Dear Great Book Guru,  I am filled with the holiday spirit - such a festive time of year!  Do you have a book set in the holidays – please short and compelling - I also feel very distracted!  Holiday Reader

Dear Holiday Reader, I have a book I have been recommending to all my friends: CHRISTMAS GUEST by Peter Swanson. The first half of the book takes place in 1989.  Ashley Smith, a young American studying at Cambridge, plans on spending the holidays alone.  Her parents are dead, and she has little reason to return home to California. When a fellow classmate, Emma Chapman, suggests she join her at Emma’s Cotswolds family home, Ashley is delighted.  A wonderful English Christmas awaits her and we read all this in a diary she keeps throughout the visit.   The parents are less than hospitable but Emma’s twin brother Adam is handsome, unattached, and yes – apparently attracted to Ashley! The trips to the local pub, the exquisite meals, the local characters all make for a delightful holiday read…. until things take a  dark turn.  Ashley very soon learns that the handsome brother is a suspect in the murder of a young woman in the village. The story fast-forwards thirty years and we are in New York, once again celebrating the holidays. This very short novel - truly a novella - is replete with surprises, making us question everything we thought we knew.  Highly recommended!