You see…due to the intransigence of the new owners at the sf digest magazines (as well as the mystery magazines), I can no longer send them my short fiction. I actually had to pull some stories that were already sold but did not yet have a contract. Long story short, contract negotiations went extremely poorly. (I blogged about this as it went on through May on my Patreon page. Take a look at this post if you’re curious.) I will write a lot more about this in the next few weeks, because I’ll be making some changes to the way I market things.

This Kickstarter is the beginning of the changes. The Kickstarter features four science fiction novellas. Three were published in Asimov’s in the past two years, and two of the novellas are this year’s Readers Choice nominees. The third, “Weather Duty,” appeared in early 2025.

The fourth novella is brand new. It was sitting on Sheila Williams’ desk as the contract negotiations for another story started and ultimately failed. So no one has read this novella. If you back the Kickstarter, you’ll be among the first.

The Kickstarter contains all kinds of goodies as rewards. All of my Diving novels so far. All of the Retrieval Artist novels so far. More novellas. Some writing workshops.

With all of those rewards, you’ll get the novellas. I’m proud of them and I think you’ll enjoy them.

The Kickstarter just went live, so hurry on over and take a look!

I remember August better than I remember July. (Whew.) We held a successful anthology workshop. We learned a lot. We made a lot of progress on truly good things. And…we had to hire a lot more lawyers than the two we usually deal with. Such fun that was/is. [sarcasm alert]

I did get a lot more reading done in August than I did in July, but still not as much as I would have liked. Although some of that reading was for the anthology workshop, which I can’t count here, but you will see many of those stories in the coming year, as we revive and rebrand Fiction River. (Oh, I’m looking forward to that.)

So you’ll find some interesting books here, and just two articles to match my necessarily short attention span from that month.

August 2024

Baxter, John, Montemarte: Paris’s Village of Art and Sin, Harper Collins, 2017. I plucked this out of my TBR pile because I needed something that was not going to challenge me in the front part of the month. I just needed vignettes, which this has in abundance. What I did not expect was how many story ideas I got from this. Quite a few! I hope I’ll have a chance to get to them before getting distracted by something else. There are a lot of fun things here, as always with a John Baxter travel “guide.”  (It’s an excuse for great literary and historical essays.

Cabot, Meg, No Judgements, William Morrow, 2019. A fun and dramatic book from Meg Cabot. This one is set on a Florida island as a hurricane bears down. Our heroine is a clueless New Yorker who had never lived through severe storms before and can’t quite believe the locals when they tell her that she has to do certain things. Of course, there’s this one particular local who helps her…

One of the most fun things about this book for me is that I lived on the Oregon Coast for 23 years. We had hurricanes, although they’re not called hurricanes in that part of the world. We had Big Storms. And no one from the outside could believe that things would be bad. In fact, when there were tsunami warnings, people drove to the Oregon Coast to watch the big wave hit. Friends of ours had to yank tourists off the beaches so they wouldn’t be killed. (I kid you not.)

So there’s an extra layer in this book for me, but I think you’ll enjoy it even without that. This is Meg Cabot at her most fun.

Nevala-Lee, Alec, Astounding: John W Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction, Dey Street, 2018. Alec’s book is a Hugo and Locus Award Finalist. I bought the paperback when it came out. (Note: I’ve linked to a ridiculously priced ebook.) When the book came out, I picked it up a few times, cherry-picked a few references using the index, and got grumpy. I fell into the mistake so many writers make, which is that the book I held was not the book I would have written. Let me say to me (and to all of you who do that): Well, duh. If I was going to write the book, I would…ahem…write the book.

I don’t know what made me pick up the book in August, but I’m so glad I did. It kept me entertained while a lot of the above stuff happened in my life. I had met Isaac a few times, and the bastard groped me every single time. I nearly killed him once in an elevator, because my reaction to being grabbed like that is to hit someone as hard as I could with my elbow, and I refrained only because it was my first Nebula award ceremony as the editor of F&SF. I had a thought that maybe whoever groped me was someone famous—and it was a frail Asimov. His delicate ribcage was only a few inches from my deadly elbow. That would have been bad.

Needless to say that while the rest of the world admires the heck out of that man, I do not. I didn’t know much about Campbell other than the stories the old timers told about him, and I had avoided reading/listening to stories about Hubbard. OMG, that man should have been in jail. Heinlein, whom I had met and who was bombastic as hell, came out the best.

Kudos for Alec for writing about all of these men, warts and all. I love the analysis of what sf became because of them and what still needs to be changed. As worthy a book as I have read in years.

Rose, Lucy, “The Worst Thing that Can Happen is You Suck,” The Hollywood Reporter, June 5, 2024. This is a roundtable interview with actors John Hamm, Matt Bomer, Nicholas Galitzine, Clive Owen, David Oyelowo, and Collum Turner. I love the roundtables that The Hollywood Reporter does because they get a group of professionals together to discuss their art. There’s always something in the roundtables that mean something to me. Here, there are quotes I circled from Clive Owen…

I have never listened to anybody else. Ultimately, you are the one who has to go to work every day. I do what I want to do because that’s what’s going to sustain me through it.

…and John Hamm…

But yeah, to Clive’s point, agents and managers can all bat a thousand in the rearview mirror, they can always tell you what they thought after the thing came out and it was good or bad. It’s in the moment that you have to make the decision. And the worst thing that can happen is you suck.

I love that last part, which is also the title of this piece in the printed form. “The worst thing that can happen is you suck.” Exactly. And that’s not so very bad, now is it?

Silva, Daniel, A Death in Cornwall, HarperCollins, 2024. I’m fascinated by the way that Daniel Silva’s Gabriel Allon series has changed since the Trump era began. Silva’s books were always on the edge of modern politics, as close to real politics as possible. But it became clear that Silva was struggling with the constant changes instigated by Trump in his first term, and then the worldwide unrest in Biden’s term—from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to the utter mess in the Middle East.

Silva solved it by returning Allon to his roots; he was a painter and an art restorer who also became a spy. (And then a super spy.) Now, he has retired and gone back to restoring amazing paintings…and solving worldwide art-related crimes. This crime starts in Allon’s former residence on the Cornish coast of England, with the death of a reknown art history professor and scurries along from there. Highly recommended.

Stoynoff, Natasha,“Brooke Shields Wants You To Know She Is Just Fine,” AARP Magazine, April/May 2024.  Because of the year I had in 2024, I sometimes find it hard to remember articles I had marked as long ago (and far away) as August. I have dumped a few magazines without recommending anything from them because, for the life of me, I have no idea why I marked a certain page.

Not so with the April/May AARP Magazine. I picked it up to see what I had recommended, didn’t see my usual mark, and frowned at it. I distinctly remember reading the Brooke Shields interview and finding it both wise and inspiring.

Brooke Shields and I are of an age. She’s younger, but not by much. And by the time she was being exploited all over the world, I was old enough to feel icky about it, but young enough not to know why. This article addresses her past, yes, but it also looks at her now. At least from this interview, it seems that she has accepted both her age and the changes that aging brings. I recommend this article to everyone.

I have a slight quibble with our tag line. Yes, Dean & I are two authors, but some of my other pen names make guest appearances. You’ll find some Kristine Grayson short stories in these books as well as Kris Nelscott stories. So that’s at least four authors…

You’ll also find Retrieval Artist stories here, Spade and Paladin, Winston & Ruby, some stories from Seavy Village, Diving, the Fey…and that’s just me. Dean’s stories will introduce you to some great characters, from Poker Boy to Pakhet Jones.

The Kickstarter has just gone live. You can visit it and see all the fun rewards if you click here.

Here’s the video I did for the Kickstarter. Enjoy!

This past year has been so crazy that it took Dean to remind me that I hadn’t publicly acknowledged how lucky I am.

Last year, I won the Asimov’s Readers’ Award for Best Novella/Novel for “The Court-Martial of the Renegat Renegades,” which is a Diving story. This year, I won the Readers’ Award for Best Novelette for “The Nameless Dead,” which is not a Diving story. “The Nameless Dead” has an opening that I actually heard in my sleep and managed to wake up and write it all down. I really don’t know where these stories come from, but I’m so pleased that readers like them.

Readers for The Short Mystery Fiction Society voted my novella “Catherine The Great” as the winner (in a tie) for the Best Novelette. I’m honored to be in such good company, as David Dean also won for his story “Mrs. Hyde,” which appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. “Catherine The Great” appeared in The WMG Holiday Spectacular Calendar of Stories last year. You can get your copy in The Holiday Spectacular #5, which is a compilation of all of 2023’s stories.

I am so very honored by these readers’ awards. All three of them. Judged awards are nice and they give the writer (okay, me) a lot to smile about. But readers awards mean more to me. These folks spent their hard-earned dollars on the product, generally a magazine or anthology, and so they have hard opinions about what’s good and what isn’t.

