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Holiday Cheer 2015

Holiday Cheer

Holiday Cheer 2015

At Bookreporter.com, we've been celebrating the holiday season in style with our Holiday Cheer Contests and Feature. As our gift to you, we've been spotlighting a book and giving five lucky readers a chance to win it.

Although the contests have ended, we encourage you to take a look at this year's featured titles. These are books you'll want to read during the holidays --- and throughout the new year as well!

- Click here to see the winners of this year's Holiday Cheer contests.

Amish Christmas at North Star: Four Stories of Love and Family by Cindy Woodsmall, Mindy Starns Clark, Emily Clark, Amanda Flower, and Katie Ganshert - Fiction


One night, four lives entered the world by the hands of an Amish midwife, just outside North Star, Pennsylvania. Rebekah’s Babies, as they are called, are now grown adults, and in four heartwarming novellas, each young person experiences a journey of discovery, a possibility of love, and the wonder of Christmas.

Ashley Bell by Dean Koontz - Psychological Thriller


Bibi Blair is a fierce, funny, dauntless young woman --- whose doctor says she has one year to live. Her sudden recovery astonishes medical science. An enigmatic woman convinces Bibi that she escaped death so that she can save someone else. Someone named Ashley Bell. But save her from what? And who is Ashley Bell? Where is she? Bibi’s obsession with finding Ashley sends her on the run from threats both mystical and worldly, including a rich and charismatic cult leader with terrifying ambitions.

Calming Therapy: An Anti-Stress Coloring Book by Running Press - Art/Crafts & Hobbies


Color yourself calm with this beautiful and therapeutic coloring and doodle book. Focusing on completing detailed patterns and adding color creatively has a relaxing, stress-busting effect. Even amateur artists can create something exquisite, as no drawing skills are required.

Christmas on Candy Cane Lane: Life in Icicle Falls by Sheila Roberts - Romance


As soon as tough cop Tilda Morrison moves into a fixer-upper on Candy Cane Lane, vandals destroy the neighborhood’s festive Christmas decorations. While Tilda works to catch the vandals red-handed, she forms a neighborly bond with snooty divorced mom Ivy Bohn and super volunteer Maddy Donaldson. However, she's quickly distracted by town bad boy Devon Black and his hard-muscled body. Turns out that beneath Tilda’s no-nonsense demeanor and shiny badge, she wears some mighty sexy lace. Will Christmas on Candy Cane Lane work its magic on Tilda and Devon?

Dashing Through the Snow: A Christmas Novel by Debbie Macomber - Romance


Ashley Davison, a graduate student in California, desperately wants to spend the holidays with her family in Seattle. Dashiell Sutherland, a former army intelligence officer, has a job interview in Seattle and must arrive by December 23. Ashley and Dash reluctantly decide to share the car, but neither anticipates the wild ride ahead. Though Ashley and Dash may never reach Seattle in time for Christmas, the season is still full of surprises --- and their greatest wishes may yet come true.

The Dead Play On by Heather Graham - Paranormal Romantic Suspense


Musicians are being murdered in New Orleans, but Arnie Watson apparently died by his own hand. When Tyler Anderson plays the saxophone he inherited from Arnie, he believes he sees visions of his friend's life --- and death. He becomes convinced Arnie was murdered and that the instrument had something to do with it, so he approaches Danni Cafferty, hoping she and Michael Quinn will find out what the cops couldn't. When they look into the case, they discover a secret lover of Arnie's and a history of jealousies and old hatreds that leads them back to the band Arnie once played with --- and Tyler plays with now.

Dog Crazy: A Novel of Love Lost and Found by Meg Donohue - Fiction

As a pet bereavement counselor, Maggie Brennan uses a combination of empathy, insight and humor to help patients cope with the anguish of losing their beloved four-legged friends. Though she has a gift for guiding others through difficult situations, Maggie has major troubles of her own that threaten the success of her counseling practice and her volunteer work with a dog rescue organization. Everything changes when a distraught woman shows up at Maggie’s office and claims that her dog has been stolen. Maggie soon finds herself entangled in a mystery that forces her to finally face her biggest fear --- and to open her heart to new love.

The Giving Way to Happiness: Stories and Science Behind the Life-Changing Power of Giving by Jenny Santi - Business/Personal Growth


In THE GIVING WAY TO HAPPINESS, Jenny Santi overturns conventional thinking about what it takes to be happy by revealing how giving to others --- whether in the form of money, expertise, time or love --- has helped people from all walks of life find purpose and joy. Drawing on the wisdom of great thinkers past and present, as well as cutting-edge scientific research, Santi makes an eloquent and passionate case that oftentimes the answers to the problems that haunt us, and the key to the happiness that eludes us, lie in helping those around us.

