30 of the Best Christmas Books for Adults

Book Summary

Most of us will be familiar with the tale of Ebenezer Scrooge, a man who is visited by the ghosts of his former business partner, as well as the spirits of Christmas past, present, and yet to come. These visits help him embrace a kinder approach to life and Christmas.

Book Summary

This classic Christmas story follows a divorced mom named Doris raising a young daughter on her own. Doris works for Macy’s in NYC and oversees the annual Thanksgiving Day parade. After her original Santa is found drunk on parade day, she hires a man named Kris Kringle for the parade and soon after as the Macy’s store Santa.

Doris is disillusioned from her divorce and has passed her skepticism on to her daughter, Susan. When their neighbor, Fred, learns that Susan doesn’t believe in Santa, he makes it his mission to convince her of the magic of Christmas.

When Doris realizes that Kris actually believes he is the real Santa, she is concerned that he may be mentally ill, and perhaps even dangerous. Fred, a lawyer, ends up representing him at a resulting hearing, standing up not just for the man he believes in, but also for the ideas he represents.

Book Summary

We all know the classic Christmas movie, It’s a Wonderful Life, but did you know that it’s based on a short story published in the 1940s?

The story came to author Philip Van Doren in a dream one night. Doren wasn’t able to find a publisher at first, so he self-published the story as a pamphlet that he sent out as his Christmas card in 1943. One of those cards found its way to Frank Capra, who shared it with Jimmy Stewart, and It’s a Wonderful Life was born.

Today, the original story is available in a beautifully illustrated edition that includes an afterword by Stern’s daughter and tells the complete backstory of how his Christmas card became one of the most popular movies in the world.

Book Summary

Rather than a novel, this book contains touching short stories that will remind you of how many good people exist in the world. Despite the title and being written in 2020 as the upcoming Christmas season felt like it would be the worst of all time, these often humorous essays offer a bright spot for anyone who needs to be uplifted.

Book Summary

This short and humorous read is packed with all the 80s nostalgia you could ask for! It’s 1980-something, and all Jake wants for Christmas is a Nintendo Entertainment System. But somewhere in town, a TV falls on (and kills) a small dog, and all the parents in town blame the NES.

In a look back at the kid pop culture of the 1980s, this quest of Super Mario proportions is complete with flaming wreaths, speeding minivans, lost retainers, and Cabbage Patch Kids.

Book Summary

Becky loves all of the Christmas traditions – carol singers, festive jumpers, and her mum and dad hosting. Except that this year, her parents have moved to the trendy new neighborhood of Shoreditch, and they’ve asked Becky to take over the hosting duties.

Her sister is demanding a vegan turkey, her daughter has her heart set on one very specific gift, and her husband won’t tell her what he wants. Add in a surprise appearance from her old boyfriend (and his pushy new girlfriend), and this Christmas is beginning to feel pretty chaotic.

Book Summary

When Luther and Nora Krank’s daughter leaves for the Peace Corps right after Thanksgiving, they are faced with their first Christmas alone. But they aren’t sad about it – in fact, they are looking forward to skipping Christmas altogether. They love the idea of not fighting the shopping crowds, no corny office parties, and no unwanted fruitcakes or gifts.

They won’t even be hosting their annual Christmas Eve base because they are setting sail on a Caribbean cruise. But they’ll soon discover that skipping Christmas isn’t as easy as they imagined, and it might just come with enormous consequences.

Book Summary

This Christmas book brings together two generations of women and exemplifies the magic of the holiday season. 

Hopeful fashion designer Meg has to put her dreams on hold to return to her hometown of Chicago to manage her father’s apartment building. The residents are an eclectic group, and all seem to need her right away. 

One of the residents, Ellie, is having an equally bad season as she’s being forced to leave her apartment and move into a nursing home. As she packs, one dress brings back the most memories – both good and bad. 

When she reveals the dress’s important history to Meg, Ellie decides to gift her the dress with the caveat that she must wear it to the building’s holiday party. Will the dress’s magic strike again for its new owner?