The fact that the readers have loved my work matters a lot to me. So, I want to say thank you. Thank you for reading my work. Thank you for supporting it. And thank you ever so much for taking the time to vote for the stories—all of them, not just mine. I greatly appreciate it.

Anyway, I want you to enjoy all of the holiday stories that I’ve loved these past years, which is why this list exists. No

I love holiday stories of all kinds. I save up the stories to read during the season, and I find that I enjoy them more when I do this. I also love to write holiday stories. I’ve published three collections of them under my Rusch name. I write an entire Santa Series under my Kristine Grayson name. In fact, we’ve rebranded the series and will be doing a Kickstarter on it starting mid-December. (The Kickstarter will be a short one…and you’ll get your ebooks before Christmas.) We are doing the Kickstarter to celebrate the rebrand and Santa Claus Lane, the brand-new novel in the series. Notice there is no link yet. We will have one in a week or so.

Thursday (Thanksgiving), the WMG Holiday Spectacular Calendar of Stories sends out its very first story. Subscribers will get a story per day between now and New Year’s Day. The stories this year are phenomenal. You can still sign up to get yours by clicking here. If you don’t want to commit to a story per day, you can sample some of the stories. We publish a compilation of the previous year’s Calendar of Stories, and the one for 2023 just appeared. So did the single-volume anthologies. These feature stories in the same genre. In 2023, we had hardboiled stories, romance stories, and stories about secrets. You can order one or just all three. (You’ll note that we’re slowly redesigning this project as well.)

This list below is a compilation of all of the stories I’ve recommended since I started posting the Recommended Reading List. The list is growing quite long, which pleases me. I have left the descriptions as they were in the original Recommended Reading list, so some of them mention that it’s not Christmas time or something else that’s going on while I was reading. Eh. Just go with it.

I have also had to stop listing the individual authors in my tags. I just haven’t had the time to add them.

Not all of the stories are easily available any more. In the last few years, I tried to fix all of the links as well. Some had expired. But I’m keeping the listings here in case you want to search for them. I had a lot of fun revisiting the list this year. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed many of these stories. I suspect you’ll enjoy them as well.

Happy holiday reading!

HOLIDAY RECOMMENDED READING LIST

Allyn, Doug, “The Snow Angel,” Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, January, 2014. (Also in The Best American Mysteries 2015) Detective Dylan LaCrosse gets called to a crime scene outside a beautiful home. A dead girl, dressed as if she were going to prom, dies in the snow. She had waved her arms and legs before dying, and she looked like a perfect snow angel.

Somehow, Doug, who is one of our best writers, imho, manages to throw a novel’s worth of twists and turns into this fantastic story. I thought it might be simply a good Doug Allyn story (and you know you’re in the hands of a great writer when good is exactly what we expect, and we hope for more) until the last section. And that section made the story absolutely perfect. Read this one. It is a holiday crime story, but you can enjoy it year round.

Arnold, Jeremy, Christmas in the Movies, Running Press, 2018. This pretty little book provided a lot of entertainment for me in this dark year. I found some movies I hadn’t seen, so I watched them. I remembered ones I loved, and thought about watching them (which was enough). There were some delightful facts in here, and some lovely photos as well. And yes, that means I recommend you pick up the hardcover…

Baum, L. Frank, “A Kidnapped Santa Claus,” Short Stories For Christmas, Saland Publishing audiobook, 2013. I believe this story was read by Bart Wolffe, but I’m not certain, and the book listing doesn’t say which stories he read. The story itself was a revelation for me. Yes, this is L. Frank Baum, the man who wrote The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and published it in 1900. I had no idea he wrote Santa stories, but he did, and this one, at least, is surprisingly modern. I mentioned it to Dean, and he had known about Baum’s Christmas stories. They were a surprise to me.

Some things aren’t the same, of course. Santa lives in the Laughing Valley, not the North Pole, and the elves and such are very different creatures than the ones we’re used to. But the sleigh, Santa’s midnight ride, all of that is quite modern. In this, Santa gets kidnapped on Christmas Eve and can’t make his ride. Very tense, and quite exciting. I have no idea how the story would be to read, but I found the audiobook marvelous, and worth recommending. I haven’t listened to all of the stories in the collection, but I plan to eventually.

Balogh, Mary, Someone To Trust, Jove, 2018. To be honest, I wasn’t ready to read anything at all romantic. I wanted murder and mayhem. But my favorite mystery writers disappointed me last month, so I picked up Balogh, whose work I adore.

I was worried as I started this one. It is part of a series that I’m greatly enjoying, but this book seemed very peripheral at first. The opening is set at Christmas, with a wedding from the previous book. I wouldn’t call this a holiday novel, though, although it is appropriate to read at the holidays.

Then the book switched up. Balogh usually doesn’t have villains in her novels. If someone is truly dastardly, they’re dastardly and dead. In fact, the effects of one horrible man launched this entire series. But this novel has a true villain. She’s a narcissist who showed up in previous novels, but not in a starring role. She is as believable as Balogh’s other characters, which is to say, very believable. Chilling. By the middle of the novel, I could not see how our protagonists were going to deal with her while keeping this a romance novel. (If it had been a mystery, she would have been a corpse or the murderer by the middle of the novel.)

Needless to say, Balogh pulled it off. I devoured the last part of this book, worried for our characters, and reassured, as romance novels do. A nice read for a dark time of year.

Baxter, John, Immoveable Feast: A Paris Christmas, Harper Perennial, 2008. A wonderful little erudite book about an ex-patriate Australian cooking Christmas dinner for his wife’s family in France. No pressure there.

This is beautifully written, with lots and lots and lots of great descriptions of setting and food and food and setting. Lots of history of certain customs and traditions. It even has a bit of suspense: will he get the piglet he wants for the centerpiece of the dinner, will it (or any piglet) fit in the oven in the old farmhouse, and will the family eat the finished product, made with “unusual” (read: Not French) spices? By the time I got to the piglet section, I actually cared about all of those things.

A lovely little Christmas book, and one that can be read outside of the holiday season, if you’re so inclined. The clash of cultures stuff is particularly nice.

Burton, Jaci, All She Wants For Christmas, Carina Press, 2010. I read this book at night while I was trying to read a graphically violent book. I didn’t want to read that book before bed, and this one—with a country music singer heroine—spoke to me, even though it’s not Christmas time. (I think it shows how desperate I was to get away from that book that I went not only to a romance, but a Christmas romance.)

This is the first book I’ve read by Burton. I liked it. It was heartwarming, just like it should have been. I ordered the other two books in the series the moment I finished it, which tells you she did well. In fact, she did so well, she’s the one who convinced me I didn’t need to torture myself with that other book any longer. So I didn’t. I’m reading romances again instead.

Burton, Mary, “Christmas Past,” anthology with Fern Michaels, JoAnn Ross, and Judy Duarte, Kensington Reissue 2017. I’ve clearly been in the mood for holiday mysteries and I was happy to find this one. I’d read half of this book two years ago, and finished it this year. This story is about a woman who fled (and survived) an abusive husband. He’s dead, but manages to torture her from the grave. (His plans are fiendish, and fascinating.) Well written and intriguing, this story made me look for more of her work. I wondered why I hadn’t bought any of it, since it all sounded like things I’d be interested in. And then I saw the covers. They were/are appropriate for the genre, but not to my taste. They actually sent me away from her books. I’ll see how the novels are, but this story is great. Perfect if you’re in a holiday mystery mood.

Cach, Lisa, “A Midnight Clear,” Mistletoe’d, Kindle Edition, 2011. A lovely holiday novella, set in New York at the end of the 19^th century. The period details are fun—I had no idea that was when the Christmas card habit started—and the characters are great. Catherine has spent years being wined and dined by her rich aunt, going to London, Paris, and on what was once called the Grand Tour. Catherine has met European royalty and American royalty. She wears fine clothes, and she has an eye for beauty. Sort of. Because Catherine is terribly near-sighted and too vain to wear glasses.

She comes home for Christmas, to her family’s not insubstantial house in a relatively small town, and one of her wealthy suitors follows her. But she also meets a man whom she has no idea is wealthy—William, the owner of the general store. She’s not attracted to him at first because she can’t see him, literally. Then someone (William?) buys her a pair of spectacles and has them anonymously delivered, and suddenly she can see everything much clearer.

A great deal more happens here, including a magical wish by an innocent young girl (is that where the spectacles come from?), and some proper comeuppance for a very bad person. The story is lovely, the details good, and all of it will put you in a wonderful holiday mood. Enjoy!

