I read four books in February, three audiobooks and one in print:

A December to Remember by Jenny Bayliss

Eccentric curios shop dealer Augustus North of Rowan Thorp has died and left his three daughters an unusual bequest: They inherit his estate only if they complete two tasks as a unit. The three estranged women are unhappy about the plan, but each of them needs the money selling the property will bring.

Free-spirited Star (a will-o-the-wisp who has just been evicted because her felon ex-boyfriend keeps coming around and making a scene) and highly regimented Simone (married massage therapist unsuccessfully trying to have a baby) temporarily relocate to town to join ultra-responsible Maggie (single mother of two in a secret relationship with a younger man and whose greengrocer lease has not been renewed) in first a scavenger hunt and then in resurrecting the Winter Solstice festival, a once-long-standing tradition that had stopped being held decades before. The three half-sisters bicker, as one would expect of people with very different approaches to life, but will the bickering and their individual stresses escalate to a severance or can they find a way back to the tight bond they had as girls when they spent each summer with their father? The village is literally taking bets.

A solid low-stakes fiction story with a loose tie to the holiday season. Better than most Hallmark movies and a pleasant way to pass the time. It was interesting enough that I checked it out again a year after having to return it to the library, but there was nothing urgent in the book that compelled you to pick it back up again. The story is told from three alternating points of view, so if that’s likely to drive you nuts, I’d give this one a pass.

Audiobook copy from the library

Welcome to Pawnee: Stories of Friendship, Waffles, and Parks and Recreation by Jim O’Heir

Jim O’Heir played lovable bumbler Jerry in the sitcom Parks and Recreation for the entirety of its run and now co-hosts a nostalgia podcast dedicated to the show. In this memoir, he gives his own story, as well as the story of a program NBC requested as a spin-off of The Office. If you’re looking for sweet gossip that confirms the show really was as fun and as close-knit as fans might have hoped it would be, this is the book for you. Do you sometimes get the feeling that a few others might tell a slightly less sunshiny story? Yes. But do you get the feeling that mostly those people are nonetheless grateful to their time on the show and aren’t likely to publicly air their complaints? Also yes.

I split my reading of this between the audiobook, which features other cast and production team members reading their own sidebars, and the print version of the book, which includes photos, and honestly, that hybrid approach really worked for me. I liked Leslie Knope and her kookie coworkers, and it felt really good as our current administration wields power to do harm to revisit a show that celebrated the good that government workers do.

Audiobook and print copies from the library

Starter Villain by John Scalzi

In this spoof of James Bond and other capers, Charlie is a downsized economics journalist currently living with a beloved stray cat in his childhood bedroom after nursing his father through his final years. His half-siblings want to sell their father’s home, but between his substitute teaching gig and his $13 bank account balance, Charlie isn’t feeling flush with options. (This doesn’t stop his asking the bank for a loan to buy his local pub.)

When he learns his well-off but estranged uncle has died, he is passingly interested, but when he is asked to greet mourners at the wake in exchange for enough money to buy his father’s house, he’s going to put on a suit and do just that. But then an attendee tries to stab his uncle’s corpse and Charlie’s house is blown up, and suddenly Charlie finds himself on the run at his uncle’s volcanic island lair. So just who was his uncle and what exactly does this mean for Charlie’s life moving forward?

This was a delightful, fast-paced, ridiculous bonbon of a parody, and I can’t recommend it highly enough. (If you need one more push to request it from the library, let me say the story features sentient cats and striking dolphins.)

Print copy from the library

Love in Winter Wonderland by Bella Abiola

In this sweet YA Christmas romance, Trey’s family has owned Wonderland, the oldest Black-owned bookshop in London, for generations. But between the corporate bookstore around the corner who’s undercutting them and the real estate mogul who’s offering to slurp up the property beneath them, his family might be forced to sell. Enter Ariel, a classmate who wants to earn some extra cash in hopes of attending art school next year and who happens to be asking about a job just as Trey’s father suffers an injury that will sideline him through the Christmas retail season. After Ariel and her friends offer some suggestions to Trey about how he might help save the business — using his popular social media account to drive traffic (“instead of just flexing without a shirt on”), starting a GoFundMe, hosting some live events, and Ariel painting a mural in the store — Trey’s parents overcome some initial resistance to give their blessing to a monthlong effort.

There are your usual tropes (he’s a popular kid and she’s an awkward nerdy one; he’s in a relationship with the school’s meanest queen bee), but they’re well-executed and the main characters are nuanced and realistic. (I literally shouted and put down the book for several days when Ariel did something stupid halfway through the story.) And ultimately, you’ll be counting down the hours to the end of the GoFundMe right along with our main characters, hoping against hope that the store can stay open.

A solid Christmas YA romance I’d recommend to anyone who enjoys the genre. And I wouldn’t be surprised if this made the jump to the screen, at least in the U.K.

Audiobook from the library