My Review
Kerry Tolliver travels from her family's Christmas tree farm in North Carolina to New York, along with her brother Murphy and his dog Queenie - all to sell trees in a holiday tree lot. Kerry, Murphy, and Queenie stay in a vintage camper they have nicknamed Spammy. Murphy, who does this each year, knows many people in the tree lot neighborhood. Kerry gets to know them too, and is especially drawn to single dad Patrick and his son Austin. She also meets an older man with a mysterious past, an artist, and when he goes missing, the search for him changes lives.
I wanted to read Bright Lights, Big Christmas because I love Mary Kay Andrews' books. Mentions of Christmas in New York City, a vintage travel trailer, and a dog all sweetened the read!
This is a delightful holiday read, with a heartwarming community in the big city, a sweet love story, and a light mystery as well. There is even a brief mention of characters from Mary Kay Andrews' The Santa Suit.
I really enjoyed this read, and recommend Bright Lights, Big Christmas for fans of women's fiction, Christmas in New York, and heartwarming holiday stories. Five enthusiastic stars for this novel!
Book Synopsis
When fall rolls around, it’s time for Kerry
Tolliver to leave her family’s Christmas tree farm in the mountains of
North Carolina for the wilds of New York City to help her gruff older
brother & his dog, Queenie, sell the trees at the family stand on a
corner in Greenwich Village. Sharing a tiny vintage camper and
experiencing Manhattan for the first time, Kerry’s ready to try to carve
out a new corner for herself.
In the weeks leading into
Christmas, Kerry quickly becomes close with the charming neighbors who
live near their stand. When an elderly neighbor goes missing, Kerry will
need to combine her country know-how with her newly acquired New York
knowledge to protect the new friends she’s come to think of as family,
And
complicating everything is Patrick, a single dad raising his adorable,
dragon-loving son Austin on this quirky block. Kerry and Patrick’s
chemistry is undeniable, but what chance does this holiday romance
really have?
Filled with family ties, both rekindled and new, and sparkling with Christmas magic, Bright Lights, Big Christmas delivers everything Mary Kay Andrews fans adore, all tied up in a hilarious, romantic gem of a novel.
Author Bio
MARY KAY ANDREWS is the New York Times
bestselling author of 30 novels (including The Homewreckers, The Santa
Suit, The Newcomer; Hello, Summer; Sunset Beach; The High Tide Club; The
Weekenders; Beach Town; Save the Date; Ladies’ Night; Christmas Bliss;
Spring Fever; Summer Rental; The Fixer Upper; Deep Dish; Blue Christmas;
Savannah Breeze; Hissy Fit; Little Bitty Lies; and Savannah Blues), and
one cookbook, The Beach House Cookbook.
A native of St.
Petersburg, Florida, she earned a B.A. in journalism from The University
of Georgia. After a 14-year career working as a reporter at newspapers
including The Savannah Morning News, The Marietta Journal, and The
Atlanta Journal-Constitution, where she spent the final ten years of her
career, she left journalism in 1991 to write fiction.
Her first
novel, Every Crooked Nanny, was published in 1992 by HarperCollins. She
went on to write ten critically acclaimed mysteries under her real name,
Kathy Hogan Trocheck. In 2002, she assumed the pen name Mary Kay
Andrews with the publication of Savannah Blues. In 2006, Hissy Fit
became her first New York Times bestseller, followed by twelve more New
York Times, USA Today and Publisher’s Weekly bestsellers. To date, her
novels have been published in German, Italian, Polish, Slovenian,
Hungarian, Dutch, Czech and Japanese.
She and her family divide
their time between Atlanta and Tybee Island, GA, where they cook up new
recipes in two restored beach homes, The Breeze Inn and Ebbtide—both
named after fictional places in Mary Kay’s novels, and both available to
rent through Tybee Vacation Rentals. In between cooking, spoiling her
grandkids, and plotting her next novel, Mary Kay is an intrepid treasure
hunter whose favorite pastime is junking and fixing up old houses.
