Christmas at The Secondhand Bookworm

By Emily Jane Bevans

Christmas has arrived and it's a week of mayhem, romance and seasonal cheer in The Secondhand Bookworm, an English bookshop with three floors (and an attic) filled to the brim with countless used or antiquarian books upon books upon books! The winter weather descends upon Castletown and threatens to add snow-sludge chaos to the festivities, but nothing seems to be able to deter the many regulars hunting out their obsessive collections, numerous postcard buyers demanding Christmas stamps and the new Woman in Gold from sporting a variety of ludicrous hats. Nora Jolly quickly discovers that someone has painted the front room of the shop pink, that one of their regulars has started to steal books, that the singing and parachuting Father Christmas decoration has some rather eccentric competition, what it's like to be snowed in with only 27,000 books for company and how many people will utter the dreaded phrase: 'It's warm in here!" when they enter wrapped in their scarves, bobble hats, gloves and coats. The owner of The Secondhand Bookworm, Georgina Pickering, meanwhile has the flu but she's determined to be well enough for the Christmas staff meal at a Chinese restaurant, where things escalate rapidly out of control when a rival party group named 'Grott and Co' starts lobbing food at The Secondhand Bookworm gathering, the DJ is acting suspicious and the dance floor is disturbingly close to where they are sitting. Betty puts on a disguise for some amusing undercover work, Humphrey battles jealousy when the new Duke of Cole takes up residence in his freshly renovated castle and takes a liking to Nora, Cara enjoys attention from Nora's brother, Seymour whose opening night at his theatre is the final festive gathering for staff and a variety of bookworms on Saturday night, and Roger, as glum as usual, isn't that impressed about sporting a Christmas Turkey hat for 'Shopping by Candlelight'. Thieves, snowmen, mountains of mince pies, a Christmas Farmer's Turkey Fair, the fabled Knucker of Knuckerhole, a traumatic glimpse of Mr Hill's underpants and an Anthropodermic bibliophile make this third volume in The Secondhand Bookworm series of feel-good novels a highly enjoyable read. Book Three is best enjoyed after The Secondhand Bookworm and Nora and The Secondhand Bookworm, also available on Kindle and in paperback. Now eleven novels in the series (August 2023)

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1980706107
• ISBN13: 9781980706106
• Release Date: March 2018
• Publisher: Independently published
• Length: 285 Pages
• Weight: 0.84 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.0" x 0.7" x 5.0"