Free Fridays: The Last Noel by Michael Malone

“Malone writes with such quiet authority and clear understanding of the world his characters inhabit that the story strikes deep emotional chords.” – Washington Post Book World

Readers loved our previous Michael Malone Free Friday’s selection, The Four Corners of the Sky. So I’m incredibly excited to announce that today’s Free Fridays selection is Malone’s touching Christmas tale, The Last Noel.

Now that Thanksgiving is in the rearview mirror, it’s time to turn our thoughts towards celebrating the spirit of Christmas. Malone’s book begins on Christmas Day, 1956, as two babies—one white and one black—are born in a small Southern town. Those babies, Noni and Kaye, cross paths eight years later, and form a lifelong friendship and romance. Through this unlikely pairing, Malone explores a changing American South, but more importantly, presents a deep love that transcends all barriers and survives against all odds.

Free Fridays Recommends

 Each week, we ask our featured author to recommend a book or author that you may want to check out. Since authors are such passionate readers themselves, we thought you might like to find out what they love to read, too! Here’s what Michael recommends:

Ciji Ware makes fascinating cities central characters in her fiction. In Midnight on Julia Street she invites us to come with her to New Orleans, a city whose famous charms, grit, sexiness and past-haunted social world Ware knows with affectionate particularity–from its old houses and high society to its new money and nouvelle cuisine.

The Big Easy feels like the perfect place for a time-slip novel (they do it all the time there). The 19th-century mystery blends easily with the modern romance. Best of all, like the land of dreamy dreams itself, Ware’s heroine, reporter Corlis McCullough, is smart, eccentric, seductive, wry and resilient. Also like New Orleans–she is practically irresistible.