Great fiction ideas for holiday gifts

The Bookworm

You knew this was coming.

You knew that you were going to have to finish your holiday shopping soon but it snuck up on you, didn’t it? And even if you’re close to being done, there are always those three or five people who are impossible to buy for, right? So why not head to the bookstore and look for these gifts.

Here is my fiction list:

Fans of thrillers will absolutely want to unwrap “Bullet Train” by Kotaro Isaka, the story of five assassins who find out that their respective assignments have a little too much in common for comfort. Give this book for a gift, along with two movie tickets, since it’s about to become a motion picture.

The person on your gift list who loves mythology will be very excited to see “Daughters of Sparta” by Claire Heywood beneath the tree. This is a story of two princesses of Sparta, of which little is expected but birthing an heir and looking beautiful. But when patriarchal society becomes too overbearing, the princesses must decide what to do. Far from your normal “princess” tale, this one has shades of feminism in ancient times.

The Poe fan on your gift list will love unwrapping “Poe for Your Problems” by Catherine Baab-Miguira. Edgar Allen Poe as therapist? Who knew? Add “The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows” by John Koenig to the gift box. It’s a book about words and feelings and how obscure language might help make things a little clearer.

Readers who particularly like stories with sugar will love “All the Lonely People” by Mike Gayle. It’s a tale of a lonely man who lives far from his family – far enough away that he feels confident in embellishing his life to his daughter. That’s fine, until she says she’s coming to visit and he must make fantasy match reality.

Readers who love underdog tales will be so happy to unwrap “The Mad Woman’s Ball” by Victoria Mars, a novel set in France in 1885. The Salpêtriére asylum is full of “insane” women who may or may not really be insane. But then one patient, hospitalized because she claims to speak to the dead, hatches a plan to escape.

Historical novel fans will want to see “Island Queen” by Vanessa Riley beneath the tree this year, for sure. Based on a true story, it’s about Dorothy Kirwan Thomas, who had been a slave. Once freed, she ultimately became one of the most powerful, most wealthy and most influential women in the West Indies in the early 1800s.

The folk music lover who just happens to also enjoy novels will love “The Ballad of Laurel Springs” by Janet Beard. Itss story starts with ten-year-old Grace, who learns something shocking about her family’s past and the event became a song. She’s not the only one, though: songs and lyrics tell the rest of the tale, through generations of Tennessee folk music. Wrap it up with a promise of summer music festivals to come.