Cach, Lisa, “Puddings, Pastries, and Thou,” Wish List, Leisure, 2003 (also in Mistletoe’d). I have no idea where I got this anthology, which also features Lisa Kleypas, Claudia Dain, and Lynsay Sands, but I read it for two reasons: First, I’m still puttering through my Kleypas binge, and second, I always read a Christmas romance anthology over the holidays.

I have to say, though, that I really hated the design of this book. It doesn’t do what romance anthologies (heck, all anthologies) should, which is point you to the authors’ other work. In fact, the stories themselves have no byline. You have to look at the table of contents to see who wrote what.

The Cach story was a nice surprise. I’ve probably read two dozen such anthologies over the years and the stories are often sweet but predictable. This one wasn’t predictable. I’ve discovered Mary Balogh through such an anthology, and now I’ll seek out other work by Cach.

This is a witty story of a down-and-out woman whose immediate family was dead and who depends on the kindness of her distant relations. Only they stuck her with an elderly woman who had either dementia or Alzeheimers (of course, the story doesn’t say since it’s set in Regency England). She was the 24/7 caretaker, and she barely had time for herself. She also barely got enough to eat.

When the story begins, our heroine Vivian has just moved in with another set of distant relatives, and must contend with a jealous 17-year-old who is about to debut. I’m all set for a Mean Girls story—the 17-year-old doesn’t want to share her glory days with a lesser cousin—but the story doesn’t work that way.

The 17-year-old does set Vivian up with a seemingly undesirably hero, who is a bad influence not because he’s a rake or an alcoholic, but because…well, let me simply say that it has to do with morals that no longer exist. He had done something honorable in our world, but dishonorable in theirs.

The entire story centers around the feasts over the holiday, and Cach delineates them with loving care. It’s pretty clear that Vivian will go from being a bony distant relation to a fat lord’s wife, and we’re cheering for her the whole way.

And the story made me hungry for pastries. Enough said.

Cafferata, Patricia D., editor, Christmas in Nevada, University of Nevada Press, 2014. I liked this little book. It examines the history of the holiday throughout Nevada’s history, using primary sources. Primary sources means that there are a few breathtakingly racist pieces in here, mostly from the white point of view, mostly of the good-intentioned kind (let us help these poor unfortunates). Just be forewarned as you read that some of the pieces are definitely of their time.

I did like a lot in here. Most of it is ephemeral in a good way, and brings out the kind of detail that the writer in me loves. For example, people often used tumbleweeds as Christmas trees. I was thinking about that on one of my runs, and then I saw one of my neighbors a few blocks over had strung some lights on a tumbleweed on her porch. I would have just thought that weird before, but I’ll wager it was a family tradition. There’s a lot of fun stuff like that. So if you like holiday history, pick this one up.

Cantrell, Rebecca, “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus,” Yultide Thrills: A Christmas Anthology, 2023. I love this story. Rebecca captured the child’s point of view beautifully. This story takes place on two levels: The child’s goals and dreams and desires and what really happened, which we as adults understand. So well done.

Cantrell, Rebecca, “Twinkle (A Joe Tesla Christmas), Yultide Thrills: A Christmas Anthology, 2023. I had a moment as I read this story. I love Rebecca Cantrell’s work, but she often violates my reader rules. I decided life’s too short to read about children or pets in jeopardy (and yes, I know. I’m a hypocrite. I put children and pets in jeopardy in my work). But for relaxation, I try to avoid those things. Rebecca has no qualms about threatening every living creature in one of her books, and sometimes she carries through with those threats. Writers, that adds to stakes.

So I started her collection of Christmas stories. I can relate to the introduction, but in it, she says the stories get progressively darker. Now realize I have not yet read her Joe Tesla novels. So I had no idea how those stories work. And what should happen right off the bat? A little girl appears with a kitten in her pocket. Now, if this were the Hannah Vogel series, I’d be super worried. Okay, I was super worried anyway. So I peeked at the ending, saw that I could tolerate it, and went back and read the entire heartwarming and remarkable tale. I loved it.

It was the only holiday story I read this year (2022). The season, as I said above, got away from me. I didn’t even get to finish the collection. But I will. It’s on my next-year holiday pile. And I may even sneak it in earlier.

Cantrell, Rebecca, Yultide Thrills: A Christmas Anthology, 2023. I started reading this collection during Christmas of 2022, when Rebecca first published it, and finished it this year (2023). I love her voice and the stories here. Some of them are very dark, which doesn’t bother me at all, but might bother some of you. I got the paper edition, and there are some design issues. You  might be better off with the ebook. Also, this is a collection of Rebecca’s work, not an anthology ( a mistake a lot of authors make), so if you expect stories from other writers, you’ll be disappointed. If you just pick it up for Rebecca’s work, though, I can promise that you won’t be disappointed at all. I think it’ll add to your holiday reading for next year.

Davis, Sam, “A Christmas Carol: Nevada Style,” Christmas in Nevada, edited by Patricia D. Cafferata, University of Nevada Press, 2014. The Christmas in Nevada book starts with a short story written around 1870 or so, and tinkered with a few times. Cafferata says the version here is the original version (complete with some 19th century language). The story is about a saloon, looking for a piano player. A mysterious one shows up on Christmas. The story reminds me of Twain, and certainly shows how much he was influenced by his time here. The ending made me laugh out loud.

Dermatis, Dayle A., “Desperate Housewitches,” Uncollected Anthology: Winter Witches, Soul’s Road Press, 2014. I’m behind on some of my Uncollected Anthology reading from the previous group (including Dayle’s story), but I couldn’t pass this one up, just based on the title.

Trust Dayle to write a winter holiday story about the solstice and magic. She manages to combine the claustrophobia of a suburban neighborhood with the competitiveness that women sometimes engage in with holiday ritual. Only the holiday ritual here isn’t decorating a Christmas tree or singing carols (although there is a discussion of carolers that made me chuckle). Nope. This one is about pagan rituals. The story’s wonderful, funny, and a do-not-miss.

Dubé, Marcelle, McKell’s Christmas, Falcon Ridge Publishing, Kindle edition. 2013. McKell, a cop in Manitoba, finally gets a Christmas Eve off. He has dinner with his girlfriend’s friends. One friend brings a new boyfriend, and tensions rise—just not in the way you’d expect. The Canadian setting is real, the mystery is fascinating, and the characters excellent. Pick this one up.

Dubé, Marcelle, Running Away From Christmas, Falcon Ridge Publishing, Kindle edition, 2012. I read this one after the holiday because I simply couldn’t wait until next year. Faith can’t take another Christmas alone, so she runs away to Vancouver B.C., where…well, I’d like to say the holiday stalks her, but it’s not quite like that. It’s sweeter. A wonderful story, no matter the time of year.

Fry, Hannah and Evans, Thomas Oléron, The Indisputable Existence of Santa Claus: The Mathematics of Christmas, The Overlook Press, 2016. A dense but fun little book that uses math to prove all kinds of things like Santa exists. Maybe. Kinda. Not in the way you’d expect. And how to wrap gifts properly. and how to divide dessert, and win at Monopoly, and many other fun things associated with the holidays. The book is pretty too, so I’d suggest the tiny hardcover edition.

Green, John, “A Cheertastic Christmas Miracle,” Let It Snow, Speak, 2009. Okay, I get it now. This is the first story I’ve read of megaseller John Green’s, and it’s a lot of fun. This is one of three linked holiday romances in the Let It Snow volume, and is perhaps the liveliest one.

Set in the middle of a Christmas blizzard, three friends get called by another friend to get to the Waffle House ASAP because a trainload of cheerleaders (literally) are stranded there. The adventure is the journey to the Waffle House, and all the character arcs, etc., punctuated by reports from the Waffle House itself. Extremely fun, extremely memorable story.

Hallinan, Timothy, “Chalee’s Nativity,” The Usual Santas, no editor listed, Soho Crime, 2017. Amazing story about two orphans on the streets of Bangkok. Apparently, Chalee has appeared in Hallinan’s work before. Well written, heartbreaking in a good way. Worth the price of admission.

Herron, Mick, “The Usual Santas,” The Usual Santas, no editor listed, Soho Crime, 2017. The title story of this wonderful collection is a title story for a reason. A group of Santas working at a disreputable mall discover a problem among them. When Dean and I teach, we talk about writer stages—Stage One Writers are learning grammar, etc. Stage Four writers have learned their craft and have added some tools to the bargain. Stage Four Writers break lots of rules because they know how.

Herron is Stage Four, and this story shows why. With the exception of one minor character named Joe, everyone else in the story is named Santa. And they have dialogue with each other attributed to Santa. And it all works beautifully. I love this story. I wish I had written this story. I wish I could read it for the first time all over again. Wonderful and worth the price of admission.

