Making my reading list for this fall - and I love to read seasonally.
Frequently I'll try new mystery series with a seasonal theme, and sometimes I end up loving them so much that I add the entire series to my to read list. I try to find something educational each season too. I have not read all of these, these are just what I found to put on my fall reading list this year, leading up to Thanksgiving.
This series is one of my absolute favorites - right up there with Rex Stouts Nero Wolf series.
"The discovery of a dead body in the woods on Thanksgiving Weekend brings Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and his colleagues from the Surete du Quebec to a small village in the Eastern Townships. Gamache cannot understand why anyone would want to deliberately kill well-loved artist Jane Neal, especially any of the residents of Three Pines - a place so free from crime it doesn't even have its own police force.
But Gamache knows that evil is lurking somewhere behind the white picket fences and that, if he watches closely enough, Three Pines will start to give up its dark secrets.."
Based on the true story of Mary Rowlandson
"Massachusetts Bay Colony, 1676. Even before Mary Rowlandson is captured by Indians on a winter day of violence and terror, she sometimes found herself in conflict with her rigid Puritan community. Now, her home destroyed, her children lost to her, she has been sold into the service of a powerful woman tribal leader, made a pawn in the on-going bloody struggle between English settlers and native people. Battling cold, hunger, and exhaustion, Mary witnesses harrowing brutality but also unexpected kindness. To her confused surprise, she is drawn to her captors’ open and straightforward way of life, a feeling further complicated by her attraction to a generous, protective English-speaking native known as James Printer. All her life, Mary has been taught to fear God, submit to her husband, and abhor Indians. Now, having lived on the other side of the forest, she begins to question the edicts that have guided her, torn between the life she knew and the wisdom the natives have shown her.
Based on the compelling true narrative of Mary Rowlandson, Flight of the Sparrow is an evocative tale that transports the reader to a little-known time in early America and explores the real meaning of freedom, faith, and acceptance."
"Countering the prevailing, traditional story of the first Thanksgiving, with its black-hatted, silver-buckled Pilgrims; blanket-clad, be-feathered Indians; cranberry sauce; pumpkin pie; and turkey, this lushly illustrated photo-essay presents a more measured, balanced, and historically accurate version of the three-day harvest celebration in 1621."
"When Megan Murphy discovered a floppy-eared rabbit gnawing on the hem of her skirt, she meant to give its careless owner a piece of her mind, but Dr. Patrick Hunter was too attractive to stay mad at for long. Soon the two are making Thanksgiving dinner for their families."
Although this is an Amish themed series, these are NOT cozy mysteries. Some of them are extremely graphic in the descriptions of the murders.
"Three days before Thanksgiving, two boys disappear without a trace. Eleven-year-old Aaron Kuhns is Amish. Kevin Dennison is twelve and “English.” They’re adventurers, explorers, and inseparable best friends. When they don’t return home from what was supposed to be a fun afternoon of fishing, Chief of Police Kate Burkholder must find the missing boys before the first winter storm of the season bears down on Painters Mill."
L Is For Lawless, Sue Graftson - Kinsey Milhone #12
Really only the barest mention of Thanksgiving - but it is that time of year in the story
"A subplot concerns Kinsey's cousin Tasha reaching out to her in the hope of having a family reunion at Thanksgiving. Kinsey initially rebuffs her, but decides to ask her for assistance at the end of the book"
THANKSGIVING WILL NEVER BE THE SAME
Tom wasn't the only turkey to get roasted on Thanksgiving in 1955 when the small town of Bobsville experiences its first homicide.
Since childhood, Slayter Jones has been coddled and enabled by family, friends, and townsfolk. Through the years, his habit of using people as shortcuts has morphed into a dysfunctional condition, limiting his ability to do things for himself. To that point, in high school Slayter was voted "Most likely To Succeed Without Ever Trying." He knows no other way of life until a malicious lie snowballs into a series of lies to become the straw that breaks the turkey's back.
Five individuals with different agendas unite to make Slayter the entrée to a revenge scheme meant to teach him a lesson. But their well-intentioned message turns into a disaster. For the first time in his life Slayter is challenged to fend for himself and survive - an unimaginable task.
An Old Fashioned Thanksgiving by Louisa May Alcott
"Thanksgiving morning is here, and the Bassett family's cozy kitchen is filled with the hustle and bustle of the holiday. But this year something is different: Tilly, Prue, and their brothers and sisters have been left in charge of everything from the roasted turkey to the apple slump. They tie on their aprons and step into the kitchen, but are they really up for the challenge of cooking a Thanksgiving feast?"
Accidental Tourist by Ann Tyler
"Travel writer Macon Leary hates travel, adventure, surprises, and anything outside of his routine. Immobilized by grief, Macon is becoming increasingly prickly and alone, anchored by his solitude and an unwillingness to compromise his creature comforts. Then he meets Muriel, an eccentric dog trainer too optimistic to let Macon disappear into himself. Despite Macon’s best efforts to remain insulated, Muriel up-ends his solitary, systemized life, catapulting him into the center of a messy, beautiful love story he never imagined."
[involves a really badly prepared Turkey for Thanksgiving Dinner]
The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club by Dorothy L. Sayers
Lord Peter Wimsey #4
"Ninety-year-old General Fentiman was definitely dead, but no one knew exactly when he had died—and the time of death was the determining factor in a half-million-pound inheritance. Lord Peter Wimsey would need every bit of his amazing skills to unravel the mysteries of why the General's lapel was without a red poppy on Armistice Day, how the club's telephone was fixed without a repairman, and, most puzzling of all, why the great man's knee swung freely when the rest of him was stiff with rigor mortis. "
A Thanksgiving Visitor, by Truman Capote
"Another masterpiece by the great American writer, Truman Capote, is brought to an audience of all ages. Buddy and his closest friend, his eccentric elderly cousin, Miss Sook--the memorable characters from Capote's A Christmas Memory--love preparing their old country house for Thanksgiving. But this year, there's trouble in the air."
Swamp Sweets by Jana Deleon
Miss Fortune #21
"It’s November in Sinful and everyone is gearing up for Thanksgiving. But when Fortune, Ida Belle, and Gertie bag a body on their turkey hunting trip, the quiet enjoyment of fall is over. No one really knew Miles Broussard well, and as he’d recently sold the building his business was in to retire in another state, no one could explain how he’d ended up murdered and dumped in the bayou.
Ally Lemarque has been waiting her entire life to open her bakery, and that day finally arrived when she purchased the building from Miles. But when she visits the site late at night and interrupts an intruder, she comes away with a crack on her head and concerns about why someone would break into an empty building.
Fortune doesn’t think for a minute that Miles’s murder and the attack on Ally are unrelated. And Swamp Team 3 won’t rest until they’re sure Ally is safe."
The First Thanksgiving by Robert Tracy McKenzie
"The Pilgrims' celebration of the first Thanksgiving is a keystone of America's national and spiritual identity. But is what we've been taught about them or their harvest feast what actually happened? And if not, what difference does it make?
Through the captivating story of the birth of this quintessentially American holiday, veteran historian Tracy McKenzie helps us to better understand the tale of America's origins--and for Christians, to grasp the significance of this story and those like it. McKenzie avoids both idolizing and demonizing the Pilgrims, and calls us to love and learn from our flawed yet fascinating forebears.
The First Thanksgiving is narrative history at its best, and promises to be an indispensable guide to the interplay of historical thinking and Christian reflection on the meaning of the past for the present. "
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