Book Summary

This unexpected Christmas novel explores a family’s first holiday season after a big loss. Sisters Romy and Joanna are returning home to the Dublin Mountain foothills from their very different lives in London and Silicon Valley. Romy feels adrift on the lower rungs of her career ladder, while Joanna has a high-powered career, but isn’t sure if that life is the right way to raise her twin daughters.

Back home, the house feels empty without their mom. Dad feels like a passing shadow, and their brother is brooding and silent. But then Romy discovers some words of wisdom left behind by their mom, Cathy. Can her loving reminder save the Christmas season?

Book Summary

After the unexpected death of her husband, Joanne wasn’t sure how she would hold herself together. On top of that, the holidays were coming, and she had three children to care for. The family was full of grief and not at all in the Christmas spirit. 

This true story tells how they were healed with the help of some real-life Christmas miracles and random acts of kindness.

Book Summary

Nineteen-year-old Marion’s dreams come true when she’s cast as a member of the Rockettes, Radio City Music Hall’s precision dance troupe. It’s an honor for any dancer to be selected for the role and given the opportunity to perform at the Art Deco masterpiece of a theater that is Radio City. But Marion soon learns that, behind the scenes, the days are long and the rehearsals grueling.

One night, in 1956, a bomb explodes in the theater. It’s suspected to be the work of the infamous “Big Apple Bomber” who has been planting bombs in crowded places around the city for the past sixteen years. The police still have no leads, leaving citizens living in fear. At Marion’s urging, the police agree to try psychological profiling, a radical new technique at the time.

While the Rockettes are trained to stay in line, Marion realizes that to help catch the bomber, she’ll have to stand out.

Book Summary

Erica, Claudia, and Anna are lifelong friends who are heading to the Maple Sugar Inn in picturesque Vermont for their book club holiday. Each woman is around 40 years old, and the milestone birthday has affected them differently. Over the years, their shared love of books has carried them through life’s ups and downs.

Hattie is a 28-year-old widow who manages the Inn. Between work and her 5-year-old daughter, she has her hands full as the holidays approach. Even with distractions all around, she can see that each woman in the visiting book club trio is packing some major emotional baggage. Can these four women unite to improve each other’s lives and make this the start of a new chapter?

Book Summary

Did you know that Virginia, from the unforgettable line “Yes, Virginia, There Is A Santa Claus,” went on to become a teacher and principal at a school within New York General Hospital? In December 1952, reporter David Lindsey was sent to follow up with the now-adult “Santa Claus Girl.”

After the interview, he learns of a little girl who needs polio treatment with an iron lung, but none are available. A fundraiser is in motion, but it’s a race against time, feasibility, and even a snowstorm.

Book Summary

In 1952, when Princess Elizabeth was only 25 years old, she unexpectedly became the Queen of England. That December, she knows she must continue her grandfather and father’s traditional Christmas Day radio broadcast.

As the family and staff prepare for Christmas at Sandringham House, two old friends—Jack and Olive—find themselves reunited. Olive is a single mother, typist at the BBC, and aspiring reporter who is thrilled by the opportunity to cover the events. Jack is a widowed chef from New Orleans who is surprised to run into Olive after he accepts a last-minute chance to cook in the royal kitchens.

Over the next five Christmases, Jack and Olive continue to run into each other, but Olive has a heavy secret. On Christmas Day, 1957, Queen Elizabeth prepares for the first televised Christmas address as Olive prepares to tell Jack her shocking truth.

Book Summary

As the 1967 Christmas season approaches, it’s been a tough year for the Evans family. Richard’s brother Mark was killed in Vietnam, his father lost his job, they moved from California to Utah, and his parents separated. 

At his new school in Utah, Richard is bullied until an elderly neighbor, Mr. Foster, chases off the bullies and offers Richard hot cocoa. This is the start of an unexpected and important friendship that brings back a little joy and light to the Christmas season.

