reading several holiday-set novels. With this book, I found myself turning pages faster and faster, yet never wanting the book to end.

The hero worried me. He’d faced a tragedy and shut himself off from the world. Sometimes, that can be too dark for my reading pleasure. But Sarah is a masterful storyteller. Her heroine is so empathetic and caring (possibly at the risk of breaking her own heart) that the hero is ever-so-slowly coaxed back from the brink of disaster.

Even for readers not from the Christmas tradition, the unfolding story will be satisfying. 

Ashley who is heading home for Christmas, meets a mysterious woman on a train, and wakes up wearing an antique charm bracelet.

Once home, Ashley keeps running into her former high school boyfriend, hot firefighter Aidan. If you love small town romances (and I do) then you’ll love Ashley’s hometown which is full of community spirit, family and friends and hot chocolate, and holiday traditions. Ashley soon realizes that each charm indicates an event that happens in real life.

It all adds up to the feeling that Ashley and Aidan are meant to be. Sweetly adorable and utterly charming.

I love a sassy, bright, independent female protagonist, and that’s what I got with Grace Bernard. I love dysfunctional family dynamics, but Grace’s point of view had me laughing out loud. Funny villains are my jam, and Bella delivers one in the middle of a shitstorm that had me reading into the middle of the night.

This is a story about a whole sibling group that causes a lot of trouble. But in a way, they are the only ray of light in an otherwise dull town.

I get the idea that the townsfolk enjoy the drama more than they let on. What I really liked about this book is the writing style. It is very engaging and conversational. I was always waiting for the next punchline/payoff. Very funny.

I listened to the audiobook. It is read by Elaine Stritch. She has the best voice. I could listen to her talk all day long.

I was introduced to Ian Hamilton’s Ava Lee Novels when I was looking for a successful Canadian writer of “business fiction.” We never call it that, of course, it has to be written as an action-adventure, thriller, mystery, suspense novel, and Hamilton meets those criteria with Ava Lee as a tough-as-nails, lesbian Chinese-Canadian forensic accountant tracking down money stolen from business clients.

Her connections and family investments lead her to Hong Kong and Macau for a settling of accounts with local organized crime and Ava Lee knows that violence is the only negotiating tactic they understand.           

When I began my grief journey after thirty years, I googled Sibling Loss and came across Brenda’s dissertation. For the first time I did not feel alone in my grief. I reached out to Brenda and she told me about her writing, Adult Sibling Loss. Brenda’s sensitivity in sharing the emotions of the loss of her brother, and three adult women who lost their sibling validated feelings I kept dormant. Layered into the stories is extensive research done by Brenda.

Brenda termed her experience “invisible griever” following the unexpected death of her brother. Siblings are often the forgotten mourners. The bookshelves have few in this category, and I am grateful to be on the road to discovering the few written are heartfelt, enlightening, and aided me in my grief.

Tim Powers is an acknowledged modern master of the preternatural, but many readers probably don’t know he’s also a practicing Catholic. In Hide Me Among the Graves, his passion for the Romantic poets brings poor Christina Rossetti, her family, and others both historical and fictional under the sway of her vampire-uncle John Polidori, author of The Vampyre. Powers’s wild imagination casts the Thames River as Purgatory, songbirds as soul-catchers, and vampires as the ancient Biblical Nephilim. It’s a kitchen sink approach to fantasy that will keep readers guessing until the end.

I have recommended this book to so many people over the years! I loved the unique setting—deep beneath the sewers of New York City—and the way Gregor travels to this world—through a chute in his apartment’s laundromat. 

My ten-year-old son and I both read this one and loved all the talking creatures and subterranean adventure—giant anthropomorphic rats, cockroaches, and bats you can ride! All those creepy crawlies might sound a little icky to some, but I loved how inventive and unexpected it all was. One of my favorite characters is a smart-mouthed, grumpy warrior rat named Ripred, who, deep down, has a soft side (plus a powerful love for stinky food).  

This was a hard book to put down. Nearly every chapter ends with a high-stakes, dangerous development. I just had to keep turning the pages to find out what would happen next.