Hockensmith, Steve, “Fruitcake,” Naughty: Nine Tales of Christmas Crime, Kindle edition, 2010. I love Steve Hockensmith’s short stories, partly because they’re so memorable. I couldn’t get fruitcake out of my mind for days—much as I wanted to. I’m not fond of fruitcake. Many others aren’t either which is the impetus for this story of regifting and murder.

Hockensmith, Steve “Naughty,” Naughty: Nine Tales of Christmas Crime, Kindle edition, 2010. Funny story about a down-on-her-luck woman, Christmas “elves,” a department store, and a rather unexpected crime. Fun and memorable.

Hockensmith, Steve, Naughty: Nine Tales of Christmas Crime, Kindle edition, 2010. I have no idea how many of Steve Hockensmith’s short stories I’ve read in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine or in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine over the years. Quite a few, judging by the ones I remembered and reread in this collection. It’s a collection of Steve’s Christmas stories, all of which I liked, many of which I loved. Even the copyright page is funny. My only quibble with the volume? In it, Steve mentions he’s too busy to write short fiction these days. So I say, Stop sleeping, Steve! Write your books, but write short stories too. Whatever it takes. Maybe it takes y’all to buy this book to get him to write more short stories. So do it.

Hunter, Madeline, “A Christmas Abduction,” Seduction on a Snowy Evening, Kensington Books, 2019. This comes from another of those anthologies that weirdly does not give the editor credit. Oh, I hate that.

The anthology has three novellas, along with excerpts from upcoming novels, which I mostly skipped. I bought the anthology because of a different author, but this is the story that I found memorable. I’d heard a lot about Madeline Hunter, but I’ve never read her work before (that I remember). She managed to set up a heartbreaking scenario for our heroine, one that our hero understands without her telling him about it, because he already knew bits and pieces of the story. He just put it all together for her.

Novellas a tricky, particularly a romance novella with villains, which this one has. Hunter pulled off the villain in a way that I had expected only because I’m a writer, and because I realized about 20 pages from the end there’s only one person who could be the villain. But she did the work delicately and in a delightful manner.

If you like holiday novellas, you’ll like this one. It’s like no other that I’ve read.

James, Eloisa, “A Mistletoe Kiss,” Mistletoe Christmas, Avon, 2021. I bought this anthology when it came out and then kinda forgot about it. I remember picking it up the next year, looking at the god-awful cover and assuming it was indie published and probably had a bad interior design. I didn’t even look to double-check. This year, I did double-check, and realized that nope, this is an Avon book with a bad interior design and a terrible cover. And it was an anthology, not a group novel, which I had also assumed.

The novellas in the book are linked to each other by setting and one event. It’s a Christmas revelry, sponsored by a dying duke. Every one of the four authors who have written for this have set their stories at that party. I had high hopes for all of the novellas, but only two are worth recommending.

This one, by Eloisa James, is the best in the book and an absolute delight. Turns out that the duke’s daughter has been the one who has put on this amazing gathering for the past several years, making it the party of the season. There’s a lot of great family interaction here, a wonderful romance at the heart of it, and believable misunderstanding. Really well done.

James, P.D., The Mistletoe Murder And Other Stories, Knopf, 2016. This tiny little book pleased me in a thousand ways, and made me sad. First, the pleasing part(s): the stories, the design, the way it felt in my hands. I loved the attention to detail here.

The part that made me sad? P.D. James died in 2014, and will not be writing any new books. I suspect the estate might approve more things like this, and I’ll read it all, but it won’t be the same. After I finished this, I thought that I might reread some of her books. Can’t decide if I will or not. I remember them so vividly…

My one complaint with the volume is that there is no copyright page that lists where the stories were first published. I love that kind of information and am sad to see that Knopf left it out.

Anyway, this volume is wonderful and worth reading. I’m going to highlight a couple of the stories that I loved below. Surprisingly, to me anyway, the stories without her usual main character Adam Dalgliesh were the ones I preferred. Maybe because those were atypical cozies. I dunno.

James, P.D., “The Mistletoe Murder,” The Mistletoe Murder And Other Stories, Knopf, 2016. The title story of this collection is the title story for a reason. This is a very strong mystery, filled with honest misdirection (meaning it was all there in plain sight, but still hard to see) and great characters. A long-time mystery writer reflects on a strange family Christmas she attended in 1940. I love the discussion of mysteries versus real life murders, and all kinds of tiny details. If I say much more, I’ll ruin it.

James, P.D., Sleep No More, , Knopf, 2017. I have no idea who is handling P.D. James’s estate, but kudos to whomever is. This is the second year that the estate has released a group of previously uncollected short stories in a beautiful edition just in time for the holiday season. None of the stories struck me as spectacular James, but regular James is still better than most writers out there. The opening story, “The Yo-Yo,” stopped me right at the beginning and made me check when it was first published. Not because it was dated, but because the observation at the beginning—that a simple item, found after death, might seem to have sentimental value, and that value might be completely misconstrued. That’s an observation someone older has, not someone young. And sure enough, she wrote that story in her 70s. Some of the stories here are Christmas stories, a few are not. All are worth reading.

Johnson, Craig, “In The Land of The Blind,” The Best American Mystery Stories 2017, edited by John Sanford, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017. I haven’t read any of Johnson’s Longmire series, until I read this short story. A short holiday tale without the usual holiday sappiness. In fact, a drug addict takes some people hostage in a church on Christmas Eve. The way that the hostage situation gets resolved is one of the most logical things I’ve seen. Well done.

Johnson, Maureen, “The Jubilee Express,” Let It Snow, Speak, 2009. Jubilee’s parents get arrested in a brawl at a collectibles store the day before Christmas, so they send her to spend the holiday with her grandparents. She has to take a train, which stalls in the middle of a blizzard in a small town. She doesn’t want to sit in the cold train for hours (and maybe days) so she hikes in the snow to the Waffle House, followed by a gaggle of cheerleaders. I thought I had the story figured out twice, and I was wrong both times. Loads and loads of fun, with great characters and lots of heart.

Kaaberbøl, Lene, and Friis, Agnete, “When The Time Came,” translated by Mark Kline, The Usual Santas, no editor listed, Soho Crime, 2017. A dark and brooding story featuring the duo’s main character, Nina Borg. Thieves break into what they believe to be an empty building during the holidays, only to discover someone in extreme distress. If I say much more I ruin it. But suffice to say I had no idea how this would end up, and loved the way that it resolved.

Klavan, Andrew, “The Advent Reunion,”Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, January, 2011. A Christmas ghost story that packs a heck of a punch. Very short, very powerful. If I say any more, I’ll ruin it.

Kleypas, Lisa, Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor, St. Martin’s Paperback, 2011. I saved this one for my holiday reading. In fact, I bought it in October when it first came out—and honestly, I could’ve read it then, despite the title. Because this isn’t a Christmas story; it’s a fall holidays story. Halloween makes a major appearance and Thanksgiving is hilarious, even though the book itself isn’t funny, but heartwarming.

Holly’s mother died in April, leaving Holly’s uncle Mark as her guardian. Mark has never been around children, doesn’t know what to do, but he enlists his brother Sam, and together they try to make a home for this poor little girl who has given up speaking since her mother’s sudden death. Six months later—in September—Holly writes a letter to Santa: she wants a mom for Christmas. Not that Mark wants to marry or anything. You get the rest of the plot, of course.

But the book is set on the San Juan Islands in Washington State, and it’s clear that Kleypas lives in the Northwest because the details are great. The characters are even better, from Holly to Mark to Maggie, the young widow who has just started a toy store. Realistic, sensitive, and touching. You can read this one at any season of the year (but fall would be best).

Kroupa, Susan, “Walter’s Christmas-Night Musik,” Laurel Fork Press, Kindle Edition, 2010. A wonderful story about Christmas Night visitors. Unlike the previous Christmas night visitor stories you’ve read, these visitors are a surprise. I’d like to be visited by these folks. I found myself thinking about this story long after I finished reading it.

Let It Snow, Speak, 2009. I normally label books by author, but I have no idea how to label this one, because it’s listed in three different ways on the three different websites I went to. So I gave up and did this.

Let It Snow is a series of linked holiday romances written for young adults, but really, who cares who the target market is? The stories work. All three of them are good, but the first two are so good that I found myself a bit disappointed with the third. Had I read it as a standalone, I probably would have loved it.

The sense of teenagers at loose ends on the night before Christmas in a blizzard comes through all of the stories. The romances are believable, the stories powerful, and the settings wonderfully done. If you need some holiday reading, pick up this book.

