Books I’m Not Recommending for Christmas: Fiction, Mysteries, Children’s

I read some truly fine adult fiction this year. And there was a lot more I wish I had read. One thing I’ve begun to notice is that much of the fiction I’m gravitating toward and reading is British in origin. (I had coffee with a good friend recently, someone I had seen in several years, and he told me he thought he knew why I was developing into something of an Anglophile, but that’s another blog post.)

And the mysteries – 10 of the 17 below are British; two are Canadian. And three of the seven children’s /YA books are – surprise – British.

Fiction

Lila by Marilynne Robinson.

The Voice by Doug Spurling.

The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro.

Safe by Jill Case Brown.

Lion Heart by Justin Cartwright.

Plainsong and Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf.

Merlin’s Nightmare by Robert Treskillard.

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr.

The Summer Son by Craig Lancaster.

The Curse of Crow Hollow by Billy Coffey.

Arthur & George by Julian Barnes.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon.

Mysteries

The Return of Captain John Emmett by Elizabeth Speller.

The Sherlockian by Graham Moore.

The Dead Key by D.M. Pulley.

Moriarty and The House of Silk: A Sherlock Holmes Novel by Anthony Horowitz.

Little God Blues by Jeffrey Anderson.

Burke’s War by William Brown.

Just One Evil Act by Elizabeth George.

Still Life and A Fatal Grace by Louise Penny.

Stone’s Fall by Iain Pears.

Return of the Thin Man  by Dashiell Hammett.

The Broken Cross by Luke H. Davis.

Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death by James Runcie.

A Man of Some Repute by Elizabeth Edmundson.

Classic Crime Stories, edited by David Stuart Davies.

Nobody by Creston Mapes. 

Children’s and YA Fiction

The Day the Angels Fell by Shawn Smucker.

The Green Ember and The Black Star of Kingston by S.D. Smith.

Revenge! (Adventures in the Glade) by Martha Jane Orlando.

The Adventures of an Urban Fox: Maggie Arrives by Yara Evans.

Bet Your Life by Jane Casey.

Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie.

Photograph by Michael Drummond via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.