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Author Biography |
Interview |
Review |
Excerpt |
Author Blog |
Buy the Book
Author Website
Hardcover
Mira
ISBN: 9780778326892
New York Times bestselling author Susan Wiggs conjures the heartwarming holiday tale of two people looking beyond the disappointments of the past to the promise of the future...and writing a happy ending all their own.
Maureen Davenport lives for Christmas --- and this year will be the best yet.
The prim librarian is finally getting her chance to direct Avalon's annual holiday pageant, and she's determined to make it truly spectacular. But it might just require one of those Christmas miracles she's always read about.
Her court-ordered co-director is recovering former child star Eddie Haven, a long-haired, tattooed lump of coal in Maureen's pageant stocking. Eddie hates Christmas with every fiber of his being --- bitter memories have ruined the holiday for him forever.
Maureen and Eddie spar over every detail of the pageant, from casting troubled kids to Eddie's original --- and distinctly untraditional --- music. Is he trying to sabotage the performance to spite her belief in the life-changing spirit of the season? Or is she trying too hard to fit the show into her storybook-perfect notion of Christmas?
And how is it possible that they're falling in love?
Susan Wiggs's life is all about family, friends...and fiction. She lives at the water's edge on an island in Puget Sound, and she commutes to her writers' group in a 17-foot motorboat.
According to Publishers Weekly, Wiggs writes with "refreshingly honest emotion," and the Salem Statesman Journal adds that she is "one of our best observers of stories of the heart [who] knows how to capture emotion on virtually every page of every book." Booklist characterizes her books as "real and true and unforgettable." She is the recipient of three RITA® Awards and four starred reviews from Publishers Weekly for her books, with THE WINTER LODGEand PASSING THROUGH PARADISE appearing on PW's annual “Best Of” lists. Several of her books have been top Book Sense picks and optioned as feature films. Her novels have been translated into more than two dozen languages and have made national bestseller lists, including the USA Today, Washington Post and New York Times lists. Featured in the national media, including NPR's "Talk of the Nation," she is a popular speaker locally and nationally.
The author is a former teacher, a Harvard graduate, an avid hiker, an amateur photographer, a good skier and terrible golfer, yet her favorite form of exercise is curling up with a good book.
Visit Susan Wiggs's website at www.susanwiggs.com and her lively blog at www.susanwiggs.wordpress.com.
Click here now to buy this book from Amazon.com.
Question: What was your favorite book as a child?
Susan Wiggs: I loved so many books as a child, it’s hard to narrow it down. YERTLE THE TURTLEby Dr. Seuss was the first I bought with my own money. I sobbed over YOU WERE PRINCESS LAST TIMEabout a girl whose mean sister cut off her long, beautiful hair (I had long, beautiful hair.). CHARLOTTE’S WEBby E.B. White was one I read again and again. The whole world is in that book --- life, death, friendship, family, loyalty, humor, pathos, suspense, drama and an uplifting ending...everything I hope readers find in my own books.
Q: What is your favorite book right now?
SW: An unfinished novel called DAISY+LOGAN+JULIAN, by my favorite author (me). I’m not being facetious; I really do love this book and I’ve wanted to write it for a long time. It’s about continuing characters from past books, and I can’t wait to write their story. But I do have to wait, because I have other deadlines to meet. Soon, though!
Q: What book do you like to give away as a present?
SW: I LIKE YOUby Amy Sedaris --- it’s everyone’s childhood in one big, funny book. MEETING GOD IN QUIET PLACESby F. LaGarde Smith is a comforting book about walking, meditation and prayer. And LITERARY FEASTS, a cookbook with photos and recipes by famous authors with an intro by chef Greg Atkinson; the proceeds go to raise money for libraries.
Q: What book are you reading right now?
SW: THE RESERVEby Russell Banks, about privileged families at an Adirondack Mountain retreat in the 1930s. It’s wonderful!
Q: What book have you always wanted to read, but haven’t yet gotten around to?
SW:THE DA VINCI CODEby Dan Brown. I believe I’m the only person on the planet who hasn’t read it yet.
Q: What book would you have liked to have written yourself?
SW: Same answer as #2 above --- the book about Daisy from my series, The Lakeshore Chronicles. I wish I was already done with that book! I feel so much pressure to do a good job on that book, I’m almost afraid to start it. I don’t want my readers to feel let down.
Q: What book (not your own) should have made the bestseller lists?
SW: LOVE IN BLOOM by Sheila Roberts --- a book about all the loves that fill a woman’s life. It’s wonderful, the kind of novel you want to share with all the women you know. And OXYGEN by Carol Cassella, an absorbing page-turner with a huge heart and many intriguing twists. Both books deserve a wide audience.
Q: Who is your favorite fictional hero?
