Getting into the Christmas Spirit readathon of things

 

As I mentioned earlier this week, my reading is embracing the spirit of Thanksgiving yet that doesn't mean that the rest of the holiday season is on the literary backburner for me.

Starting next week, I will be taking part in Seasons of Reading's annual Christmas Spirit readathon(hosted by Michelle Miller, who is also running a similar challenge on another site).

 This time out, the readathon will last until January 6, due to the ongoing health crisis, and while you don't have to read only Christmas themed books(one will do), my TBR is going all the way to Santa Town here:

A CATERED CHRISTMAS COOKIE EXCHANGE: While I'm still enjoying Isis Crawford's Catered Thanksgiving,thanks to an ebook library loan, my interest in the sleuthing Simmons sisters was peaked enough to purchase a physical copy of one of their seasonal adventures.

In this tasty tale, Libby and Bernie are thrilled to be part of a baking TV show that is hosting a contest for a Christmas Cookie Exchange Club. Unfortunately, one of the club's members-odds on winner Millie Piedmont-has perished in an auto accident and as her niece Amber works for their catering company, Libby and Bernie feel honor bound to look into the matter.

Turns out that Millie made a lot of enemies among her cookie making friends, which makes just about everyone involved a suspect. To complicate things further, Amber wants to take her departed aunt's place in the competition, making it hard for the sisters to remain as judges. Can they solve the murder while being fair to all or is this cookie caper destined to crumble?

This is book nine in the series but I have no trouble in getting into the Thanksgiving entry so Christmas should be fine and dandy. Plus, cookies are hard to resist any time of year:

A CATERED NEW YEAR'S EVE: This more recent entry in the Catered mystery series has the sisters being hired by a distant relative, Ada Sinclair, for a family gathering on the title evening.

While the rest of the Sinclair relatives are unpleasantly surprised by that choice, they become less than thrilled when Ada suggests at the end of the night that her late father was murdered by someone attending the party! Chaos ensues as one of the dinner guests actually drops dead, causing Ada to flee the scene.

When another death occurs, Libby and Bernie decide to find the real killer as Ada has become the prime suspect and with any luck, they can keep her from celebrating the next year behind bars.

You don't see that many New Year's Eve cozy mysteries(or in many of the mystery categories for that matter )as Christmas does take up a lot of room in this field. Since this readathon is expanding into the New Year's celebration time period, it feels like the right music to keep the bookish party going:

CHRISTMAS SHOPAHOLIC: In addition to catching up with a book that I didn't get to last year-Christmas on the Island by Jenny Colgan-I'm treating myself to a reread via Sophie Kinsella and her delightful diva Becky Bloomwood-Brandon.

Becky has been tasked with hosting Christmas this year, her first time ever, due to her parents moving to a small apartment in a very trendy neighborhood. She's nervous but intent upon making the holidays picture perfect for friends, family and loved ones alike.

However, some of that involves becoming the first woman to join a men's billiards club in order to get her husband Luke the best present, scouring the city for a popular tree ornament and being stuck with a massive amount of smoked salmon. Making everything great for everyone is daunting enough without Becky's knack for getting herself into complicated situations that are hard to get out of indeed.

I did have a good time with this book last year and happy to have a wonderful excuse to join Becky and company for Christmas hijinks and good cheer once again:

There's still time to sign up for either the readathon or the challenge(or both,both is good!) and I placed a link in the second paragraph to SOR if anyone wants to check it out. Thanks as always to Michelle for keeping our reading spirits bright even in this time of national crisis.

I'm going to take a mini-break for Thanksgiving but will be back with more content by the end of the month(that includes my best books of the year list!) and may you all have a safe,healthy and happy Turkey Day.

I also wish you all the same for Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa and other holiday celebrations as well. This year has certainly been a challenging one and we're not out of the woods yet, however, we can still hold on to a few traditions as best we can. No matter how odd those traditions may be: