Ponder Post: Mystery Book from Library

This book is fluff. Pure, predictable, fluff. But, what the heck, it is an enjoyable, feel good way to while away a couple hours in stress-free reading. The mystery in this post is not about the genre of the book, since it is a romance novel and those are rarely mysterious, but rather about re-telling the tale of how I came to read this book.

Our library has a online service feature where I can request a book at their website and if it is on the shelves someone will pull it for me, label it, set it on a special pick-up shelf near the front of the library, and send an e-mail that it is ready. If the book is not available, the library tracks when it does become available and initiates that service then. Couple this perk with the convenience that the library has self serve scanners available for the patrons, the process really is pretty slick. I just need to go in, pull the book from the reserved shelf, scan the barcode on my library card, scan the barcode on the book, and poof, I am outta there in less than five minutes. Since parking at our library is at a premium this works great. Frank can drop me off, circle, and when he gets back, I am at the curb, book in hand. This also prevents me from spending too much money on Amazon for books.

The other day, I got an e-mail notice from the closest branch of my public library that the book Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor, which I'd requested from another branch, had been returned, transferred to my branch, and was ready for pickup. I stared at the title in the e-mail notice and did not have a clue as to what it was about or why I had requested it from another branch and reserved it. Not a clue! So I picked the book up yesterday morning and started to read it yesterday evening. Perhaps reading it would clue me in to why I wanted it.

The hardcover version of this book was first published in 2009.

The setting! It is set in Seattle. So that must be why I reserved it! Vacationing with friends in Seattle this July 2014 must have sparked my interest. Actually I did like the locale of the book. It focused on the islands around Seattle and not on the city proper so it painted a whole other image of that area. I would like to go back sometime and explore an island or two off the coastline of Seattle via the ferry system. The book setting gave off a kind of Martha's-Vineyard, quaint-town, beach-type vibe, very eclectically different from the City Pass attractions of Seattle. The main female character, Maggie, ran a toy store and related well to kids, a scenario that reminded me of Meg Ryan's independently owned book store The Shop Around the Corner from the movie You've Got Mail. The main male character, Mark, roasted coffee beans, not necessarily Starbuck's, but no doubt a cursory nod to that huge chain that began in Seattle. If, however, I did not remember the setting of the book as Seattle, how could that have been the reason I reserved it? 

The author! I went to Amazon and looked up other books by Lisa Kleypas. She is rather prolific as a New York Times best selling author, but I did not know that until just then when I saw her other Amazon listings. How could this have been the reason I requested the book if I'd never heard of the author before?

I read on, liking the book and its simplicity, but being nagged by the reason I requested it. I formulate pictures of the characters in my mind as they are introduced and described. They are new to me, and somewhat stereotypically familiar as romance characters tend to be, but I do not get the sense I have read the book before. Since it is a light romance, Pollyanna type plot, I could not help thinking, "...this reads like a Hallmark Channel movie...". Bingo! The light bulb in my brain goes off. I scurry back to Google and type "lisa kleypass books made into movies" and hit return.

Isn't Google wonderful?
A sleepless night can be avoided just with a few clicks on the computer keyboard.

Then I jump over to IMDb and type in the movie title Christmas with Holly and learn that it is a 2012 TV movie. Just from the first two sentences of the plot summary I confirm that this is based on the book I am reading.

This movie does indeed have the same plot as the book Christmas Eve in Friday Harbor.
It was part of the Hallmark Channel's lineup of Christmas movies this year.

A few keystrokes over to Amazon and I learned that the Hallmark Hall of Fame made the movie into a DVD in 2013 and it is for sale.

The character casting in the movie
does not match my perceptions from the book.

And then the memories flood back - uh, correction - the memories trickle back. Over the holidays Frank and I recorded movies from the Hallmark Channel's promotional "twelve movies for the twelve days of Christmas." Some were real turkeys that we deleted 15 minutes or less into watching. This particular one sparked my interest but somehow we always missed the window to record and watch it. In the promotion for it, I must have learned that it was based on the book Christmas Eve in Friday Harbor – or maybe I looked it up. So, having missed the movie, I must have put the book on my library want list. Being Christmas time, it took a while for it to become available. Notice a lot of this is conjecture and not pure memory, but then conjecture is the foundation for a good mystery. This explanation allows me to finish the book in peace.

Netflix does not have the movie so I guess I will just have to wait until next year to see it on TV.  My experience has been that the movie is rarely as good as the book anyway. Based on the DVD cover I already know the casting is weird. While reading the book I pictured the main male character, Mark, as Pierce Brosnan, a tall, dark-haired, well kempt type. In the movie they cast some dude with nearly shoulder length parted in the middle no less. And, in the book Maggie, is repeatedly described as having very curly red hair, which is a continual distraction for Mark. In the movie she is a blond! I do not intend to buy the DVD so I will just watch the Hallmark channel next Christmas... if I remember.

In the interest of clutter reduction,
 I took a picture of this plaque from a catalog instead of buying it.