"Southern Snow" by B. R. Goodwin

This is a really enjoyable Christian romcom.  Georgia is a capable and believable modern woman, trying to juggle caring for her aging parents with running the family business and being a good older sister to her siblings, but with little time for her own growth.  Enter Lakeland, the bad boy she almost dated in high school, who may or may not have become a good guy.  Sparks of all sorts fly, of course.

I am not always a fan of dual timeline stories, but that writing device worked very well here.  I liked that we got to see how everything built up and then fell apart between Georgia and Lakeland, but in little pieces here and there, not all info-dumped at once.  

I look forward to reading the other books in the Sugartree series by B. R. Goodwin -- and I'll probably try to read them during the seasons when they take place, like I did with this Christmastime book.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for discussions of drug use, lots of thinking about being attracted to a guy, and some lightly described kisses.

"The Golden Hour" by Carrie Brownell, illustrated by Hannah Hill

I don't often review picture books here, but The Golden Hour by Carrie Brownell is a Christmas picture book, and that has made all the difference.  

This is a lovely story about the wooden angels at Westminster Cathedral in London coming alive for one hour every Christmas night.  They usually spend their hour singing and flying about the cathedral, but one night, one angel sneaks outside and has an encounter with a child... and I can't spoil the rest, I really can't.  The last page gave me goosebumps AND brought tears to my eyes, so yeah, very good stuff here.

The illustrations by Hannah Hill are beautiful without being either too cutesy or too grandiose.  They suit the story perfectly.

This is too long to read to young children -- probably best for kids around 5 and up.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: G.  Absolutely wholesome and perfect for kids.

"The Cricket on the Hearth" by Charles Dickens

I can't believe I'd never read this before!  Somehow, I thought it was about a literal cricket sitting on a hearth, telling us stories about the people he's met and things he's experienced.  It is not about that AT ALL.  

I mean, there's a cricket in the story that does chirp near a hearth.  But it's not a talking or sentient cricket.  It's kind of a symbol of contentment and coziness in your own home and among your own family members.  I'm so glad this was one pick for this year's #DickensDecember readings over on Instagram, because I absolutely delighted in this book.

This book is actually about a sweet and cheerful young wife, her older and devoted husband, and some of their friends.  A shadow of suspicion falls over their happy home for a while, and I devoured the last couple chapters of this book in great worry over what was going to happen.

SPOILERS IN THIS PARAGRAPH.  One of the things I liked best were some cool parallels to the Biblical account of Mary and Joseph.  A young and sweet wife, an older husband who suddenly suspects things are not right with his marriage, his plan for a quiet and private separation, and a sudden revelation of unknown facts that makes everything okay again.

I am not always the biggest fan of Charles Dickens, but this is going on my list (with A Christmas Carol and A Tale of Two Cities) of Dickens books I truly and thoroughly enjoy!

Particularly Good Bits:

But let us be genteel, or die! (p. 74)  (I am guessing that Amy March's line "Let us be elegant, or die" in Little Women by Louisa May Alcott is an allusion to this line, since the March sisters are such fans of Dickens.)

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for some allusions to suspected marital unfaithfulness.  No cussing, smut, or violence.

This has been my 47th book read and reviewed for my fourth Classics Club list.

"Hear the Falling Snow" by Storm Shultz

I read Hear the Falling Snow by Storm Shultz in tiny little nibbles over the course of three weeks.  The plot involves a lot of delicious Christmas baking, and the book as a whole felt like some kind of rich and comforting and nourishing food -- like homemade chicken soup or something.

The main character, Adeline, is grieving for her mother.  Her sisters pay for her to go to a month-long Christmas baking seminar-and-retreat at a fancy mansion.  The baking classes are taught by a celebrity chef.  There's an assortment of quirky and lovely side characters also taking the classes.  And there's a handsome, sweet, single groundskeeper named Luke who seems like a perfect match for Adeline.

If only he wasn't planning to move to Turkey to become a missionary.  In January.

But if there weren't any problems to overcome, there'd be no plot, right?

One of the things that made this a perfect book for me to read this particular year is that Adeline is a ballet dancer.  She performed professionally for years, and now she teaches ballet.  There are references all through the book too The Nutcracker... and my teenage ballerina was in her own first production of The Nutcracker this year!  So that felt especially timely.

Also, I love to bake.  There are recipes at the end of the book, and I am totally going to try some of them!

Also, both Adeline and Luke genuinely enjoyed snow, and I love snow myself, so that made me like them both a lot.

I love how Storm Shultz always writes characters that feel like I could meet them myself somewhere, like they're real people living in the real world.  They're not just relatable, they're realistic in their ordinariness.  Their problems feel normal and real and understandable.  

Finally, since I am still grieving my dad's death a little over a year ago, Adeline's storyline held extra poignancy for me.

