Books to Love: A Regency, Rollicking Christmas Read

Christmas is almost here, and with its impending arrival, I’m sure we’re all looking for ways to usher in the holiday spirit. We’ve heard Christmas music playing for quite a while, and Hallmark has their channel chock full of those saccharine sweet holiday confectionary, but what about a book?

We’ve got the hearing and the watching, but what about the reading?

Have no fear. As I’m a bookaholic, I couldn’t let this time of year slip away without recommending at least one book for you to get lost in, dear readers.

As I’ve stated time and time again, being a great lover of the Scarlet Pimpernel, I was delighted to encounter Lauren Willig’s Pink Carnation series (see post here), where Sir Percival Blakeney has retired and handed the reins on to a contingency of floral spies who sleuth and sneak and generally fall in love in a whirlwind of Regency garb and witty repartee during the Napoleonic era. Sleuthing in the present is Eloise, who, with each book, delves deeper into the network of spies bringing her one step closer to identifying the true Pink Carnation. While her adventures are delightful and provide a great modern platform from which to launch ourselves into the past, it’s truly the Regency era that dominates the Pink Carnation series. However, as is the way with series, you generally don’t want to start with a book in the middle of it. You’d rather start at the beginning and work your way to the end. But, if you would like to have a taste of the wit, humor, and romance that abound in Willig’s series, then you’re in luck.

Just in time for Christmas, she wrote a short novel called The Mischief of the Mistletoe. Rather than have it centered around an actual spy in the Pink Carnation’s network, it centers around Reginald ‘Turnip’ Fitzhugh, an ardent, almost gauche admirer of the Pink Carnation league. Turnip has a propensity for elaborate waistcoats which he has tailor-made and dedicated to his patriotic love for the Pink Carnation. In short, Turnip is a bit of a fop. But, somehow he finds himself embroiled in a mystery of his own involving a Christmas pudding and the oddly beguiling Arabella Dempsey.

Arabella Dempsey, against the express wishes of her dear friend Jane Austen, has accepted a position in as a teacher in an all-girls school in Bath. The only danger she anticipates is being the brunt of girlish meanness. But, when she cracks open her Christmas pudding and finds a cryptic code within, she becomes embroiled in an international fracas involving- as you can imagine- spies of the floral variety.

Turnip, because of his undying affection for the League of the Pink Carnation, has stumbled into investigations before, but never one that captured his attention or, potentially, his heart so entirely. The Mischief of the Mistletoe will introduce you to characters you’ll meet throughout Lauren Willig’s series, but it is not actually a part of the series itself. It’s just a delightful sidestep in the Pink Carnation series customarily elaborate minuet.

Now, there are certainly a host of other novels I could recommend that usher in the Christmas spirit, particularly Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol (an absolute favorite in our household), but I have no doubt that you’re familiar with many of the recommendations I could make along that score. Whereas The Mischief of the Mistletoe might be new to you. If it is, get yourself a copy of it. It’s a really fun read to accompany you on the Christmas break.

What’s your favorite Christmas novel?