A chocoholic grizzly bear, a talking Christmas tree, mince pie overdoses and a very bloody murder. Will poor old Saint Nick make it out alive? Sad, strange, funny and gruesome, this overlapping, multi-genre collection of tales has a little something for every reader. Curl up with a mulled wine and some fictional festive misery, and discover what Father Christmas really likes to drink when he wriggles down your chimney. Spoiler: it isn’t milk.

     Things haven't come easy for brilliant young astrophysicist Ainsley Grace. Her mother, an equally talented astrophysicist, died when Ainsley was just a child. A "brainiac" who started college at age sixteen and earned her Ph.D. before most people her age had even settled on a major, Ainsley struggled to fit in. But the pieces of her life seem to fall together when Ainsley teams up with her mother's former colleague at MIT to finish Project Cosmic Company, which her mother had been working on when she died. Then the dream unravels.

    Though things start slowly, Ivan wins her over after a strong pursuit, and the two marry, agreeing never to inflict any “irreparable wounds.” But though Ivan proves to be a fine father, he is a distant husband, and Caroline finds herself daydreaming of other men. So as the years pass, the couple finds ways to bend but not break their cardinal rule. Rough Strife, the first novel from Lynne Sharon Schwartz, was nominated for the National Book Foundation Award. In this sensational debut, Schwartz depicts a marriage that grows painfully into the modern era, despite the changes—both political and personal—that challenge it.