Levine, Laura, “The Dangers of Candy Canes,” Candy Cane Murder, Kensington, 2007. I love Laura Levine’s voice. I wasn’t in the mood for saccharine stories in 2020, and while this story is a cozy, the voice takes it out of the sweetly simpering. I started the story on Christmas Eve Day at breakfast and tore through the entire thing, often chuckling out loud.

Levine, Laura, “Nightmare on Elf Street,” Secret Santa, Zebra, 2013. The voice in this piece caught me from the very beginning. In fact, I read it before I read anything else in the volume and, as a stickler for reading anthologies in order, that’s truly saying something.

A freelance ad writer thinks she’s going to get an advertising account; instead, through mishaps, she gets hired as a Santa’s Elf at Toyland. She doesn’t correct the mistake because she needs the money. The story’s a typical cozy—a rather bloodless (deserved) murder, lots of suspects, and a goodly amount of humor.

I laughed, fell in love with the cat, and enjoyed the situation. I’ll be looking for Levine’s other books, which is exactly what novellas like this should make me do.

Lovesey, Peter, “The Haunted Crescent,” The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries, Vintage Crime, 2013. A delightful Christmas ghost story with a twist that I never saw coming. I shall say no more, except to remind you to go and read this one.

Lyons, Kay, The Crash Before Christmas, Kindred Spirits Publishing, Kindle edition, 2011. A delightful Christmas romance. I figured out what was going on at the end of chapter three, but most readers won’t. This novel, about a bush pilot who crashes in a blizzard and is rescued by a mysterious woman, is occasionally creepy, and very suspenseful. It’s a great holiday read; I suspect you’ll enjoy it year-round.

Macomber, Debbie, Jack Frost, Debbie Macomber Inc., 2023. I find it fascinating that Debbie Macomber, once the queen of romance, self-published a Christmas novella. Once upon a time, her publisher(s) would pair her stories with the stories of other writers so those writers would get sampled by Debbie’s audience and that would boost their sales. Not so much anymore, I guess.

This is a classic Macomber holiday story. A holiday situation, two somewhat prickly characters, and a holiday solution. She is a master at combining holidays and romance. In this one, a woman misjudges her new coworker until they get stuck together one night when the power goes out. The journey to the happily ever after is not predictable, and the novella is fun.

Macomber, Debbie, Twelve Days of Christmas, Ballantine Books, 2017. I have no idea how I’ve never read a Debbie Macomber book before. I’m not even sure I’ve read one of her Christmas books, and she’s the queen of Christmas romance. I have a hunch I thought I wouldn’t like the novels, because they’d be overly religious and dealing with people I didn’t want to read about.

This one caught my eye in the grocery store, of all places. I read the back cover blurb, and immediately picked up the book. Julia has troubles with her grumpy (and gorgeous) neighbor. She decides to kill him with kindness and blog about it for twelve days. Of course, this is fraught with issues. The blog’s witty, the characters are real, the situation is uncomfortable. I read the book in an evening, and found the novel charming. I’m not going to run out and buy all the back Christmas books of Debbie’s, but I’ll read a few when I find them. This was a lovely way to start my holiday season. The book is worth your time.

MacDonald, John D., “Dead on Christmas Street,” The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries, edited by Otto Penzler, Vintage Crime, 2013. This story, first published in 1952, feels surprisingly contemporary. A woman dives out of a seventeen-story window. The death gets investigated, of course. The forensic details are accurate for the time, and the entire attitude expressed here feels like something someone could have written now. MacDonald was/is a master, and stories like this prove why.

McBain, Ed, “All Through The House,” The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries, edited by Otto Penzler, Vintage Crime, 2013. This is an 87th Precinct story of McBain’s that I hadn’t read before. It’s Christmas Eve, and Carella is alone in the precinct. People continue to show up, seemingly re-enacting the Nativity. But it’s McBain, so emphasis on “seemingly.” I loved this story. You will too.

McPherson, Catriona, “Mrs. Tilling’s Match,” Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, November/December, 2020. “Mrs. Tilling’s Match” is part of the Dandy series that McPherson writes. I’ve never read the series, but this story stood alone just fine. (I have a hunch I might have missed a thing or two, but still…) The story is set at Christmas 1934, and deals with a note that the cook of the family receives. It’s emotional and creepy, in a good way, and the tension was quite surprising. Looks like I’ll have to investigate some of her books.

Meier, Leslie, “Candy Canes of Christmas Past,” Candy Cane Murder, Kensington, 2007. I have no idea when I first started this book, but I note that I recommended Laura Levine’s story in 2020. Which means I haven’t picked it up since then. So…four years later…I was in the mood for cozies again at holiday time, I guess.

Leslie Meier’s story features her regular heroine, Lucy Stone, in a story that takes place in two time periods—when she is a grandmother and her kids and grandkids come to visit, and when she’s a young mother, dealing with a new home and a toddler, while pregnant in a new town. The house is a fixer-upper and it’s falling apart around her, yet she makes time to solve an old crime involving glass candy canes. The 1980 details are marvelous, the discomfort of advanced pregnancy plain, and the stress on young parents also vivid. The mystery is meh, but I always find that with cozies. The read, though, was great.

Morgan, Sarah, Miracle on 5th Avenue, HQN, 2016. Eva’s upbeat grandmother taught her to be the sunshine in every dark room. So when her grandmother dies, Eva doesn’t know how to grieve. She’s going to spend the holidays house-sitting (and decorating) a penthouse apartment on 5th Avenue.

Said apartment belongs to Lucas, a thriller writer, whose wife died suddenly. Lucas hasn’t told anyone that he failed to take the scheduled trip out of town, so when Eva shows up–in the middle of a blizzard, natch–she encounters the Big Bad Crime Writer.

Funny, wry, charming, with tons of insights about writing and the perils of falling for a writer. Don’t know how I missed Sarah Morgan, but I have a lot of reading to catch up on.

Nordeen, Juliet, New Year’s Shenanigans, 2019. The first full length book in the Modesta Quinn series finds our heroine investigating a break-in at a legal pot-growing facility in the rainy New Year up in Washington State. Modesta Quinn made her first appearance in our Holiday Spectacular, solving a crime around Christmas. I loved that story, and had high hopes for the novel. It more than lived up to my expectations. Lots of great procedures, marvelous descriptions, a good plot with some surprising twists, and excellent characters. I hope Juliet continues with this series, because I’ll continue to read it.

Page, Norvell, “Crime’s Christmas Carol,” The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries, Vintage Crime, 2013. I’m sure Dean had heard of Norvell Page, but I never had. Page was a prolific writer for the pulps in the 1930s. This story was first published in 1939, and was a riff on O Henry’s “Gift of the Magi,” only with a heck of a criminal twist. Yet somehow Page managed to pull off a happy ending. The story becomes more poignant when you remember that it was written and published during the Depression.

Patterson, Irette Y., “Worth,” Saturday Evening Post, December 19, 2014. A lovely short Christmas piece by Irette. I read it on Christmas Eve, and it really added to an already special day. A short story about money, holidays, and love. This one’s good any time of year.

Patterson, Kent, “The Wereyam,” A Fantastic Holiday Season, edited by Kevin J. Anderson, WordFire Press, 2013. Kevin put together a holiday anthology of the stories that the writers who used to gather for our Christmas holiday parties wrote and read to each other for those gatherings. Kent’s “The Wereyam” is one of my favorites, so when the book arrived, I sat down and reread this story immediately. It not only holds up, it’s better than I remember.

We lost Kent in 1995, and while it was hard on all of us personally, I think of the loss to writing, and I mourn. He was just getting started in what would have been a fantastic career, and he died suddenly. I’m so glad that this story has been reprinted. Take a look. See if you don’t love it too.

Penzler, Otto, The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries, Vintage Crime, 2013. It took me four holiday seasons to finish this book, not because it was a slog to read, but because there were so many stories. And they were mostly to my taste. I think I skipped maybe three of them completely. The book is nearly 700 pages long, and the pages are in columns, so it probably would have been 1400 to 1500 pages long if the design was different.

Usually I complain about how the best American series is laid out, and Otto is the series editor for the mystery volume. But he has no say in the editorial layout: that’s clearly mandated by the publisher. All of Otto’s other anthologies have narrative flow.

This one has a great editorial conceit. The book is divided into sections. For example, the book starts with the section “A Cozy Little Christmas” and ends with “A Classic Little Christmas.” As is appropriate for a book that covers the entire genre, the book starts with an Agatha Christie story (Peroit) and ends with another (Marple). In the middle of the book there are a wide variety of other sections, from “A Scary Little Christmas” to “A Modern Little Christmas.” My tastes veer away from cozy and classic, so my favorite parts of the book were in the middle.

I was disappointed to come to the end of the book. I had been at reading it for so long that it had become a holiday tradition for me. Unfortunately, I have a great memory for stories, and I rarely read any twice. Otherwise, I would start all over again next year. Great volume. Lots of fun. Pick it up.

