A Home for the Holidays

In the satisfying latest from Hahn (The Lifestyle), a singer contends with family secrets and a new romance. Mel Hart is content performing in a Chicago wedding band with her boyfriend, Dan. After Dan accepts a lucrative touring gig with another band, the two break up, leaving her with no place to live. She’s also reeling from the unexpected death of her mother, Connie, whose alcoholism gravely impacted their relationship, and her grief swells when she moves back into Connie’s house two weeks before Christmas. There, she has a surprise visit from Connie’s old friend Barbara, who tells Mel about Connie’s early career as a singer-songwriter and surprising connection to a now-prominent country star. In a charming subplot, Mel falls hard for Barbara’s soon-to-be-divorced son Henry, a doctor. Hahn elicits sympathy for Mel and Connie in plaintive flashbacks to Christmases past and tense mother-daughter moments, like when a teenage Mel kept her dating life secret from Connie, who tried to protect her (“Between the two of us, hadn’t I been the one making good decisions,” Mel reflects). This feel-good holiday novel has just the right amount of grit. (Sept.)