The Christmas Spirit

May 1, 2022

Backman's The Winners revisits the small but tough rural community first seen in the multi-best-booked Beartown, inspiration for the HBO original. From Cousens (This Times Next Year), Before I Do features Audrey, who's about to marry dependable Josh when his sister turns up with the guy Audrey always wanted. With Thief of Fate, Deveraux and Sheets wrap up a trilogy about an 1840s Irish thief in contemporary Providence Falls, NC, who is tasked by the angels with righting the wrong of having lured away Cora from her intended (75,000-copy paperback and 10,000-copy hardcover first printing). Hilderbrand's Endless Summer offers nine stories serving as prequels, sequels, and interim chapters illuminating her beloved novels (375,000-copy first printing). In Edgar-nominated Kennedy's Billie Starr's Book of Sorries, down-on-her-luck Jenny Newberg (mother of the eponymous Billie) unwisely accepts money to seduce the so-called Candidate (75,000-copy first printing). Macomber gets us in The Christmas Spirit with the story of two friends, a bartender and a pastor, and what they learn when they trade places for the holidays. Second in a series set in Wishing Tree, WA, Mallery's Home Sweet Christmas features two women--one a town newbie, another home temporarily--with Christmas surprises in store (250,000-copy paperback and 10,000-copy hardcover first printing). Bringing together stay-at-home witch Lucy Caraway and merman Alex, out of his element in Freya Grove, NJ, Martin's Witchful Thinking launches a series featuring Black characters with books already slated for publication in 2023 and 2024 (45,000-copy first printing). Nigerian British Nwabineli debuts with Someday, Maybe, about a young woman struggling to recover from her husband' suicide (75,000-copy first printing). Thanks to Patterson and coauthor Safran, lonely widower Henry Sullivan and children Will and Ella end up welcoming a raucous bunch of animals and houseguests to their Harlem brownstone during The Twelve Long, Hard, Topsy-Turvy, Very Messy Days of Christmas (125,000-copy first printing). Picoult and Boylan's Mad Honey stars a wealthy wife returning to her New Hampshire hometown after discovering her husband's ugly side. In Steel's latest, a sensational young singer who hits all The High Notes must wrestle freedom from those who would exploit her, including her father.

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August 15, 2022
Opposites attract in a story of friendship and love that spans the week before Christmas 1977. Hank Meyer, owner and bartender of a tavern in Kettle Springs, has been best friends with Pete Rhinehart, pastor of the Light and Life Church in Bridgeport, nearly their entire lives. In high school, the pair played football and ran track together. Now adults, they are single and still meet up roughly once a month to have lunch together. Over one lunch, while complaining about how difficult their lives are and how neither of them have found a woman to marry yet, they decide to switch places for a week, swapping back for Christmas Eve so Pete can run his church service. For that week, however, Hank will perform all the pastoral duties that fill Pete's days and Pete will run the tavern that takes all Hank's time and energy. Since this is also a story told through the eyes of a grandmother to two of her grandchildren--seen only in snippets, � la The Princess Bride--it is also a story with kissing in it, much to her grandson's horror. Pete's sister, Grace Ann, is the church secretary, caught up in her holier-than-thou worldview, and Millie, a lunchtime waitress in the diner where Hank and Pete meet, is also a bartender at the local strip club. Macomber has written a story that's heavy-handed in its belief in the importance--and redemptive qualities--of Christianity for individuals and communities. Gender stereotypes define each character. Women are helpmates. Men are portrayed as knowing best about everything: the Bible; love; romance; whether or not a woman's name should be shortened in a way she explicitly says she doesn't like; and the idea that if she clearly dislikes someone, what she really needs is a kiss. A book that seeks to be a meet-cute for two couples while reinforcing traditional Christian gender roles and partnerships.

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August 29, 2022
Bestseller and Hallmark Channel stalwart Macomber (Dear Santa) does it again with a candy cane–sweet holiday romance about two friends who swap lives for a week before Christmas. Framed as a true story told by a grandmother to her two young grandchildren, the narrative toggles between the present day and 1977, when bar owner Hank Colfax and church pastor Pete Armstrong got into a debate about whose job was easier. Hank assumes Pete’s job is a walk in the park without the hassle of taxes and paperwork, while Pete thinks Hank must be partying every night. The men hatch a plot to trade professions for the holiday season, and each quickly finds their assumptions proven wrong—while also finding love in the most unlikely of places. Pete’s instantly taken by Millie, a waitress at a biker bar who comes to his rescue in a moment of peril, and Hank melts the icy heart of the judgmental church secretary, Grace Ann. An eclectic supporting cast—including cadres of strippers and bikers—and a comically disastrous climactic Christmas Eve church service make the narrative shine bright. It’s exactly what readers want from a Macomber holiday outing. Agent: Theresa Park, Park & Fine.

September 1, 2022
This story begins with a grandmother sitting down to tell her grandchildren a Christmas story, but she ensures them that this is not a fairy tale--it's about lifelong best friends Hank and Pete, who just couldn't be more different. Hank is the owner of a local tavern, while Pete is the pastor of a church that he runs with his sanctimonious sister, Grace Ann. One night after debating who has the harder job, the friends make a deal to work a week in the other's position, each believing it will prove that he is right. As both men quickly learn the grass isn't always greener in someone else's occupation, they also begin growing relationships with those around them, particularly between Hank and Grace Ann, and Pete and tavern server Millie. This light, sweet Christmas novel is perfect for someone looking for a chaste love story with a happy ending. It also has several spiritual themes and could easily fall within the Christian genre as well as romance.

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