Peters, Ellis, “The Trinity Cat,” The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries, edited by Otto Penzler, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, 2013. This particular story, originally published in 1976, the story is about a real cat acting in a real cat way. Set on Christmas Eve in a small English village, the story features an older woman’s murder, a tight cast of characters, and some wry observations. It’s a cozy, but not a light or funny one. I enjoyed it a great deal.

Reed, Annie, “The Case of the Missing Elf,” Thunder Valley Press, Kindle Edition, 2010. One of the nice things about the revolution in e-publishing is that you can buy a single short story of an author’s work just as a sample. I already knew that I liked Annie Reed’s stories, but I also know she’s not a household name. I hope that changes.

This is one of her Dee and Diz fantasy detective stories. Diz is an elf, although not a traditional one, and Dee is a woman with an added gift. There’s a bit of romantic tension involved, but that’s not at the heart of this story. Like so many stories on this month’s list, this is a Christmas tale. And the missing elf is not the Jolly Old One, but his occasional impersonator, Norman. Fun, and thought-provoking, in a Christmasy kinda way. It’s a nice introduction to Annie’s work.

Reed, Annie, “Essy and The Christmas Kitten,” Kindle edition, Thunder Valley Press, 2011. This story is not as sweet as the title implies. Instead, it is a bit dark and moody, so much so that I read with one eye half closed, worried that something would go wrong. But it is a Christmas story in the best way, and quite memorable. One of my best Christmas reads this year.

Reed, Annie, “Roger’s Christmas Wish,” Kindle Edition, Thunder Valley Press, 2010. Somehow I missed this in last year’s Christmas reading. Young Roger’s grandmother moved in with him, taking his room. His parents are unhappy, and so is Roger. All he wants for Santa to do is make his grandmother leave. The story is sweet, with unexpected twists. It’s also a nicely done e-book. I read it in the Kindle app on my iPad and it felt like I was reading a real book. Nicely done.

Reed, Annie, The New Year That Almost Wasn’t, A Diz & Dee Mystery, Thunder Valley Press, 2013. I love Diz & Dee so much that I bought one of the stories for Fiction River: Unnatural Worlds. So, imagine my surprise when I discovered that about a year ago, Annie had written one and I had missed it! I ordered it immediately, read it immediately, and enjoyed immensely.

The woman pregnant with the New Year’s baby goes missing. Not the first baby born in the year, but the baby who will become the ancient guy by December 31. Great concept, and it becomes even greater when we find out what happens to the ancient guy when his job is done. I’m not going to spoil it. Read this one.

Ridley, Erica, “Mischief and Mistletoe,” Mistletoe Christmas, Avon, 2021. The other well done novella in this volume comes from Erica Ridley. The story features a young woman whose mother fears she will never marry, but the woman herself is more interested in her writing than she is in any kind of relationship. In fact, she fears that the relationship might end her writing forever. I haven’t seen this conflict before in a Regency romance, and found it intriguing. This (and the James) are worth the price of the book.

Ross, Barbara, “Logged On,” Yule Log Murder, anthology with Leslie Meier, and Lee Hollis, Kensington, 2018. Surprisingly tense story about baking, of all things. Julia Snowden wants to make a french dessert called Bûche de Noël, but she can’t pull it off. Then her mother reminds her that an elderly neighbor used to make it for Christmases past, and it was good. Thing is, as Julia learns to bake with her neighbor, she also learns that a lot of people the neighbor knows have died of gastric issues around the holidays. Is the cranky elderly woman a serial poisoner? Or is something else going on?

I did not see the ending coming, which is lovely and surprising and fun for me. And the writing is excellent, and just thinking about the story makes me hungry. One of my favorite reads of December.

Ross, Dalton & Snierson, Dan, “Let’s Make A Christmas Movie! (Or Not)” Entertainment Weekly, December, 2021. This article is for everyone who has watched one of the roughly 150 Christmas movies that come out on Lifetime, Hallmark, Netflix and other channels, and thought, “I can do that!” EW “tasked” (their word) to write and pitch a holiday movie, which they did. Their experiences should be a lesson to all of you who want a career writing screenplays. Make sure you have a strong backbone and can take criticism. And stuff your know-it-all side into a closet somewhere. Really worth reading, for writers and non-writers alike.

Ross, JoAnn, “Dear Santa,” Silver Bells anthology with Fern Michaels, Mary Burton, and Judy Duarte, Kensington Reissue 2017. I found this volume in a discount store. Originally, the book came out in 2008, but apparently, it’s been reissued. I was getting pretty burned out on Christmas stories by the time I picked this up. The only reason I started JoAnn’s story is because I like her work and because it was about a mystery writer. The writer’s name is Holly Berry, and there’s an actual reason for that. Not a funny reason. A sad and heartwarming one.

Anyway, Holly gets caught in a snow storm in the mountains and sees a reindeer cross her path (Blitzen?). Then she crashes her SUV. Of course, she’s rescued by a hunk of a man who also happens to have the world’s cutest daughter. He’s mayor of the most Christmassy town in the United States, and owns an inn. And in the context of the story, all of this is believable. And wonderful. And charming.

And…and…I cried at the end. Not a delicate little tear running down the side of my face, no. A gasp-y sobby kind of crying that only a few authors have achieved for me in the past—at least with something sweet. So pick up a copy of this book. The paperback is super cheap right now, so if you prefer that format, it’s cheaper than the ebook.

Runyon, Damon, “Dancing Dan’s Christmas,” The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries, edited by Otto Penzler, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, 2013. Every time I read a Damon Runyon story, I realize how much I enjoy his work. I just never seem to seek him out. I’m not sure why. I loved this one as well. First published in Collier’s in 1932, this story is firmly set in its era. It begins in a speakeasy, involves a drunken pact, and…works. Somehow. I loved it.

Seabrook, John, Jingle Bell Pop, Narrated by Erin Moon, Audible Studios, 2018. I don’t recommend audiobooks often, because I spend half my listening time on podcasts. But a friend recommended this, and I do have an Audible membership, so I downloaded it.

Jingle Bell Pop was one of the free selections for December 2018. I assume it’ll still be available after that.

It’s a behind-the-scenes of the business of Christmas carols. I knew a lot of the stories, but the modern ones, I did not know. The author interviewed songwriters, and calls Christmas pop hits “an annuity.” Yep. If the contracts were good, the writers earned and earned and still earn. Writers should listen to this one, just to see how copyright can be your friend. The book is an hour and 14 minutes long. Well worth listening to.

Shalvis, Jill, “Bah, Handsome!” Merry and Bright, Kensington, 2019. An early Jill Shalvis holiday novella that has most of what I love about her writing. (Not enough goofy animals, though.) Hope runs a B&B, and the lawyer for her mean-as-sin brother who loaned her money arrives to collect. In the middle of a snowstorm. During the holidays. Yes, yes, you know how it will end, but there sure is a lot of tension and how-will-this-resolve? in the journey. Lots of fun.

Shalvis, Jill, Hot Winter Nights, Avon, 2018. I really have no idea how Shalvis makes her characters so winning, but she does. Molly Malone, the office manager for other characters in this series, wants to take an active part in investigations. Everyone else tries to thwart her. But she has two elderly elves who claim that something’s fishy at Santa’s Village, and she’s going to investigate. Lucas Knight doesn’t want her to, but knowing she won’t stop, he decides to help.

Some of the scenes in here are laugh-out-loud funny, especially as the elderly elves speak their minds. But there’s a lot of tension too, when it becomes clear that those elves were on to something. One of the most fun things I read all month.

Shalvis, Jill, The Trouble With Mistletoe, Avon, 2016. I bought this book last year and pulled it off my TBR shelf this year, after finishing something particularly bad and particularly dark. The book was the perfect antidote to that awful, dark novel. Shalvis has an incredible voice, and she creates spectacular characters, including the four-footed ones.

Willa owns South Bark, a pet shop that specializes in grooming and pet care. She’s covered in “puppies and poo” when who should walk in but Keane, the guy who stood her up on the only date she tried to have in high school. To make matters worse, he doesn’t remember her. His great-aunt dumped her tempermental cat on him because the aunt was having a health crisis and had no one else to turn to. He needs to board the cat, at least while he’s at work, because the cat—named Petunia by the aunt, rechristened PITA by Keane (Pain in the ass)—tends to show her displeasure by ruining anything she touches when she’s alone.

The meet-cute is so cute, I read it to Dean. Beneath the fun plot are serious issues, from abandonment to loveless middle class households to building your own family. I was halfway done with the book when I ordered the rest in the Heartbreaker Bay series. I had to refrain from ordering everything she wrote, because she’s written a lot. I’ve already worked my way through this book and a novella (which is fun and too slight to recommend), and I’m starting into another tonight. So, yeah. Read this. Everyone is great. Including PITA.