A Knights Bridge Christmas: A Swift River Valley Novel by Carla Neggers - Romance


Clare Morgan is ready for a fresh start when she moves to the small Massachusetts town of Knights Bridge with her young son, Owen. Widowed for six years, Clare settles into her job as the town’s new librarian. Then she meets Logan Farrell, a Boston ER doctor in town to help his elderly grandmother settle into assisted living. Neither of them expects to find an attraction to each other, but everything about Knights Bridge and this magical season invites them to open themselves to new possibilities and new love.

Lighten Up, Y'all: Classic Southern Recipes Made Healthy and Wholesome by Virginia Willis - Cookbook


Virginia Willis is not only an authority on Southern cooking, a French-trained chef and a veteran cookbook author; she is also a proud Southerner who adores eating and cooking for family and friends. So when she needed to drop a few pounds and generally lighten up her diet, the most important criterion for her new lifestyle was that all the food had to taste delicious. The result is LIGHTEN UP, Y’ALL, a soul-satisfying and deeply personal collection of Virginia’s new favorite recipes.

Little House Living: The Make-Your-Own Guide to a Frugal, Simple, and Self-Sufficient Life by Merissa A. Alink - Self-Help


From the immensely popular blogger behind "Little House Living" comes a motivational homemaking book, inspired by "Little House on the Prairie," with creative and fun ways to live your life simply and frugally. After setting out to live a self-sufficient way, the Little House way, Merissa slashed her household budget by nearly half --- saving thousands of dollars a year. Embracing even a handful of the recipes in this book and dedicating to make them from scratch can save hundreds of dollars a year --- money that struggling families really count on.

Lost Ocean: An Inky Adventure & Coloring Book by Johanna Basford - Art/Crafts & Hobbies


With LOST OCEAN, Johanna Basford invites color-inners of all ages to discover an enchanting underwater world hidden in the depths of the sea. Through intricate pen and ink illustrations to complete, color and embellish, readers will meet shoals of exotic fish, curious octopi and delicately penned seahorses. Visit coral reefs and barnacle-studded shipwrecks, discover intricate shells and pirate treasure.

Marry Me at Christmas: A Fool's Gold Romance by Susan Mallery - Romance


To bridal boutique owner Madeline Krug, organizing a Christmas wedding sounds like a joy --- until she finds out she'll be working closely with the gorgeous brother of the bride, movie star Jonny Blaze, who came to Fool's Gold looking for a normal life, not for love. Nevertheless, "ordinary" Madeline is the most extraordinary woman he's ever met, and Madeline finds real-life Jonny even more captivating than her celebrity crush. But will the action star be brave enough to risk his heart and step into the role of a lifetime?

A Quilt for Christmas by Sandra Dallas - Historical Fiction


It is 1864, and Eliza Spooner's husband, Will, has joined the Kansas volunteers to fight the Confederates. When the unthinkable happens, she takes in a woman and child who have been left alone and made vulnerable by the war, and she finds solace and camaraderie amongst the women of her quilting group. When she is asked to help hide an escaped slave, she must decide for herself what is right, and who she can count on to help her.

Stars Over Sunset Boulevard by Susan Meissner - Fiction


Los Angeles, Present Day. When a hat worn by Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind ends up in Christine McAllister's vintage clothing boutique by mistake, her efforts to return it to its owner take her on a journey more enchanting than any classic movie. Los Angeles, 1938. Violet Mayfield goes to Hollywood after her dream of having a family falls apart. There, she meets enigmatic Audrey Duvall, a once-rising film star. Their adventures together among Hollywood's glitterati enthrall Violet...until each woman's deepest desires collide.

Tails from the Booth by Lynn Terry - Photography


In the vein of DOG SHAMING or SHAKE, TAILS FROM THE BOOTH captures the loving, hilarious way dogs interact with each other. The photos allow the personalities of the different breeds to shine through and highlight the friendship they project. The dogs' willingness to adapt and improvise, and their innate sense of concern for one another, is evident, while they still maintain their larger-than-life personalities. The dogs smooch, stick their tongues out at each other, laugh, yawn, howl, sneeze, frown, and make awkward facial expressions, all while Lynn Terry chases them in and out of the frame.

Tenacity by J.S. Law - Thriller


Suicide must be investigated. Especially when a Royal Navy sailor kills himself on a nuclear submarine, only days after his wife's brutal murder. Now Lieutenant Danielle Lewis, the Navy's finest Special Branch investigator, must interrogate the tight-knit, male crew of HMS Tenacity to determine if there's a link. Isolated, and standing alone in the face of extreme hostility, Dan soon realizes that she may have to choose between the truth and her own survival. Justice must be served, but with a possible killer on board, the pressure is rising and her time is running out.