Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is Janet Evanovich's 1988 contemporary romance, set in Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia, with one of the lower-stakes premises in her early catalog. Megan Murphy is a vet running a costume rental shop. Dr. Patrick Hunter is a pediatrician whose niece has just been dumped on his doorstep along with a runaway rabbit named Tibbles. They meet because the rabbit, of course, ends up at the vet. The Thanksgiving dinner that follows is its own small disaster.

The Williamsburg backdrop is the secret advantage of the book. Evanovich treats it as a working town and not a costume-drama postcard, which keeps the period-costume gags from going twee. The romance arc is straightforward chemistry-plus-third-act-misunderstanding, and the supporting cast (the toddler, an Aunt Tilly, a feed-store clerk with strong opinions about ducks) carries more weight than the central couple.

Recommended for readers who want a quick holiday romance with more heart than heat, for fans of Evanovich's pre-Stephanie Plum work, and for anyone in the mood for books like Thanksgiving where the small-town texture matters more than the plot mechanics. Three solid stars.