Book Summary

Spanning four Christmas from 1914-1918, you’ll meet Evie, her brother Will, and his best friend Thomas. The boys are soon facing the front lines of World War 1, while Evie tries to help the effort from home. The compelling novel is told in epistolary form (through letters).

Book Summary

Kerry’s family owns a Christmas tree farm in North Carolina. Each year, her brother and father drive up to NYC to sell their trees at a street corner stand in Greenwich Village. But this year, her father isn’t up for the trip, so Kerry – who is newly unemployed and romantically unattached – reluctantly agrees to take his place. But doing so means she has to live in a tiny camper with her gruff older brother, Murphy, and his dog, Queenie.

Many in the neighborhood know Murphy from his past Decembers at the tree lot, and they are quick to welcome Kerry to their quirky corner of the city. This includes Patrick, a single dad, and his adorable son Austin. Her new friends are starting to feel like family as Kerry gets into the holiday spirit. But with Christmas fast approaching, a secretive elderly neighbor goes missing.

Book Summary

Southern Californian meteorologist Sonny is used to weather that matches her name. She’s 50 years old and has just received shocking news at work. The station is replacing her with an AI (artificial intelligence/computer) meteorologist. They claim it’s perfect because AI “will never age, gain weight or renegotiate its contract.”

Her only job offer is in a much different environment, her cold northern Michigan hometown. Sonny has quite a rough return between the lake effect snow, dark winter, a new boss, and reuniting with her frenemy from school. Beyond that, she has to deal with feelings she left to avoid, like the relationship with her mother and the death of her snow-loving sister. 

To help her feel better about the changes in her life, Sonny decides to embrace all things winter. From skiing and sledding to ice fishing and sculptures, she’s ready to embrace it all.

Book Summary

This festive, funny, and heartwarming Christmas novel is the perfect Hallmark-style armchair travel read that balances friendship and romance! Chloe, Jules, and Lucy met on vacation as kids. They’ve been best friends ever since, despite living on three different continents.

Twenty-two years later, they decide to swap homes for Christmas… Lucy travels to snowy Breckenridge, Colorado; Jules escapes down under for a summery Christmas in Melbourne, Australia; and Chloe travels halfway around the world for a quiet holiday in a quaint English village.

Book Summary

When Maggie was 16 in 1996, she was sent to live with her aunt in Ocracoke, a remote village on North Carolina’s Outer Banks. She was homesick until she met Bryce, one of the few other teens on the island. He taught her about the island’s wonders while introducing her to photography.

In 2019, Maggie splits her time between running a successful gallery in New York and photographing remote locations around the world. However, as Christmas approaches, she is struggling to come to terms with a sobering medical diagnosis. As she grows more dependent on her assistant, she also begins to tell him the story of another Christmas, decades earlier—and the love that set her on a course she never could have imagined.

Book Summary

On Christmas Eve, four estranged brothers have been called home by their widowed father. But, the reunion goes awry when there is a crash and scream after dinner. The family rushes upstairs to find their father dead with a slash in his throat.

Everyone seems to have an alibi, along with their own reasons for disliking the man. Hercule Poirot arrives to investigate, but the family is resistant to his help.

Book Summary

San Diego cop Nick Pappas has been suspended from his job, alienated from his family, and persecuted by the press. He has zero holiday spirit this year, but things start to change when he agrees to work at the local mall as an undercover officer posing as Santa to help catch muggers who have been preying on holiday shoppers.

Nick deals with crying kids, pushy parents, and a chronically cheerful “elf” sidekick to catch the criminals, but that’s not the most challenging part of the job. How can he fulfill the next-to-impossible Christmas wishes of two children in need?

Book Summary

On Christmas Eve in North West England, four men who had gone on a walk are missing. Finding them before nightfall is essential because they’re unlikely to survive the brutal cold after dark.

After several hours, the first man is found. But, it’s clear he’s been murdered. With a snowstorm approaching, DI Walker must catch the killer before the trail is buried forever.

Book Summary

On Christmas Eve sixty years ago, a delivery man makes a gruesome discovery that forever changes the small town of Tambilla. In the present day, Jess is a journalist in London when she gets a call to return home to Australia to help with her grandmother, Nora. Nora was more like a mother to Jess, after Jess’s mother, Polly, left her with Nora and moved to Brisbane when Jess was only 10. 

Nora fell in her attic while searching for something, and now she is mumbling about an event in her past in a way that is difficult to understand. As Jess tries to piece things together, she learns that Nora was agitated and restless even before the fall. She knows something is going on, and is determined to figure it out. As she searches the house for clues, she finds a true crime book about the Turner Family Tragedy of Christmas Eve. But what does this cold case have to do with her family?

Book Summary

Embracing the holiday spirit, John Baxter invites a stranger to share Christmas Eve dinner with his family. But she’s not just any stranger – Kendra is the woman who was given a second chance at life through the gift of receiving his daughter Erin’s heart.

John knows that each family member will be impacted differently by Kendra’s presence at their dinner table – especially his granddaughter, who most keenly feels the loss of her mother.

Meanwhile, Maddie works at a local theater alongside a great guy, but she can’t risk getting close to him or her long-held secret could be exposed. She prays for direction, and what happens next has a profound impact on her and the entire Baxter family.

Book Summary

In this 176-page novella, widowed Vera is lonely in her new condo as the holidays approach. A knock at the door introduces her to a young girl, Fiona. Fiona’s mom is seriously ill, and her dad is out of town.

Suddenly, Vera doesn’t have time to be lonely as she assembles an unexpected group of women to help make a Christmas quilt for Fiona’s mom. Artist Tasha, empty nester Beverly, and retired therapist Eleanor join in and form a new family of friends to help Fiona. But, they manage to help each other along the way.

Book Summary

In 1972, Joan’s husband is determined to build her a beautiful dining room table before Thanksgiving dinner. While he works on the table, Joan works on her mother’s recipes, inspired to make a delicious meal. Their lives are interrupted when Joan is diagnosed with breast cancer.

In 2012, a pregnant Lauren finds an old table that has recently been refinished. When she gets home, she discovers handwritten recipe cards, complete with loving notes from a mother to her daughter. After being raised in foster care without that kind of relationship in her life, Lauren is moved by the card and wants to learn how to cook for her baby using the recipes. She’s drawn to the family on the cards and hopes to unlock the mystery of who they belong to before Christmas.

Book Summary

Mae has spent every Christmas since her birth at the same snowy Utah cabin. Knowing it’s the last year they’ll spend there, she feels trapped in a job she hates, and she has just made a big mistake in the romance department, leaving her feeling totally hopeless.

When her Christmas wish is for clarity on what will make her truly happy, she sets herself into a Groundhog Day experience of re-living the same day until she can get it right and connect with her true love. But don’t worry, the repetition doesn’t go overboard. Soon, the story will continue moving forward, and you’ll find yourself very invested in Mae’s romantic fate.

Book Summary

At the Sullivan’s Harlem brownstone, Christmas doesn’t exist. The family has suffered a devasting loss, so this year, there are no Christmas trees, cookies, gifts, or invited guests.

But then, guests and gifts related to the Twelve Days of Christmas begin arriving. The happenings in the book follow the classic Twelve Days of Christmas song.

Book Summary

Like Charles Dicken’s Scrooge, seventeen-year-old Holly received a Christmas Eve visit from three ghosts who showed her how selfish and spoiled she’d become. Unlike Scrooge, she was unconvinced, and she did not change her ways. Then, she died.

She’s now stuck working for the top-secret company called Project Scrooge, where she serves as the new Ghost of Christmas Past. Each year she helps the company as they attempt to save another miserly grouch. Despite helping many people, she remains miserable – watching as her family and friends go on living while she stays frozen at seventeen, unable to interact with them. But the Scrooge she’s been assigned to help reform this year may change everything.