Handel’s Messiah is playing in the background, a pot of Fortnum’s Christmas Tea is  brewing, and the presents are– mostly– wrapped.  Which means it’s time for a bit of holiday reading.

Of course, there are always the classics, like Dickens’s A Christmas Carol and Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, but what I really love are the annual crop of Christmas-themed novels that hit the shelves.  There’s nothing like a good holiday romance to make you all teary.  I got all sniffly last year over Lori Wilde’s The First Love Cookie Club and Debbie Macomber’s Angel books.

Then there are the madcap Christmas mysteries, like Donna Andrews’s Six Geese A-Slaying (a Christmas parade that goes very wrong when someone murders Santa), Kasey Michaels’s High Heels and Holidays (a Regency hero who has materialized in his author’s apartment uses his sleuthing abilities to solve a holiday-themed murder) , and, one of my all time favorites, Elizabeth Peters’s Trojan Gold.

Saving the best for last, there is also a treasure trove of historical romance set around the holidays.  Most recently, Deanna Raybourn released a holiday installment for her Victorian-set Lady Julia books, Silent Night, but there is also a vast wealth of oldies but goodies, like Judith McNaught’s Regency-set short story in the old anthology, A Holiday of Love.

For those looking for a wider range of recommendations, both Publishers Weekly and Dear Author just released their “Best Of” Christmas romance lists (and the AAR folks have promised that theirs will be up next week).

What are your favorite holiday reads?

Under saturday salon