News and Updates
Can you believe it’s Christmas week?? Our youngest had his last day of school for 2025 on Thursday and we have been finishing up all the cookie dough so we can bake them all on Christmas Eve! I’m also getting ready for my annual Bookish Retreat next weekend! Normally I do it a little earlier in December, but the year just got away from us! I can’t wait to spend a few days getting books and events lined up for your 2026 calendar. Stay tuned for some goodies I already have planned!
This Week
Holidays always bring out the family drama, so let’s embrace it this week with our reading challenge prompt!
Reading Challenge: Family Drama
When a woman suddenly becomes a single mother to three young kids, she tries to do everything she can to keep life as “normal” as possible for the kids. But being abandoned by their father leaves long-lasting impacts for all four of them. Anne Tyler explores how each character tries to pretend nothing is wrong throughout the next few decades of life in Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant…until they come face to face with the man who left and the trauma he caused.
If you’re looking for other great books for this prompt, try one of these:
- Apples Never Fall, Liane Moriarty
- The God of the Woods, Liz Moore
- Hello Beautiful, Ann Patchett
- Little Fires Everywhere, Celeste Ng
New This week
With it being a holiday week, there’s not a lot of new books hitting shelves this week – here’s what’s on my wish list for Santa to bring me!
- Cold Crematorium: Reporting from the land of Auschwitz, Jozsef Debreczeni (Paperback version)
In Case You Missed It
Last Week’s Prompt
Nothing like taking home a fake date for Christmas to keep your family off your back. But if that fake date is the son of your parents’ best friends and business partners… there is going to be a different level of fear and drama. After barely being in a room together for months and planning to tell their parents about their breakup over the holidays, the last thing Kate and Chuck want is to spend any more time together than necessary on this trip. But when their parents unveil the new product line based completely on the kids’ love story complete with a marketing campaign that will require them to get, well, personal, their plans get turned upside down.
I give Fool Me Twice at Christmas by Camilla Isley 3.95 out of 5 stars. I enjoyed this lighthearted, made for TV romcom as a quick escape from some of the more daunting tasks leading up to the holidays. This definitely has an air of Hallmark Movie between the chocolate business and the fake romance, but it was a fun read. I will say I was disappointed in the way Isley chose to work with Kate’s boyfriend in this storyline. I also found myself more than once trying to figure out how the house and property were laid out because descriptions seemed to contradict themselves. Like many of the romcoms we’ve read recently, the ending felt a bit rushed and like the author had plans for more but cut it short – I think a little more detail would have gone a long way to feeling like a complete storyline had been shared. If you’re a fan of Meg Easton or Emma Baird, I think you’ll love this book!
Last Week’s Articles
If you’re not meeting your reading goals this year, don’t get discouraged! This week, we talked about how to realistically set goals for 2026, and some tricks to help you meet them, whatever goal you set.
I mentioned this in the article, but will say it again here: it doesn’t matter if you met your goal or not – you read books! It also doesn’t matter if you read as much as me, or just a book or two a year. Don’t let comparison with other book reviewers or influencers steal the joy of a good book!
TBR Read
Our December TBR Read is Holiday Hideaway by Mary Kay Andrews.
Tilly was hoping to hide here – the house has been listed as a vacation rental for months without activity. If her boss found out she was hiding in one of the properties they managed, she’d be fired for certain. But what other options does she have? Tilly lost her house in the divorce and her landlord kicked her out because of the dog. She was hiding well for a few days…until the new owner showed up unexpectedly. Now she’s trapped in the attic with no way to get out and a sneaking suspicion she knows this guy? Will she escape without being noticed or is her bad year doomed to get worse?
I give Holiday Hideaway by Mary Kay Andrews 3.95 out of 5 stars. This short story was a great way to get in the holiday spirit. At just 72 pages (and available on Kindle Unlimited), this was a very quick read, but it also felt like pieces of the story were missing. Andrews covers a several day span in this storyline, but some days were given much more detail than others, and some scenes are missing the catalyst for the action. I have always loved Andrews’ works, especially her Christmas novels, but this one was just a little off for me. I would recommend this if you’re looking for a quick read for a plane or car ride to your holiday getaway – the cute romcom was a fun read!
Last Week’s Preview
When Americans think of escaped slaves, their first thought is usually to the Underground Railroad – the mechanism responsible for ferrying so many men, women, and children to freedom. But the first passages on the Underground Railroad did not occur until the late 1780’s – decades after David George attempted escape from his plantation.
I give The Escapes of David George by Gregory E. O’Malley 4 out of 5 stars. This was a surprising non-fiction read for me. I have lived closed to where George was held by the Indigenous tribe and have never heard of this man. I visit Savannah quite a bit and again, missed any mention of him. With so much of our literature regarding slavery focusing on the time just before and after the Civil War, this is a great place for readers to start in learning about its impacts around the American Revolution and the efforts to repatriate former slaves even before the 19th century.
Reading Challenge Prompts
Are you reading along with us for December? Here’s the full list of our upcoming weekly prompts. Not up for reading a book every week? That’s ok – we have a once-a-month prompt, too! Our monthly theme for December is RED – look for a book with a red cover or red in the name.
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What I’m Reading
- Current print book: Daughter of Egypt, Marie Benedict
- Current audio book: Everfair, Nisi Shawl
- Book I’m most looking forward to: How to Be Okay with Nothing is Okay, Jenny Lawson
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