Introduction

From Mary Kay Andrews, New York Times bestselling author of The Homewreckers and The Santa Suit, comes a novella celebrating love and the warm, glittering charm of the holiday season.

"Nobody does Christmas like Mary Kay Andrews." ?Debbie Macomber

"Cozy up with Santa's favorite novelist!” ?Adriana Trigiani

When fall rolls around, it’s time for Kerry Tolliver to leave her family’s Christmas tree farm in the mountains of North Carolina for the wilds of New York City to help her gruff older brother & his dog, Queenie, sell the trees at the family stand on a corner in Greenwich Village. Sharing a tiny vintage camper and experiencing Manhattan for the first time, Kerry’s ready to try to carve out a new corner for herself.

In the weeks leading into Christmas, Kerry quickly becomes close with the charming neighbors who live near their stand. When an elderly neighbor goes missing, Kerry will need to combine her country know-how with her newly acquired New York knowledge to protect the new friends she’s come to think of as family.

And complicating everything is Patrick, a single dad raising his adorable, dragon-loving son Austin on this quirky block. Kerry and Patrick’s chemistry is undeniable, but what chance does this holiday romance really have?

Filled with family ties, both rekindled and new, and sparkling with Christmas magic, BRIGHT LIGHTS, BIG CHRISTMAS delivers everything Mary Kay Andrews fans adore, all tied up in a hilarious, romantic gem of a novel.

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Excerpt

Kerry Clare Tolliver couldn’t remember a time when the smell of a Fraser fir tree didn’t make her smile.??Tollivers had been growing this particular variety of Christmas tree, in this particular patch of farmland in the mountains of western North Carolina, for four generations.??But today, standing in front of the flatbed trailer loaded with hundreds of freshly cut and baled fragrant firs, she wanted to cry.??“Mama, please don’t ask me to do this,” she whispered.??Her mother wrapped an arm around Kerry’s shoulders. “I’m sorry, honey, but there’s nobody else. Your daddy is coming home from the hospital tomorrow, and somebody’s got to be there to make sure he eats and takes his meds and gets his sorry butt up to do physical therapy. Like it or not, that somebody is me.”??“What about his sorry wife? Seems like it shouldn’t be his ex-wife who has to play nurse.”??Birdie—short for Roberta Tolliver—gave a short laugh. “Come on. You know Brenda is the human equivalent of a potted plastic plant. Cute, but useless. Anyway, I’m not supposed to know, and I’m sure as hell not supposed to tell you, but Murphy says she’s flown the coop. Moved out right before Halloween. Honestly, I really don’t mind. But that means you’ve got to step up and take Jock’s place. We’ve already missed out on the first week of the selling season. Either you go to New York and run the tree stand with Murphy, or it doesn’t happen.”??Kerry shrugged. “Would that be such a bad thing? I mean, can’t we sell the trees to our local retailers, like always?”??“No.”??Kerry turned to see Murphy, her older brother, who’d walked up behind them. He was an imposing figure—six-four, with a beefy build, dark bristly beard, and weather-beaten skin. Dressed in a quilted plaid flannel jacket, jeans, and muddy work boots, with a chain saw slung over his shoulder, he looked like something straight off a wrapper of paper towels.??“That late freeze in May wiped out a quarter of the trees. Locals won’t pay the premium prices to make up for the loss. Anyway, the New York trip accounts for seventy-five percent of our revenue, and like Mama said, we’re already a week behind.”??Murphy stowed the chain saw in the toolbox in the back of his pickup truck and slammed the lid for emphasis.??Now Kerry was eyeing her father’s truck—the rusting 1982 Ford F-150 with the vintage fifteen-foot travel trailer hooked up behind it. Like the pickup, the trailer had seen better days. The teardrop-shaped body with faded two-tone turquoise-and-white paint looked like a discarded canned ham.??Spammy, as the Tollivers called the 1963 Shasta trailer, spent most of the year parked in a barn at the tree farm. But every November, for nearly four decades, on the day after Thanksgiving, the trailer got hitched to the truck and then driven the seven hundred miles to New York City, where the Tollivers set up their Christmas tree stand in the West Village. This year, Jock’s heart attack and hospitalization had delayed the trip by a week.??“I can’t believe you expect me to live in this hunk of junk,” Kerry said, walking around the trailer and peering in through the door, which was draped with spiderwebs.??“Have a little respect,” Birdie said, patting the trailer’s mud-splattered door. “Spammy is practically a family heirloom.”??Kerry pointed at the curtained-off cubicle that contained the dreaded chemical toilet. “There’s no way I’m using that gross thing.”??“It don’t work anyway,” Murphy said.??“Then where…?”??“We use the bathroom at the café, or at the deli on the corner,” her brother said. “Neighbors let us use their showers.”??He grabbed a broom and thrust it at her. “Might want to sweep it out before you hit the road. I think there’s a squirrel’s nest in the bunk where you’ll be sleeping.” He looked at his watch. “I’m leaving outta here five minutes from now, which should put me in the city by tomorrow, noon, at the latest. I need to know now, right now, whether you’re coming. Otherwise, the trip’s off. We can’t afford to hire help this year.”??Birdie’s calm gray eyes seemed to bore into Kerry’s soul. Birdie had been only seventeen when she had Murphy, twenty-one when she had Kerry. She and Jock had split up when Kerry was seven. Murphy had stayed on the farm with Jock, and Birdie and Kerry had moved into a small cottage in town. The two were more like sisters than mother and daughter. Kerry knew Birdie would never order her to make this trip. Not in so many words. She’d kill her with that pleading look, slay her with silence. Birdie Tolliver was a ninja master at guilt.??“It’s not that I don’t want to go. I do. I’m willing to help. But I’m terrified of towing the trailer.”??“Don’t be such a scaredy-cat,” Birdie said. “You used to tow the boat to the lake every summer, growing up. And what about all those years you towed the horse trailer when you were show jumping?”??Kerry sighed. She knew she was beaten. “Okay. I’ll do it.”??Birdie beamed. “It’ll be almost like old times. You used to love it when the four of us would live in Spammy in the city. You thought it was like living in a dollhouse.” A dreamy look crossed Kerry’s mother’s face.??“New York at Christmas is magical. Walking down Fifth Avenue to see all the store windows decorated. Getting hot chocolate at the market at Union Square…”??“Won’t be time for any of that with just the two of us working the tree stand this year,” Murphy said bluntly.??He pointed at Kerry, taking in her fashionable slim jeans, lightweight sweater, and suede flats.??“Hope you got warmer clothes than that. We got a space heater in the trailer, but it gets cold on that street corner, with the wind whipping down from those apartment buildings. Call me when you’re an hour out from the city and I’ll put out the traffic cones to block off our parking spot.”??Murphy climbed up into the cab of his own truck, where his English setter Queenie was patiently waiting in the passenger seat, fired up the diesel engine, and slowly drove away.??Kerry watched as the trailer loaded with trees moved down the farm’s rocky driveway. It was sunny and in the mid-sixties, but she shivered, already anticipating the month she was about to spend living in that cramped trailer, coexisting with a brother she hardly knew.??“You’ll be fine,” Birdie said, reading her mind. “He’s kinda rough around the edges, but Murphy’s a good man. And I think it’ll be good for you to get back to a big city again. You can’t keep hiding out here in the boondocks forever, you know.”???Copyright © 2023 by Whodunnit, Inc... view entire excerpt...