SW: David Copperfield (I’m a sucker for writers in novels), Huckleberry Finn, Edmond Dantes (THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO) and Frodo Underhill fromTHE LORD OF THE RINGS. All of them were such strivers; they never gave up. My favorite romantic hero is (no surprise) Fitzwilliam Darcy fromPRIDE AND PREJUDICE.
Q: Who is your favorite fictional heroine?
SW: HARRIET THE SPYby Louise Fitzhugh --- she inspired me to be a writer. Jo March from LITTLE WOMEN --- another writer who never gave up. And Jane Eyre, who never gave up on love.
Q: What is your "guilty" reading pleasure?
SW: I never, ever feel guilty about reading anything. All reading is good. Books that are dismissed as frivolous by some readers can be life-changing for others, so I would never want anyone to feel guilty for reading anything. I sure don’t!
Click here now to buy this book from Amazon.com.
Librarian Maureen Davenport has always dreamt of directing Avalon’s annual Christmas pageant, and this year she finally has her chance. She loves Christmas more than anything, so she believes it’s only natural that she will do a bang-up job. But there’s just one thing she didn’t count on: Eddie Haven, a musician, a former child star and a recovering alcoholic who hates Christmas.
Eddie, whom Maureen has had a crush on for years, has been assigned to the project in order to fulfill his court-mandated community service. There’s nothing he’d like more than to be somewhere else, but he has no choice but to try his darnedest to work with the prim, proper and prickly librarian who’s determined to mold him into her ideal worker at every turn.
As if she weren’t already overwhelmed with the Christmas production and the incorrigible Eddie, Maureen has just received heartbreaking news: the hundred-year-old library that is her life is seriously short on money. So short, in fact, that plans have been made to close its doors for good at the end of the year. Maureen is devastated. If anything could threaten her holiday happiness, this is it. If the library is to have any hope of staying open, it needs a miracle --- and luckily for Maureen, Christmas is the time for miracles.
To get the news of the library’s closing off her mind, Maureen thrusts herself into her work on the pageant. But it's hard to concentrate when the mere presence of Eddie wreaks havoc with her usual level-headed demeanor. His shaggy blonde hair, dazzling blue eyes and sparkling smile make it hard for Maureen to keep her mind on her business. It seems like every time he’s around, she makes a fool of herself by retreating into her stern librarian persona. How can she help it? She's been hurt in the past, and as much as she’d love to get to know the man she’s had a crush on for years, she knows that men like him don’t fall in love with women like her.
What she doesn't know, though, is that Eddie, much to his own amazement, is fascinated with this woman who seems to prefer her alternate reality of books and stories to a real-life relationship with a living, breathing man. And the more she resists, the more he wants to knock down her defenses and get to know the woman behind the eyeglasses, the tidy bun and the understated clothes. But can he get her to really let go and show him what lies behind the facade?
As usual, crisis brings people together, and it’s no different for Eddie and Maureen. In spite of their differences, they slowly but surely find a way to work together for the common good. But will it be enough? Will they be able to put on a quality pageant and save the library (not to mention themselves) all before Christmas? Maybe, but it's going to take a little help from a special friend.
If you’re looking for a holiday romance to make you remember the joy of Christmas past, then LAKESHORE CHRISTMAS is it. You'll root for the shy librarian and the wayward musician to find a way to banish their demons and make a life together, and you'll remember what Christmas is really about as you read this charming story of two people brought together by common goals and holiday magic.
--- Reviewed by Amie Taylor
1
The boy came to the edge of town at twilight, at the close of a winter day. Although the snows had not yet begun, the air was brutally cold, having leached the life from the fields and forests, turning everything to shades of brown and buff.
The road narrowed to one lane and passed through a covered bridge on ancient river stone pilings. Through the years, the structure had weathered and been replaced, plank by plank, yet it never really changed. The tumbled rocks and sere vegetation along the riverbanks were rimed by a delicate breath of frost, and the trees in the surrounding orchards and woods had long since dropped their leaves. There was an air of frozen waiting, as though all was in readiness, as though the stage was set.
He felt a quiet sense of purpose, knowing his task here wouldn't be easy. Hearts would have to break and be mended, truths would be revealed, risks would be taken. Which, when he thought about it, was simply the way life worked --- messy, unpredictable, joyous, mysterious, hurtful and redemptive.
A green-and-white sign in the shape of a shield identified the town --- Avalon. Ulster County. Elevation 4347 feet.
Farther on, a billboard carried greetings from the Rotary, the Kiwanis and at least a dozen church and civic groups. The message of welcome read Avalon, in the Heart of the Catskills Forest Preserve. There was another sign exhorting travelers to visit Willow Lake, The Jewel Of The Mountains. The bit of hyperbole might apply to any number of small lakeside towns of upper New York state, but this one had the earnestness and charm of a place with a long and complicated history.