Particularly Good Bits:

This is the worst part about grieving.  Grief hits you smack in the face anytime, anywhere.  It doesn't matter if you're eating heavenly bread or if you're driving down the road.  Grief does not care.

Why are you flirting?  You just had an existential crisis in the bathroom!  Stop flirting!

Here I am at forty-one, still needing Dad for advice and guidance.  Then again, any good dad will always be needed -- no matter the age of his children.

"Oh, and what did Mom always say?"
"Wash your nose and stay away from raccoons?"
"No, the other thing."  Lissy snickers.

I smile because I know exactly what she's talking about.  "God is good.  No matter what."

I don't want to be the person who sits around and misses the life she could have had.  I want to be the person who gives a toast about how she sees hope for the future, loves her present, and doesn't regret the past.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  G.  Good, clean, wholesome.  No smut, only semi-described kisses.  No violence, no gore, no cussing.

"The Silent Night" by Sarah Beran

This is EXACTLY the level of romanceyness that I like in a book.  We did not spend several sentences every chapter or two rhapsodizing over what it might be like to kiss the love interest.  No one stared at the other person's lips.  No one daydreamed about touching their love interest's velvety skin or running a hand through their hair.  The main characters fell in love via letters.  Theirs was absolutely a slow-burn, friends-to-more story, and I am HERE FOR IT.

The Silent Night is a Sleeping Beauty retelling, plus a Santa Claus origin story, and you had better believe I am also very much here for a romance between Sleeping Beauty and Santa Claus.  Though they're named Princess Holly and Dominic Klause here, and Dominic has sled dogs instead of a sleigh with reindeer.  Every chapter has a snippet of "The Night Before Christmas" as a header, and I loved how those got worked into the story.

Particularly Good Bits:

Take a look around you and see what there is that you can do in small ways... Can you offer encouragement or a kind smile?  Find the ways that you can serve, and do them.  You may not be able to change the financial and economic state of the kingdom, but you can do something even more powerful: You can bring hope and love (p. 74).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: G.  It's clean, it's bright, it's lovely.  No smut, gore, violence, cussing, or anything else objectionable.

"Woman in Shadow" by Carrie Stuart Parks

It's been a few years since I read any books by Carrie Stuart Parks, and that feels foolish of me, because I enjoy her writing a lot!  Time to do some catching up in 2026, I think!

Woman in Shadow is a stand-alone Christian suspense mystery about a woman who has PTSD and lost a limb due to a violent crime incident in her past.  Part of her therapy for working through her trauma involves going back out into the world and learning how to use her forensic linguist training and skills to help others again.  She is sent to help a ranch resort near Yellowstone National Park figure out if someone is sabotaging their work, and why.

She uncovers some dark truths, both about the dangers at the ranch and about her own past.  By shedding light on them, she's able to stop something really sinister from happening, and also able to heal emotionally and mentally from burdens she was forcing herself to carry.  She also gets a friends-to-maybe-more-in-the-future side story with a local law enforcement officer who has his own troubles to get through.

I really loved how the main character's training as a forensic linguist helped her navigate the new surroundings she gets dropped into, and also helped her figure out who to trust, who was hiding things, and so on.  I also really liked her character development -- there was no "instant healing," but rather a steady progression toward doing better with things, with stumbles and natural pauses.

My book club read this for our autumn book, and we all loved it!

Particularly Good Bits:

"The mountains marched into the distance like a stack of torn paper, each layer lighter than the previous one, ranging from deep viridian to soft lavender (p. 24). 

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-16 for memories of violence, non-detailed descriptions of some pretty horrible deaths and injuries, and a lot of suspense and peril at the end.  No cussing, no smut, no detailed gore.

"The Golden Road" by L. M. Montgomery

My kids and I enjoyed The Story Girl so very much when I read it aloud to them last year that we decided to read the sequel together this year.  Happily, I still remembered all the voices I had given the characters, even though I had read a couple of other books aloud to them in between.

This was a lot of fun, and we laughed a great deal over the little magazine that the kids put together periodically, simply called Our Magazine.  We all looked forward to those chapters because they were sure to set us howling with laughter.  But there were poignant things here too, like the repeated foreshadowing that one character would not live long past childhood.  Happily, none of them died during the story, but you knew that one of them was going to in the next few years.

The ending is also bittersweet, as the gang of friends breaks up and goes their separate ways.

We need more children's books like this where it's just a lot of fun adventures had by a group of kids who are friends.  Nothing truly awful happens to them, or anything unbelievable.  They just get into and out of a bit of mischief here and there, have some adventures, have quarrels and make up, and so on.  I love slice-of-life books like this, and you never know, I might write one someday.

Particularly Good Bits: "Nothing is ever lost to us as long as we remember it" (p. 257).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: G.  Good, clean, wholesome fun.

This has been my 46th book read and reviewed for my fourth Classics Club list.  Getting so close to finishing off another set of fifty classics!!!