Christmas Joy is the perfect book to sink into over the holiday season.
Last year, I basically swiped right on a bunch of Christmas books available from my local library, and I spent the six weeks leading up to Christmas reading about nothing but candy canes, cookies, holiday décor, and small-town romance. There were some hits and some misses, but Christmas Joy is definitely one of the highlights from that book stack.
It doesn’t hurt that this Christmas novel by Nancy Naigle employs my favorite women’s fiction trope ever: when big-city and career woman Joy is called upon to help her injured Aunt Ruby, she heads back to the sleepy town of Crystal Falls, NC that she thought she left behind.
Joy spends most of her two-week vacation decorating and baking, with the help of a sweet little girl named Molly and, of course, the requisite handsome local accountant-slash-handyman named Ben. Christmas Joy’s much occupied with preparing Aunt Ruby’s home for the town’s annual holiday house tour, which means conversations about Christmas trees, ornaments, holiday wreaths, and pine cones flow fast and furious. Additionally, the tour culminates in a Christmas Cookie Crawl. (Which sounds SO much better than a bar crawl, amiright?
I totally lived vicariously through Joy as she plotted and planned to make Aunt Ruby’s house the best stop on the holiday house tour. And, while Christmas Joy is about, well, Christmas, there’s a lot of personal stuff going on with Joy, too: coming to terms with her mom’s passing from when she was a teenager; reconnecting with family members; letting the possibility of real love and romance into her tightly guarded world; and questioning what really might make her life more meaningful and fulfilling.
While some Christmas romances tend to be overly saccharine when it comes to holiday spirit, or overly ridiculous when it comes to romance, Christmas Joy hits all the right notes with tone and plot. I loved reading about Joy’s busy, fast-paced life as a market researcher in Washington, DC, and I loved seeing her relax as she explores new possibilities in Crystal Falls.
I also loved that, while she seriously reconsiders the path she’s been on, Joy doesn’t immediately chuck it all away the minute a hot guy waltzes past her, despite his proclivity for baking and putting up Christmas trees. She’s truly torn about what she wants and ultimately wants to stay true to herself, and I was really happy with the ending that Naigle gave our heroine. A little dose of realism with Christmas magic never hurt anyone.
If you’re looking for a perfect Christmas read this season, I invite you to lose yourself in Christmas Joy.
Stay tuned for my book-inspired recipe: Jam Thumbprint Cookies!
