Still spry at ninety-three, Theodora has lived long enough to see her family grow into an insufferable bunch of truculent knuckleheads. Having finally gathered the whole bickering brood together for the holidays at her South Carolina home, the grand matriarch pines wistfully for those extravagant, homey Christmases of her childhood. How she misses the tables groaning with home-cooked goodies, the over-the-top decorations, those long, lovely fireside...

An abridged version of the story of Marie Stahlbaum, who helps break the spell on her toy nutcracker and watches it change into a handsome prince.

For Cassie Beaumont, it's meeting her perfect match. Cassie, at thirty-three, wants a husband and kids, and so far nothing's worked. Not blind dates, not the internet and certainly not leaving love to chance. What other options are there? Well...she could hire a professional matchmaker. Simon Dodson has quite a reputation, but he's very choosy about the clients he takes on-and very expensive. Cassie considers him a difficult, acerbic know-it-all,...

Dominic and Clarice Corde, who met and fell in love in Brunswick Gardens, journey to a quaint hamlet to replace the local vicar who is away on holiday. The holiday takes a nasty turn when the vicar is discovered not to be away at all, but brutally murdered and stashed in the cellar. So instead of fulfilling the vicar's duties, the Cordes are charged with solving his murder. All the while, the picturesque village is becoming increasingly and dangerously...

Collects three gingerbread cookie-related mysteries, including a mysterious murder during a Christmas play, the disappearance of a young boy, and a brutal murder involving a bakery.

The widow McDowell and her seven-year-old son Thomas ask the gruff Jonathan Toomey, the best wood-carver in the valley, to carve the figures for a Christmas creche.

An old man reminisces about his first love, a young runaway who taught him more about life than anyone had before or since.