I was going to call this Thanksgiving books, but that’s actually not what this is about. It’s Thanksgiving in the US tomorrow, so today I’m talking about books that feature it somehow, somewhere. And not gonna lie, it was harder than I was expecting, but I did find some more books to read while I was writing this!

Steven Rowley’s The Editor featured in my Kennedy-adjacent books post – which means I should probably mention that today is also sixty years since JFK was assassinated in Dallas – and in it, when James is struggling to get the ending right, his editor – Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis suggests needs to spend more time with his mother, and that sends him home for Thanksgiving. Meanwhile, in Casey McQuiston’s Red, White and Royal Blue, the traditional Turkey pardoning ceremony plays a key role in the early stages of the romance between first son Alex and his royal crush Prince Henry.
Jackie Wong’s A Match Made for Thanksgiving is set at Canadian Thanksgiving which was a couple of weeks ago, but I’m not letting that stop me including it here! Any way our hero is Nick, whose parents and grandparents have invited blind dates for him and his siblings, and his brother’s date turns to be Nick’s latest one-night stand, Lily, who he just can’t get out of his head… I loved the nicking meddling family in this and, total bonus, it’s the first in a series of linked novellas.
Now I was convinced that I’d read loads of Thanksgiving-set cozy crimes, but when it came down to it, I really struggled to find them in my book lists but there is a Thanksgiving book in Kathi Daley’s Tj Jenson series. I haven’t read Thanksgiving in Paradise, which is the tenth and final book in the series, but I have read seven of the others, so I’m going to take a chance in it! Daley also has Thanksgiving books in her other series, but I haven’t read any of them to vouch for the series or the specific books! Likewise Leslie Meier also has a couple of thanksgiving books in her Lucy Stone series, but I’ve had a patchy record with them.
And that’s your lot! There isn’t a Thanksgiving Meg Langslow (yet!) – no matter how convinced I was that there was, but maybe I can wish it into being? I leave you with my favourite ever Thanksgiving content from the brilliant Addams Family Values:
