Feel festive with fiction this travel tuesday

Submitted: 3rd December 2019

BookTrail an escape with a book at Christmas

Now that title can be read in two ways. A book can allow you to immerse yourself in the Christmas build up or ESCAPE the madness completely…

It’s nearly time for Santa to come down that chimney and spread the booklove to bookworms all over the world. BUT before then, the exciting bit is reading books to get you in the mood. Snowy landscapes – check. Cold weather – check. People on the cover wearing scarves and hats – check. Then there’s blood in the snow, someone looking in a lit window from outside and dark shadows everywhere…..crime fiction at Christmas is particularly chilling!

I’ve compiled a little list about books set at Christmas time or books particularly apt to read at Christmas.

The book to read when…

…you’re putting up the decorations…dolls, elves etc..

You’re all alone in the house, your mother’s creepy Santa ornament is already giving you the heebie jeebies and you want a book to reflect that feeling of being alone in a house with the lights off and some very questionable eerily cheerful ornaments around you…

Destination: ENGLAND

Setting: Gothic manor house

The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell

…you’ve had enough of Christmas shopping

Visit Liberty’s in London! If like me, you couldn’t afford to shop there anyway, it’s not going to matter if you visit it in a book instead! There’s NO crowds, you hvae the run of the store for the price of the book. IT takes you back to the past and immerses you in the life of the store over the years so it’s very nostalgic and perfect for anyone who loves the idea of shopping as if you’re in a Dickens setting.

Destination: London

Setting: Liberty’s store

Christmas at Liberty’s Fiona Ford

…you just want to escape Christmas and fall down a hole in to a cavern of books..

If you are any kind of booklover, you always want to escape into a good book, right? THIS book allows you to do just that. IT’s partly set in New York but mostly set in an underground cavern of books and stories so a real escape from everything going on around you above ground.

Destination: New York and the world of stories

Setting :The world of Books

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

….you really just want to avoid Christmas and if you see red, you want it to be blood…

Even though Red Snow might sound festive,it’s really not. The setting is a small village in remote Sweden surrounded by trees and wild animals. The only festive aroma is liquorice but that’s the factory where someone lies dead. Not every snowy village with festive aromas in the air and with red decorating the snow is festive, don’t ya know.

Destination: Sweden

Setting:small Swedish village

Red Snow by Will Dean

….you want to read a book about a man climbing into your house at night that isn’t Santa

Sandman is supposed sprinkle sand in your eyes to make you sleep and have happy dreams. Totally the reverse in this book. He might come to you when you’re dead to the world, but you won’t live long after he’s gone….Very anti Christmas cheer this one…

Destination: Sweden

Setting: Stockholm homes