As we get closer to Thanksgiving and the gateway to the winter holidays, it becomes more difficult to find time for pleasure reading. However, if you do find yourself with time on your hands and craving something with a Thanksgiving theme or setting, look over our Thanksgiving Fiction list, or our Edible Fiction list, because this holiday is all about the food!
Looking for dysfunction in someone else’s family? In Suzanne Berne’s Ghost at the Table, Thanksgiving at a perfect colonial house in Concord, Massachusetts marks a reunion between the three Fiske sisters. Cynthia, the youngest, is an author writing a book about Mark Twain’s daughters in this portrait an unraveling family, set against the famous nineteenth-century author’s own family dysfunction.

Kitty Burns Florey’s Souvenir of Cold Springs is about the traditional Thanksgiving family reunions at Aunt Nell’s and tracking the marriages, children, and divorces of a family. Florey has a particular gift for characterization and her forthright and witty prose buoyantly carries the story.

Whitney Gaskell’s Pushing Thirty is a “Smart Funny Women” tale. Watch everything explode in the heroine’s life as she loses both job and boyfriend and experiences a Thanksgiving from the Black Lagoon.

For more humor, give Jon Hassler’s Dear James a try. At loose ends due to forced retirement from her longtime teaching post, Agatha despairs when she looks at the motley crew of friends gathered at her table for an excruciating Thanksgiving dinner (described in hilarious detail).

For an edgier read, pick up Nancy Huston’s Dolce Agonia. A New England Thanksgiving, a snow storm and friends who know too much about one another form this holiday tale.

Paullina Simon’s Red Leaves is a dark tale of suspense. During a cold Thanksgiving weekend and its aftermath, three Dartmouth students find their friend’s nude and frozen body in a snow bank, having been concealed there for some days. Meanwhile, a young small-town detective Spencer O’Malley investigates her death.

Now for some tastier reads…Brooke Parkhurst’s Belle in the Big Apple: A Novel with Recipes combines chick-lit with a culinary theme and will appeal to either audience. Parkhurst, former blogger and media gossip staple turned web and TV culinary personality, brings considerable Southern charm and sass (plus some mouth-watering recipes) to her chick-lit debut, but there’s no mistaking the revenge fantasy at the heart of this tale of struggle and success.

Some culinary mystery series offer newly published episodes. Claudia Bishop’s latest Hemlock Falls tale, The Case of the Ill-Gotten Goat, is about cheese making and murder. Laura Childs’ Tea Shop mysteries are always soothing fare. Her latest is Silver Needle Murder. Joanne Fluke’s The Carrot Cake Mystery finds sleuth Hannah Swenson investigating the murder of a family reunion attendee whose murderer could be a man suffering from Alzheimer’s. In G.A. McKevett’s Poisoned Tarts, as Halloween approaches, P.I. Savannah Reid finds herself knee-deep in tricks and treats when a member of The Skeleton Key Three, a “celebutante” clique, goes missing, and the wealthy host of the annual Halloween bash is murdered.

Tamar Myers latest Pennsylvania Dutch mystery, As the World Churns, finds Magdalena Yoder sleuthing during her honeymoon amidst a cow competition at Yoder’s Inn. Inevitable culture clash between Myers’ Amish heroine and her New York Jewish husband and her stereotypical mother-in-law offers plenty of humorous byplay. Delicious Ice-cream recipes weave their way into Myers’ tale.

In Anthony Capella’s historical novel for java devotees, The Various Flavors of Coffee, coffee trivia and romance combine into a satisfying mix. In 1890s London, Robert Wallis is a debt-ridden poet with a remarkable talent for distinguishing between coffee varieties. His knack for describing flavors lands him a job with coffee merchant Samuel Pinker. Wallis’s goal is to categorize every type of coffee bean in existence until he falls in love with Pinker’s daughter Emily and ends up exiled to a coffee plantation in Abyssinia. Here, Wallis learns about the corrupt inner workings of the coffee industry (including its dependence on slave labor) and realizes that ignorance does not excuse complicity.

Julie Mueller, once a brilliant local television reporter, has been fired for the sin of being forty, in Sarah Strohmeyer’s Sweet Love. Broke, divorced, unemployed, and struggling to raise a teenage daughter alone, she had given up on happiness until she receives for Mother’s Day four dessert classes that spark not only a new burst of culinary creativity but a burning passion for one of her fellow students, Michael Slayton, a true love she let slip away.

If you cannot locate any of these titles, please ask the Reference Desk to place a hold or request the title from another library. You can also place your own holds for any of these titles by using your library card and your PIN number.

Categories: Book Buzz,Book Reviews,Booklists
Tags: Item column, Thanksgiving