Smith, Dean Wesley, “Jukebox Gifts,” WMG Publishing, Kindle edition, 2010. I love Dean’s jukebox stories. The conceit is this: for the duration of a single song, played on a jukebox, the person who chose the story can time travel to their strongest memory of that song—and maybe change the past. “Jukebox Gifts” is set at Christmas and is both heartwarming and heartwrenching.

Tursten, Helen, “An Elderly Lady Seeks Peace at Christmastime,” translated by Marlaine Delargy,” The Usual Santas, no editor listed, Soho Crime, 2017. Delightful story about a regular character of Tursten’s named Maud. Maud is an octogenarian who uses people’s prejudices to change the world around her. She just wants a quiet Christmas, and she’ll resort to anything to get it. I’m definitely looking for more of Tursten’s work (preferably translated by Delargy, who found a perfectly wry voice for Maud).

Unknown, “Josephine and The Scary Santa: A Jarbridge Christmas,” Christmas in Nevada, edited by Patricia D. Cafferata, University of Nevada Press, 2014. While I love the Christmas in Nevada book, it’s also deeply irritating. I have no idea when or where some of these pieces came from, nor do I know who wrote them. It’s clear, from the different voices, that Cafferata did not write most of the summaries. They might be from newspapers, but which ones and when is pretty unclear, even from the introductions.

This particular true story is about how little Josephine Cooper and her family spent one Christmas in Jarbridge in the early 1920s. Very short, and very delightful.

Unknown, “The Richest Christmas: Snowbound on the Swallow Ranch,” Christmas in Nevada, edited by Patricia D. Cafferata, University of Nevada Press, 2014. This particular incident happened in 1923. Five-year-old Sheldon Olds lived on the ranch with his father, who worked there. A blizzard came in at Christmas time and no one could leave to celebrate, so the Swallows held a celebration for everyone stuck on the ranch.

Sheldon was particularly terrified because he and one of the Swallow children had actually set fire to some straw in the barn about a month before. They had to hide in the sheep dip to avoid punishment. This story is about the repercussions during his meeting with Santa. Charming little piece.

The Usual Santas, no editor listed, Soho Crime, 2017. I loved this book and gave it to a number of Christmas-story loving friends. It’s beautifully designed, with lots of great extras inside. Visual extras. And there’s no editor listed, which pisses me off because clearly, someone edited this book, and put a lot of thought into it. The someone divided the stories by type (“acts of kindness”; “the darkest of holiday noir”) and put together a pleasing order of wonderful authors. This is a spectacular little book, worth every moment you spend with it.

Westlake, Donald, “The Burglar and The Whatsis,” The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries, edited by Otto Penzler, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, 2013. First published in Playboy in 1966, this story is as much sf as it is mystery. If I say much more about the story, I’ll spoil it. It’s very short, it has a couple of twists, and it made me laugh. In fact, it’s my favorite story in the volume so far (which isn’t saying a great deal, since I only managed about 100 pages of this massive tome before I stopped to save the rest for next holiday season).

Westlake, Donald, “Give Till It Hurts” Christmas at The Mysterious Bookshop, edited by Otto Penzler, Vangard Press, 2010. Losing Westlake was a tragedy. I love his Dortmunder stories and this one, written for the customers of Otto Penzler’s Mysterious Bookshop, is marvelous. Laugh out loud funny, as most Dortmunder stories are.

White, Ethel Lina, “Waxworks,” The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries, Vintage Crime, 2013. Ethel Lina White wrote seventeen novels, two of which became classic films, The Lady Vanishes and The Spiral Staircase. I hadn’t heard of her until I encountered this story, but it soon became clear why Hitchcock felt her to be a kindred spirit.

Sonia, a young reporter, has decided to make her reputation by spending New Year’s Eve in the Waxworks, ostensibly to catch the haunt or whatever it is that was causing all the spooky noises. She describes herself as “not timid” and “fairly perceptive” and believes she can solve this mystery.

Only things get a little more mysterious as time goes on. Someone dies, and some really spooky occurrences happen, and Sonia…well, read this. You’ll soon forget, as I did, that it was written in 1930. I actually pictured a waxworks I’d been to recently as I read it. Probably the most memorable story of the volume for me so far.

Willis, Connie, “All About Emily,” Asimov’s, December, 2011. (Also in A Lot Like Christmas) For years, Connie Willis’s holiday stories, published in Asimov’s, were part of my Christmas traditions. Then, she got deeply involved in her excellent novels, All Clear and Blackout (which I recommended earlier), and she stopped writing any short fiction at all. Which is, I think, a crime. I love Connie’s novels, but I adore her short work.

“All About Emily” riffs on the movie All About Eve, and explains the film for those of you who missed that marvelous classic. The story is set in New York at Christmas, and our heroine is the aging actress who might be threatened by a new up-and-comer, Emily. And yet, something about that girl….

It’s a fun story, especially if you love old movies, Broadway, theater, and New York at Christmas time. And it manages to be good science fiction as well. It’s nice to have you back, Connie. Please continue writing short fiction while doing your novels.

Willis, Connie, A Lot Like Christmas, Del Rey, 2017. I had completely missed this book when it first came out. It’s a collection of Connie Willis’s Christmas stories. An expansion, really, of her original collection, Miracle and Other Christmas Stories, which I have. I looked to see if I was doing the recommended reading when that book came out, and realized I hadn’t been. So here’s what I’m going to do: I’m going to recommend this collection, because it’s wonderful and full of stories that I just love, like “Newsletter” and “Epiphany.” But I read those stories so long ago that I can’t really comment on them well. So here’s the thing…any story in this collection that was either in Asimov’s in the last century or in Miracle gets my vote.

I read the ones that were published elsewhere or which had a more recent copyright date when I got my hands on this particular collection. I also read all the essays. I am recommending individual pieces from that particular subset of things. Oh, and I wrote about “All About Emily” in a very early Recommended Reading List from November of 2011. (It also shows up in the annual holiday list every year.)

In other words, you’ll find a few Willis stories singled out in this Recommended Reading list, but don’t view them as the only good ones in this collection. They’re all good. Some are just more to my taste than others.

And one other thing…the recommendations at the back. I don’t agree with a lot of them because apparently my taste and Connie’s diverge on the best holiday fare, but that’s great. It allowed me to rethink some of my likes and dislikes. I suspect they’ll do the same for you.

Willis, Connie, “Just Like The Ones We Used To Know,” A Lot Like Christmas, Del Rey, 2017. Maybe my favorite of all of Connie’s Christmas stories, this story is about a truly unlikely snowfall and the power of wishes. It’s lovely.

Willis, Connie, “Now Showing,” A Lot Like Christmas, Del Rey, 2017. I love this story, although it does feel like it was set 100 years ago instead of ten years ago. That’s how much has changed. It makes me nostalgic for a time when movie theaters were teen hangouts and social media was…different. The story is fun, and worth reading, even though it feels like something much older than it is.

Willis, Connie, “Take A Look At The Five And Ten,” Asimov’s Science Fiction, November/December, 2020. The arrival of a new Connie Willis tale is always great news. This is one of her holiday novellas. It’s good, but not great, Willis. Good Willis is still five times better than what anyone else is doing. Well worth your time. I have included a link to the Subterranean edition, which looks pretty.

Yi, Melissa,“Blue Christmas,” Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, January/February, 2019. Melissa Yi, a doctor, writes a good series about Hope Sze, also a doctor. In this story, Hope goes to Christmas party, and observes things the rest of us never would. Lots of misdirection here, very well done, and some marvelous character building, with a lot of tension. And the meaning of blue…well, you’ll see.

You can get them all with a simple click. But they go away in about 48 hours. So hurry on over.

And, in case you’re on the fence, here’s the blurb for “Maelstrom.”

I’m also with great company in the volume. From a novella by Michèle Laframboise to poetry by Bruce Boston, the writers in this issue are stellar (pun intended).

So pick up your copy today by clicking here.

I also taught a workshop on science fiction mysteries, and as I often do, I assigned a couple of books for the reading list that I hadn’t read yet. I searched and searched and searched for good sf mystery anthologies. The ones I was familiar with (and/or published in) were out of print and unavailable for my online students. (I could find enough copies for my in-person students.) The anthology I did find (which I hadn’t read), well, it turned out to be a good teaching tool, just not in the way that the editors intended. It looks like they invited a lot of good writers who just weren’t up to the task, and felt the need to use the work anyway. Sigh. Looks like I might have to do an sf/mystery anthology all my own. (If you’re interested in the in-person workshops, click here. The one next January is nearly full.)

