LibraryAware November 2025

Recent Releases

The French Kitchen
by Kristy Cambron

Boston's Kat Fontaine, who as a child spent summers in France, follows her brother into the Office of Strategic Services during World War II. Working undercover as a kitchen maid in a chateau occupied by the Nazis, Kat faces danger helping the resistance and hears nothing from her sibling. After the war, she returns to uncover what happened to him, getting help from friends, including Julia Child. Try this next: Amy Lynn Green's The Codebreaker's Daughter.

The Bitter End Birding Society
by Amanda Cox

After a traumatic year, kindergarten teacher Ana Leigh Watkins escapes for the summer to Bitter End, Tennessee. There, she helps get her great-aunt’s house ready to sell, becomes part of a ragtag group of amateur bird watchers, and discovers long-buried family history and her place in it. For fans of: faith-filled stories with endearing characters.

My Beloved
by Jan Karon

When Father Tim's wife, Cynthia, asks what he wants for Christmas, he pens the answer in a love letter that bares his most private feelings. Then the letter goes missing and circulates among his astonished neighbors. So much for private. Can a letter change a life?

Last Light Over Galveston
by Jennifer L. Wright

In 1900, 18-year-old Kathleen McDaniel, who’s just returned to New York State after two years in a Swiss finishing school, runs away from home after shocking news. She makes it to Galveston, Texas, where she uses a new name and helps at a convent’s orphanage, making connections with kind people, including a young man. But a brewing hurricane upsets it all in this gripping, atmospheric novel. Try this next: Kimberley Woodhouse’s A Mark of Grace.

Focus on: Christmas Stories

A Royal Christmas
by Melody Carlson

Barista Adelaide Smith is working her way through law school when she learns she’s the daughter of the king of Montovia, a small European country. With her mother dead, Adelaide travels alone during Christmas break to meet her father and is drawn into family mysteries, royal jealousies, and a chance at her own happily ever after. For fans of: sweet rags-to-riches romances; Hallmark Christmas movies.

The Christmas Gathering
by Shelley Shepard Gray, Lenora Worth, and Rachel J. Good

These three heartwarming novellas feature Amish people navigating faith and love during the holidays. In “A Christmas Reunion,” Tricia falls for her cousin's Englisch friend. Then, a decades-old family feud can’t stop the connection between a couple in “We Gather Together.” Finally, “Hitting All the Right Notes” sees a young Amish man start a rock band during his Rumspringa and fall for a young Amish woman. Try this next: A Lancaster Amish Christmas: 4 Romance Novellas by Anne Blackburne, Amy Clipston, Mindy Steele, Amy Lillard.

An Ivy Hill Christmas
by Julie Klassen

Bachelor Richard Brockwell happily lives in his family's London townhouse in 1822, but needs to attend his mother's Christmas country house party or be cut off financially. With the stray dog he's recently adopted in tow, he goes home and finds himself charmed by houseguest Arabella Awdry, who’s planning to devote her life to charity work in this standalone Tales from Ivy Hill novel. For fans of: Christmas romances with themes of redemption.

All's Fair in Love and Christmas
by Sarah Monzon

Shy Mackenzie Graham and her work crush, Jeremy Fletcher, are up for the same promotion, which means the duo are soon trying to out-Christmas each other to impress their boss. Both need the raise -- Mackenzie is paying for her mother's memory care facility and Jeremy is raising his niece and nephew -- but they might also need each other. Read-alikes: Kathleen Fuller's Much Ado About a Latte; Melissa Ferguson's Meet Me in the Margins.

Contact your librarian for more great books!