Discussion Questions

From the publisher:

1. Kerry states that she never felt at home in her small hometown in the mountains. Has there ever been a point in your life when you had that fish-out-of-water feeling? What place feels most like home to you and why?

2. New York City quickly starts to feel like home to Kerry. What are the forces at play to make her feel welcomed in the heart of the West Village? Has a new place ever unexpectedly begun to feel like home for you?

3. So often in fiction, and especially in Christmas stories, characters flee the big city for a small town. City folk are often regarded with suspicion and country living is seen as preferable and even more virtuous. This novel turns that trope on its head a bit. Were the author’s characterizations of life in New York City’s West Village surprising to you? Has a place you’d previously thought of as large, intimidating, and unwelcome ever begun to feel otherwise? How so?

4. Kerry faces down her own fear of failure and, with the help of friends, is able to summon the courage to follow her hopes and dreams. Has a fear of failure ever held you back? Who or what helped you overcome it?

5. Murphy is a little set in his ways and too proud to accept Kerry’s suggestions for adapting their Christmas tree business to changing times. In what ways does Kerry improve the Tolliver family tree stand? What forces are at play to help Murphy welcome change?

6. Heinz is dealing with long-held feelings of grief over some particularly hard losses in his life. What is it that ultimately helps set him free? Has grief ever kept you from enjoying the present? How did you deal with that?

7. The ancillary characters in this novel play a big role in Murphy’s and Kerry’s experience in and around Abingdon Square. Who in the neighborhood impacted Murphy the most? Kerry? Are there bit players in your own day-to-day life who are a big part of your own story?

8. Spammy the trailer plays such a big role in this story, becoming somewhat of a main character. What is it about Spammy that makes it so special to Kerry, her family, and her new friends? Have you ever felt a real, enduring connection to a family vehicle or other possession?

9. As Christmas Day draws closer, the push is on for the Tollivers to make it back home to Tarburton for the holiday, although forces conspire against this plan. How do Kerry and Murphy make do, given the circumstances? Would you say their Christmas ended up being a merry one after all?

10. Holiday gifts shared at the end of the novel are simple but meaningful. What are some of your holiday traditions?

Weblinks

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