10 great festive books to snuggle up with this Christmas
Daily Mail journalists select and curate the products that feature on our site. If you make a purchase via links on this page we will earn commission - learn more
December is when reading gets deliciously unambitious. The nights are long, the sofa is calling, and the self-help manuals and complex historical biographies are cast aside. All we have the brain power for is a good, old-fashioned novel.
Whether you're after something cosy, escapist or faintly murderous to enjoy between Quality Street and family politics, there’s a Christmas book for every mood. From old-school classics you return to every year, to glossy new releases designed to be devoured in a single sitting, these are the festive reads worth clearing space for under the tree. Put your phone down, pour another drink and get stuck in...
Set in the sugar-sweet town of Dream Harbor, this cosy, spicy Christmas romcom pairs a grumpy tree farm owner with an unexpectedly charming holidaymaker. Kira North loathes Christmas, which is inconvenient given she’s just bought a rundown Christmas tree farm with no heating and plenty of hazards. Enter Bennett Ellis, a sunshiny Californian escaping disastrous dating and seasonal burnout. Sparks fly (and axes swing) when fate keeps throwing them together among the firs, forcing Kira to accept Bennett's help – and question if Christmas really is so bad after all...
Set on Christmas Eve 1943, The Christmas Clue begins with a festive parlour game and ends in murder. Husband-and-wife puzzle-makers Anthony and Elva Pratt arrive at a snowed-in country hotel to host a Christmas murder mystery, only to discover a real body before the game has even begun. The hotel manager Mr Browning is trying to keep the peace but the guests are agitated, Colonel Colman is about to take over the hotel for the war effort - and the mysterious Mrs Threadgold hasn't been seen at all. It's clever, atmospheric and steeped in seasonal menace.
A quiet festive classic, Advent is a (very) slim but powerful Icelandic tale about kindness, endurance and the days before Christmas. Each winter, Benedikt heads into the frozen mountains to rescue sheep lost in the blizzards, accompanied only by his dog, his ram and endless cups of coffee. Newly translated into English for the first time in 90 years, Gunnar Gunnarsson’s beautiful prose captures the harshness and holiness of midwinter alike.
A fun, escapist Christmas read set in a ridiculously glamorous Alpine ski resort, all about luxury, secrets and steamy romance. Emmeline Everly works 'downstairs' in Kristalldorf, watching the super-rich misbehave behind their polished chalet doors. She promises herself she won’t get involved – until notorious bachelor Tristan du Kok starts paying her attention. What follows is flirtatious, scandal-filled and very moreish: think Jilly Cooper energy on the slopes.
A festive classic that never dates, this anthology gathers some of Agatha Christie’s finest wintery short stories into one gloriously moreish collection. Featuring Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple and a host of snowy settings, these bite-sized mysteries are perfect for dipping in and out of over Christmas. Clever, comforting and fiendishly well plotted, it's essential festive reading for anyone who likes their Christmas cosy, classic and just a little bit murderous.
If you like your Christmas stories more strange than sweet, The Dead of Winter peels back the tinsel to reveal the eerie folklore lurking beneath the festive season. Sarah Clegg explores the demons, witches and ghostly traditions that have long haunted midwinter, from Krampus runs and mummers’ plays to candlelit processions and ancient pagan rites. Blending cultural history with myth and storytelling, it’s fascinating, unsettling and surprisingly cosy in its own way.
From the late, great Jilly Cooper, How to Survive Christmas is exactly what it says on the tin: a gloriously irreverent guide to getting through the most stressful time of year. From difficult relatives and hideous jumpers to tactical retreats involving cooking sherry, Cooper’s advice is, as always, laugh-out-loud funny. The perfect stocking-filler for anyone who loves Christmas but slightly dreads it too.
Set just before Christmas 1953, is a gloriously silly slice of festive cosy crime. Detectives Grasby and Juggers arrive in a snowed-in Yorkshire coastal village to investigate a fisherman found strangled with a stocking soon – followed by a second murder and hundreds of pairs of pristine hosiery washing up on the beach. Cut off by a blizzard and surrounded by tight-lipped locals, they must untangle secrets, red herrings and some very suspicious socks.
A proper comfort-blanket Christmas read, All Together For Christmas follows the Balfour family as secrets, tensions and long-buried feelings threaten to derail the festive season. Snowed in and forced together, three sisters face relationship wobbles, unexpected confessions and the question of whether honesty might be the best gift of all. With multiple viewpoints, gentle romance and plenty of family drama, it delivers exactly what Sarah Morgan does best.
You can’t really do Christmas without Dickens. His evergreen tale of Ebenezer Scrooge – visited by three ghosts and forced to reckon with his past, present and future – remains the blueprint for festive redemption stories. It’s warm-hearted, endlessly re-readable, whether it’s your first time or your fiftieth. It's a reminder of what Christmas is meant to be about: generosity, kindness and second chances.
