The Christmas Pawdcast

The Christmas Pawdcast
by Emily March
Rating: ★★★
Publication Date: December 2, 2021
Genre: Fiction, Romance
Publisher: Audible Originals

Mary Landry and her pregnant rescue dog are on their way home for Christmas when the unthinkable happens: Her car breaks down along a deserted stretch of mountain highway in the middle of a blizzard. Facing dire conditions, Mary seeks shelter from a lone cabin in the distance whose warm light beckons her like a Christmas star.

Nick Carstairs has one wish this season -- to ride out his least favorite time of the year in peace while working on the latest episode of his hit True Crime podcast. The sexy-voiced podcaster didn’t plan to host a stranger and her pregnant dog, but he’s happy to help a traveler in need … it’s an extra perk that she’s gorgeous. Now if she would just stop trying to change his mind about Christmas.

As they spend time warming up by the fire -- and an unexpected attraction roars to life -- will Mary help Nick discover the wonder of the season after all?

My last wholly read book of 2022 and I didn’t love it. BUT there’s only one thing harder for me to do than read romance: listen to it. So, while I really liked the parts about the dog, and I appreciated the plausible opening of their meet cute, I didn’t enjoy the yearning bits – especially the part played by the male MC. There were more than a few fast-forwards through the yearning, and a lot of cringing. But it was a nice enough accompaniment while working on my jigsaw puzzle.

(This story was enjoyed by a reading friend who doesn’t like romance either, but found this one well done and with a cheerful Christmas vibe, which is why I tried it. It was well written and cheerful – just too much with the yearning and the romancing for me – especially in audio.)

Jane and the Twelve Days of Christmas

Jane and the Twelve Days of Christmas
by Stephanie Barron
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9781616954239
Series: Jane Austen Mystery #12
Publication Date: October 1, 2014
Pages: 329
Genre: Fiction, Historical, Mystery
Publisher: Soho Press

Christmas Eve, 1814: Jane Austen has been invited to spend the holiday with family and friends at The Vyne, the gorgeous ancestral home of the wealthy and politically prominent Chute family. As the year fades and friends begin to gather beneath the mistletoe for the twelve days of Christmas festivities, Jane and her circle are in a celebratory mood: Mansfield Park is selling nicely; Napoleon has been banished to Elba; British forces have seized Washington, DC; and on Christmas Eve, John Quincy Adams signs the Treaty of Ghent, which will end a war nobody in England really wanted.

Jane, however, discovers holiday cheer is fleeting. One of the Yuletide dies in a tragic accident whose circumstances Jane immediately views with suspicion. If the accident was in fact murder, the killer is one of Jane’s fellow snow-bound guests. With clues scattered amidst cleverly-crafted charades, dark secrets coming to light during parlor games, and old friendships returning to haunt the Christmas parties, whom can Jane trust to help her discover the truth and stop the killer from striking again?

My first Christmas read of 2021, and a library loan that was the most reluctant of my choices that day. I’m wary of books that use real historical figures as the main characters of their novels – they rarely turn out well – and a mystery series involving Jane Austen solving murders felt almost blasphemous, as well as an attempt to cash in on Austen’s popularity.

It was actually pretty good! I know next to nothing about Austen’s life beyond the basics, so I can’t say her voice was accurate, but it’s definitely an accurate representation of many of her characters’ voices, which could be argued to be, in part, small pieces of herself as well as her observations of others. There were lines in this book that felt like re-constructions of dialogue straight from Austen’s novels – not quotes or rip-offs, but the author definitely nailed the style, probably from deconstructing dialog from the books.

What I found really intriguing were footnotes in the text – probably not more than 1 or 2 per chapter – from the editor, clarifying historic events, or offering small amounts of historical background, for places, characters and events used in the plot. I’ve never seen this meld of fiction and non-fiction before and I really appreciated the extra information, and that it was offered judiciously.

The mystery itself was average; the setup was good and the flow of clues and information worked well, it’s just that the murderer, in spite of being very well hidden beneath all the family secrets and political intrigues, was obvious to me from the start, as was at least one familial intrigue.

So, even though the mystery itself was a bit predictable, I ended up thoroughly enjoying the read. This isn’t the first book in the series – it looks like there are quite a few before this one – but I had no trouble at all following along. Two allusions were made about previous exploits, and these were footnoted with the titles they came from – the only two footnotes not about historical references.

I’m not sure if my library has any of the others, but I’m definitely interested in reading more of them.

Owl be Home for Christmas (Meg Langslow, #26)

Owl be Home for Christmas
by Donna Andrews
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9781250305312
Series: Meg Langslow #26
Publication Date: October 19, 2019
Pages: 304
Genre: Fiction, Mystery
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

This was the only Christmas story I read this year, and I started it just as everything started going pear shaped in RL, so it took me forever to read it. I know this is a ‘me’ problem, but the longer it takes me to finish a book, the more scattered the story feels to me, so this entry by one of my favorite current authors got short shrift from me this year. Still, it was good; the mystery was well constructed and the holiday spirit was high. The Christmas dinner almost made me misty eyed and made me love Donna Andrews as an author just a little bit more than I already did.