Lights, Loss, and Love

Matthew Norman’s Holiday Novel Shines with Real Emotion

As a reader, one of my favorite things is discovering a new-to-me author. But almost as soon as the discovery is finished, a question follows: will I read another book by the author?

Back in 2023, I discovered Matthew Norman based on his then-new novel, Charm City Rocks. I devoured that book in only four days, one of my fastest reads in a long time. For the past two years, when someone asks me to name one of my favorite books, Charm City Rocks made the list.

You also must know that I don’t re-read books. I just don’t. There are too many books ahead of me to read for the first time than books behind me that I want to pick up again. And yet…this past summer, for reasons still unknown, I felt the pull to revisit Charm City Rocks. So, for the first time this century, I re-listened to a book. That experience had an interesting side effect*, but first, let’s get back to that question I just posed: would I read another book by Matthew Norman?

Well, earlier this year when his latest book, Grace and Henry’s Holiday Movie Marathon, was announced, I literally marked 14 October on my calendar. How’s that for an answer?

The Premise and the Meet-Cute

Grace White and Henry Adler share something tragic: they both lost their spouses around the holidays. Grace’s husband died of cancer while Henry’s wife perished in a plane crash. They’ve spent the year struggling, trying to come to terms with loss and moving forward. Grace is a mom of two kids and a dog. Henry is adrift in his aloneness.

Cut to the next year’s holiday season, a part of the year that Henry says “arrive(s) out of nowhere. One day you notice a leaf turning orange—then, ten minutes later, guys in commercials are buying their wives Lexuses with big red bows on them, and you think, Wait, what?”

The weekend before Thanksgiving, Henry and Grace get “mommed.” That would be the highly contrived way their two moms arrange for them to meet. Evidently, the wifi at Grace’s mom’s house is “out” and Henry’s mom sends him over there to fix it. They quickly realize that the only issue is the fact that the modem is unplugged. Now that Henry’s showed up, Grace invites him to stay for a drink.

It’s cute and charming and oh-so-believable. They commiserate on what it’s like to live as the surviving spouse, how people treat them, and the challenges of how to muddle through life when their anchors are gone.

They decide to be friends because they know what it’s like to be them. And they start to bond over various holiday movies that we all know and love.

The Ongoing Relationship

Back when I reviewed Charm City Rocks, I commented on Norman’s breezy writing style. This story still has this kind of style, but it’s tinged with melancholy and sadness. I mean, how could it not be colored with tragedy?

But Norman does not bog his story down with tears. What comes across the page—or, in my case, the sound of the two narrators in the audiobook—is two people and their families dealing with the hard work of getting through life when life has seriously knocked them down. It’s real, it’s slow, and it’s occasionally frustrating.

Still, there’s a lightness to this book that infuses the story of Henry and Grace like, well, a holiday movie. I suspect Norman did this on purpose and I wholeheartedly love it. His characters come alive and react to things like real people would. Their world is believable and lived in.

I love the settings as well. I’ve never been to Baltimore but I virtually visited when I read both Charm City Rocks and Grace and Henry’s Holiday Movie Marathon. There’s a small-town quality to Baltimore that multiple characters love and appreciate. It almost makes me want to move. But, you know, winter.

The Narrators

I listened to the audiobook and the two narrators were perfectly cast. Alex Finke reads Grace with just enough snark to make me laugh out loud a few times. And when certain things happen, the sharpness Finke brings to her voice can cut. Jay Myers’s voice embodies the name Grace gives Henry when she first meets him: “Sad Henry.” With Henry’s path to becoming a widower—wife dies in a plane crash vs. Grace’s ability to say the long good-bye—Myers really gives Henry a mournful, haunted vibe.

Moreover, both narrators give their respective characters good nuances as the story progresses. Depending on what’s happening, Finke’s dulls Grace’s sharpness and snark while Myers allows Henry to pep up a little. It’s subtle but so well done.

The Verdict

Matthew Norman has found himself on one of my rarified lists: when he writes a book, I read it. Grace and Henry’s Holiday Movie Marathon is a wonderful way to spend this holiday season and I highly recommend it.

And who knows: I may re-read it one day.

*The Side Effect of the Charm City Rocks Re-Listen

I mentioned a side effect of my re-listening to the audiobook earlier this summer. Well, I was in the midst of writing the stories that make up my first romance short story collection, Lucky and Unlucky in Love. Charm City Rocks makes appearances in multiple stories in this collection, directly influencing one character and serves as the way two other characters meet in a different story. Yeah, that’s how much I love that book. You should read it…after you read Grace and Henry’s Holiday Movie Marathon.