BY:  Ethan Brady
OF: The Bad Luck Cat Mysteries
BY: Kay Finch

Here we are in mid-November - barely past Halloween - and I noticed the other night that some people have already put up a Christmas tree.  Twinkly lights are glowing from shop windows. Santa Claus is popping up on television ads. Christmas songs are playing in the grocery store.


Don't get me wrong - I love the holidays! Since I work in retail - at Knead to Read, the local bookstore in Lavender - we always get ahead of the holidays with our book orders and the in-store and window displays.


What I don't like about the holidays is hearing people moaning and worrying about what to buy for the people on their gift list.  What's to decide? The perfect gift - for everyone - is a BOOK!


My mom could save many hours of indecision about her gifting decisions if she'd simply come to work with me one day.  Everyone on her list - from my new baby cousin to Grandma Emma who's nearly a hundred - would enjoy a book.  Whether you're buying a baby's first book, a beginning reader for the first grader on your list, a fantasy novel for your pre-teen, a coffee table book for a great aunt, or the latest bestseller for the avid reader in your life - the bookstore is the place to go to solve your shopping dilemmas.

A book is a GREAT GIFT for all - uh, except for Hitchcock - he's my friend Sabrina's cat.  He doesn't need a book - he's perfectly happy if you give him a box to sit in. 


How about y'all?  Are you buying or requesting any books this Christmas?


Kay Finch is the National Best-Selling author of the Bad Luck Cat Mysteries. Though her character, Sabrina Tate, has left the paralegal profession behind to move to the Texas Hill Country, Kay still works as a paralegal at a Houston, Texas law firm. She resides in a Houston suburb with her husband and pets where she is working on Bad Luck Cat Mystery #5 – The Black Cat Breaks a Mirror. Visit her at www.kayfinch.com.