January 2024

Chiarella, Tom, “Henry Winkler’s 6 Lessons of Reinvention,” AARP The Magazine, October/November, 2023. Lovely article about the things learned across a career. Henry Winkler and I share a diagnosis of dyslexia. The difference between us is that I was taught to read by my sister, who also had dyslexia. She had figured out a coping mechanism that allowed me to see words as pictures, rather than an accumulation of letters. I was able to read easily (spelling was much, much harder). Henry Winkler could not. Yet he figured out ways of getting by as well, and making a career even though he couldn’t act quickly on some things.

The choices we make and the ways we cope end up moving our lives forward. I’ve rarely seen an article that captures this so well.

Coates, Tyler, “‘Queerness Was Part of His Strategic Gift,” The Hollywood Reporter, November 27, 2023.  A Netflix film, Rustin, last year brought proper attention to Bayard Rustin and his importance to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. I had no idea Rustin had been lost to history. (Not to me) Nor did I know some of the personal things about him, because I use primary materials in my writing when I work on Smokey Dalton. Rustin’s sexuality caused issues that I hadn’t been aware of, but which makes some comments I saw make sense in retrospect. Fascinating article, and no, I haven’t seen the film yet, but I most certainly will, as I ramp up Smokey in the next several months. Until then, watch the film and read this, and learn about an amazing man.

Day, Sarah, and Pratt, Tim, “Overclocked Holmes,” The Reinvented Detective, edited by Cat Rambo & Jennifer Brozek, Caezik, 2023. If you’re read (or watched) too much Sherlock Holmes, then this is the story for you. It’s a riff on artificial intelligence—”a great weird failure of the back half of the twenty-first century”— with so many Holmesian in-jokes that I’m not sure I caught them all. Try this one just for the fun of it.

DeFrank, Sean, “1983: Dawn of the City of Sports,” rjmagazine, Fall 2023. Las Vegas reinvents itself almost daily, so sometimes it feels like we go through almost fifty years worth of change in a decade. CNN is doing a documentary series on the city’s history, and yep, that kinda confirms the feeling. This article from one of the local publications does as well. We are becoming the sports capitol of the country as we add more and more teams. Because Las Vegas is a destination in and of itself, people come here to watch their team play our team. So the professional sports industry went from nearly nothing when we moved here six years ago to this explosion now.

DeFrank’s article looks at the seeds which were planted in 1983 that made this sports boom possible. Fascinating stuff.

Kowal, Mary Robinette, The Spare Man, Tor, 2022. I’m sorry to say that this is the first Mary Robinette Kowal novel I’ve read. I’ve been meaning to read the others, because I love her short fiction, but I never got around to them. So…I assigned this book for the sf mystery class and am I glad I did. This book is marvelous. It’s the Thin Man in space, with beautiful setting, characters that live and breathe, and a truly sf solution to the various crimes. I hope she writes more in this series, because I am soooo there.

Marcus, Gary and Southern, Reid, “Generative AI Has a Visual Plagiarism Problem,” IEEE Spectrum, January 6, 2024. Ironically enough, the bot on my Pocket app sent me to this story, because clearly I read a lot on generative AI. The authors are a scientist & writer, and a film industry visual concept artist.  They use as scientific a method as they could manage to figure out if generative AI had a plagiarism problem and whoa, boy, did they discover that it did. They also got banned repeatedly from Midjourney for their efforts. Lots to digest here. In particular, look at the comparison to Napster. As I’ve been saying for years now, do not use these generative AI programs until the legal side settles out. Read this.

Morehouse, Lyda, “Go Ask A.L.I.C.E.,” The Reinvented Detective, edited by Cat Rambo & Jennifer Brozek, Caezik, 2023. A wonderfully reimagined trope about a group trying to protect a former sex bot. This story is well done with good suspense, great characters, and a well-defined world. (Something most of the stories in this volume lacked.)

Redgate, Riley, Noteworthy, Amulet, 2017. I loved this book. I binged it. It’s the story of Jordan Sun, a scholarship student at an elite performing arts school. She can never get cast in one of the musicals because her voice is too deep and there aren’t a lot of parts for Alto 2. So…she auditions for a boys’ acapella group instead…as a boy. And gets in, causing her to go to class as a girl and rehearsal as a boy. It sounds like a typical Shakespearean boy/girl swap, but it’s much more than that. The book is actually a great reflection on modern gender norms and on being accepted. It’s quite (ahem) noteworthy. (Sorry, couldn’t resist.)

Robbins, Dean, “A Media-History Miracle,” On Wisconsin, Fall, 2023. This is almost a public service announcement for those of you who like media history. The University of Wisconsin has an online archive of film and broadcasting publications. It’s got cool stuff. Take a look at this article, and then head to the online site.

Smith, Gene, American Gothic: The Story of America’s Legendary Theatrical Family—Junius, Edwin, and John Wilkes Booth, Touchstone, 1992. I read a yellowed paperback edition of this book, but there is an ebook version. I’m not really sure you’d want to read it. My muse has been directing me to various non-fiction reading projects and this is one of them. I’m not even sure where I got the book. I’m not sure how I will use this in my writing either, only that I will at some point.

I have never read a book about the acting family. I did know that Edwin continued acting and had become the biggest actor in America after his brother’s hideous assassination of Abraham Lincoln. I had no idea how Edwin managed to go on, but it sounds like he had already divorced himself from John and tried to give up acting for a while. He didn’t manage it.

I think the thing I found most fascinating about the book, though, is that this was one crazy family. All of them. That something went seriously awry was not a surprise. What went awry was.

Again, I’m not sure any of you would want to read this, but it’s interesting. And beautifully written…

Turtledove, Harry, “In The Shadow of The Great Days,” The Reinvented Detective, edited by Cat Rambo & Jennifer Brozek, Caezik, 2023. I’d say this is the best story in the book (and that is absolutely the truth), but that’s damning with faint praise. The story is amazing. In about 5,000 words, Harry creates a future that’s believable and tactile, so rich that I knew it from the first paragraph. This is how to write a science fiction detective story. It’s a master class.

They did so with Gallery of His Dreams, which was a cover story for Asimov’s (my first there), and a limited edition and a many-times reprint. It got nominated for every award in the sf field that existed and that it was eligible for at the time. And, weirdly for me (then and now), almost everyone in the field had read the story, whether they liked it or not.

That’s not what I remember the most about it, though. I remember writing it in my crappy apartment, staring at the wall, with a kitchen to my right that was literally falling apart. In fact, a few weeks later, the kitchen ceiling would collapse, making the place unusable for some time…and my crummy landlord balked at fixing it until I cited chapter and verse of Oregon tenant law to get him off his crooked ass.

I had been entranced by Mathew Brady’s Civil War photographs for a very long time. Not so much by the controversy of him posing the corpses, although that’s there, but of the mission he felt and what it cost him. Gallery is, at its heart, a story about being an artist and doing what you believe, even if it’s not the best business decision. I guess I was preaching to that choir right from the very beginning.

This is the last of the six novellas that I promised to tell you about. (You can read the other posts here, here, here, here, and here.) All six are available until 7 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time as part of a Kickstarter. There are other award-winning stories of mine that you can get through all the stretch goals that we’ve hit, so go take a look. But hurry. The Kickstarter will vanish at 7:01.

I was, in the parlance of children, eight-and-a-half. Apollo 8 had left Earth’s orbit and was the first crewed spaceflight to fly to the Moon. They orbited 10 times. What I remember the most, though, was their travel to “the backside” of the Moon. Their signal would cut out. The first time it happened, no one knew if they would make it back into signal range. Or at least, no one—according to my memory of 56 years ago.

My parents always had the TV on. Always. If they were awake (and there was something on the air), the TV was on. Which meant I watched the Apollo 8 mission start to finish. It happened at Christmastime, and had this lovely moment (as recalled on NASA.gov):

On Christmas morning, mission control waited anxiously for word that Apollo 8’s engine burn to leave lunar orbit had worked. They soon got confirmation when Lovell radioed, “Roger, please be informed there is a Santa Claus.”

Yep. There was. Apollo 8 has appeared in my fiction a number of times, but never like it had in this story. I think the germ for Recovering Apollo 8 was born in that fear I experienced throughout the mission, that these men would be lost. They weren’t. In our world, all went well.

But in the world of Recovering Apollo 8, the worst happened. And provided the catalyst for other kinds of space travel.

This novella, highly acclaimed and award-winning, is one of the six novellas in the current Kickstarter, which ends tomorrow night. You can get it, five more novellas, and at least five more novelettes (maybe another, if we hit another stretch goal). Check it out here. To find out more about the writing of the other novellas, go here, here, here, and here. I’ll post one more tomorrow.