4 Christmas Novellas For Joyful Reading

by Susan Roberts

Life can get pretty hectic around the holidays.  Even though you might want to read, there just isn't time to read an entire novel.  Here's a list of a few Christmas novellas that you can read in one sitting. 

Need more recommendations? Check out all of our 25 Days of Christmas Reading posts.

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The Christmas Pearl by Dorothea Benton Frank

October 2008; William Morrow; 978-0061438448
audio, ebook, print (139 pages); holiday romance

Theodora is the matriarch of a family that has grown into a bunch of truculent knuckleheads. While she's finally gotten them all together in South Carolina to celebrate, this Christmas looks nothing like the extravagant, homey holidays of her childhood.

What happened to the days when Christmas meant tables groaning with home-cooked goodies, over-the-top decorations, and long chats in front of the fire with Pearl, her grandmother's beloved housekeeper and closest confidante?

Luckily for Theodora, a special someone who heard her plea for help arrives, with pockets full of enough Gullah magic and common sense to make Theodora's Christmas the love-filled miracle it's meant to be.

Buy The Christmas Pearl at Amazon

Holiday Hideaway by Mary Kay Andrews

October 2024; Amazon Original Stories
audio, ebook; holiday romance

Tilly Farriday isn’t feeling very jolly this season. Recently divorced and broke, she’s squatting in one of her rental agency’s properties until her new home is ready. The sprinkles on top of the burnt Christmas cookie that is her life? The new owner shows up early, forcing Tilly to hide in the attic to save her job…and what remains of her dignity.

George Holloway is here to sell his granduncle’s house—and to reconsider whether he and his fiancée are right for each other. Amid home repairs, George notices strange noises and missing food, but as much as he gets his rental agent on the phone, Tilly dodges every invitation to meet. He’s sure that someone’s here with him, and it’s certainly not the Ghost of Christmas Past, Present, or Future.

As Tilly and George circle each other, they both wonder where their lives are headed and if, maybe, meeting each other is just the Christmas miracle they need.

Buy Holiday Hideaway at Amazon

Skipping Christmas by John Grisham

October 2010; Vintage; 978-0440422969
audio, ebook, print (240 pages); Holiday comedy

Imagine a year without Christmas. No crowded malls, no corny office parties, no fruitcakes, no unwanted presents. That’s just what Luther and Nora Krank have in mind when they decide that, just this once, they’ll skip the holiday altogether.

Theirs will be the only house on Hemlock Street without a rooftop Frosty, they won’t be hosting their annual Christmas Eve bash, they aren’t even going to have a tree. They won’t need one, because come December 25 they’re setting sail on a Caribbean cruise. But as this weary couple is about to discover, skipping Christmas brings enormous consequences—and isn’t half as easy as they’d imagined.

Buy Skipping Christmas at Amazon

Jack Frost by Debbie Macomber

November 2023; Indiel 979-8988895312
audio, ebook, print (82 pages); women's fiction

With the rest of her family on a cruise, Lindsay Calhoun will be spending her first Christmas alone, so she volunteers to plan an especially festive holiday party for her company. Her coworkers are grateful—except for tall, quiet Jack Taylor. Jack has always been a loner, but something about Christmas puts him in an unusually foul mood.

Despite Jack’s Scrooge-like complaints, the party is a success, ending only with a sudden snowstorm. As Lindsay cleans up and Jack looks for lost keys, they are the last ones in the building. Then the power goes out. The locks malfunction. Lindsay and Jack are stuck together with no rescue in sight.

While the two wait out the storm, there’s nothing to do but talk. Once they drop their defenses, they learn surprising truths about each other. After the lights come back on, neither knows whether to pretend it never happened—or let their undeniable attraction bring them together again, and lead to something more.

Buy Jack Frost at Amazon

Susan Roberts grew up in Michigan but loves the laid-back life at her home in the Piedmont area of North Carolina where she is two hours from the beach to the east and the mountains in the west.  She reads almost anything but her favorite genres are Southern Fiction and Historical Fiction.

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