He was one of those complications. His understanding of what brought him here only extended so far, a narrow glimpse into the mystical realm of the human heart. Perhaps he wasn't meant to know why the past and present were about to collide at this moment in time. Perhaps it was enough to know his purpose --- to right an old wrong. Exactly how to accomplish this --- well, there was another unknown. It would reveal itself, bit by bit, in its own time.
The main feature of the town was a pretty brickwork square around a Gothic block structure which housed municipal offices and the courthouse. Surrounding that were a variety of shops and restaurants with lights glowing in the windows. The first Christmas garlands and light displays of the season adorned the wrought-iron gas lamps around the square. In the distance lay Willow Lake, a vast indigo sheet under the brooding sky, its surface glazed by a layer of ice that would thicken as the season progressed.
A few blocks from the main square was the railway station. A train had just pulled in and was disgorging passengers coming home from work in the bigger towns --- Kingston and New Paltz, Albany and Poughkeepsie, a few from as far away as New York City. People hurried to their cars, eager to escape the cold and get home to their families. There were so many ways to make a family…and just as many to lose them. But human nature was forged of forgiveness, and renewal might be only a word or a kind gesture away.
It felt strange, being back after all this time. Strange and… important. Something was greatly at risk here, whether people knew it or not. And somehow he needed to help. He just hoped he could.
Not far from the station was the town library, a squared-off Greek revival structure. The cornerstone had been laid exactly ninety-nine years ago; the date was seared upon his heart. The building was surrounded by several acres of beautiful city park, lined by bare trees and crisscrossed by sidewalks. The library occupied the site of its original predecessor, which had burned to the ground a century before, claiming one fatality. Few people knew the details of what had happened or understood the impact the event had on the life of the town itself.
Funded by a wealthy family that understood its value, the library had been rebuilt after the fire. Constructed of cut stone and virtually fireproof, the new Avalon Free Library had seen nearly a hundred years come and go --- times of soaring prosperity and crushing poverty, war and peace, social unrest and harmony. The town had changed, the world had changed.
People didn't know each other anymore, yet there were a few constants, anchoring everything in place, and the library was one of them. For now.
He sighed, his breath frosting the air as old memories crowded in, as haunting as an unfinished dream. All those years ago, the first library had been destroyed. Now the present one was in danger, not from fire but from something just as dangerous. There still might be time to save it.
The building had tall windows all around its periphery, and a skylight over an atrium to flood the space with light. Through the windows, he could see oaken bookcases, tables and study carrels with people bent over them. Through another set of windows, he could see the staff area.
Inside, laboring at a cluttered desk in the glow of a task lamp, sat a woman. Her pale face was drawn with a worry that seemed to edge toward despair.
She stood abruptly, as though having just remembered something, smoothing her hands down the front of her brown skirt. Then she grabbed her coat from a rack and armored herself for the rapidly falling cold --- lined boots, muffler, hat, mittens. Despite the presence of numerous patrons, she seemed distracted and very alone.
The sharp, dry cold drove him toward the building's entrance, a grand archway of figured stone with wise sayings carved in bas-relief. He paused to study the words of the scholars --- Plutarch, Socrates, Judah ibn-Tibbon, Benjamin Franklin. Though the words of wisdom were appealing, the boy had no guide but his own heart. Time to get started.
Hurrying, her head lowered, the woman nearly slammed into him as she left the building through the heavy, lever-handled main door.
"Oh," she said, quickly stepping back. "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't see you there."
"It's all right," the boy said.
Something in his voice made her pause, study him for a moment through the thick lenses of her eyeglasses. He tried to envision himself as she saw him --- a boy not yet sixteen, with serious dark eyes, olive-toned skin and hair that hadn't seen a barber's shears in too long. He wore a greenish cargo jacket from the army surplus, and loose-cut dungarees that were shabby but clean. The winter clothes concealed his scars, for the most part.
"Can I help you?" she asked, slightly breathless. "I'm on my way out, but…"
"I believe I can find what I need here, thanks," he said.
"The library closes at six tonight," she reminded him.
"I won't be long."
"I don't think we've met," she said. "I try to meet all my library patrons."
"My name is Jabez, ma'am. Jabez Cantor. I'm…new." It wasn't a lie, not really.
She smiled, though the worry lingered in her eyes. "Maureen Davenport."
I know, he thought. I know who you are. He understood her importance, even if she didn't. She'd done so much, here in this small town, though perhaps even she didn't realize it.
"I'm the librarian and branch manager here," she explained. "I'd show you around, but I need to be somewhere." I know that, too, he thought. "See you around, Jabez," she said. Yes, he thought as she hurried away. You will.
© 2009 Susan Wiggs and Mira.
