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The Snow Globe Kindle Edition
Discover an unforgettable holiday treasure in Sheila Roberts' heartwarming tale of love and laughter, magic and miracles, friendship and coming home…
On a blustery afternoon, Kylie Gray wanders into an antique shop and buys an enchanting snow globe. "There's a story behind that snow globe," the antique dealer tells her. The original owner, he explains, was a German toymaker who lost his wife and son right before Christmas. When the grieving widower received the handcrafted snow globe as a Christmas gift, he saw the image of a beautiful woman beneath the glass—a woman who would come into his life, mend his broken heart and bring him back to the world of the living. For years, the snow globe has passed from generation to generation, somehow always landing in the hands of a person in special need of a Christmas miracle.
Kiley could use a miracle herself. This year, all she wants for Christmas is someone to love. A hopeful shake leads her on an adventure that makes a believer out of her. When Kylie shares the story of the snow globe with her best friends—two women with problems of their own—they don't believe it. But they're about to discover that at Christmastime, sometimes the impossible becomes possible and miracles really do come true.
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherSt. Martin's Press
- Publication dateOctober 26, 2010
- File size1397 KB
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Copyright © PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Review
Praise for Sheila Roberts:
"The Snow Globe is an absolutely wonderful holiday treat, full of warmth and charm and second chances. It's the perfect stocking stuffer." --Kristin Hannah
“Sheila Roberts makes me laugh. I read her books and come away inspired, hopeful and happy." --Debbie Macomber
“Sheila Roberts is one of my favorite authors. Her stories celebrate every woman's hopes and dreams. Reading her books is like a delightful visit with a treasured friend.” --Susan Wiggs
"This lighthearted and charming read will appeal to fans of Kristin Hannah's magical, light romances and readers who enjoyed Roberts's previous holiday offerings." --Library Journal (Starred Review)"Just like the antique snow globe in this story, there is no better way to share the holiday spirit than to pass this book on to a girlfriend— or anyone in need of a Christmas miracle." --Book Page "Roberts’ charming holiday-themed contemporary story set in the Seattle area offers hope, comfort, and a second chance for those who believe, and a nudge to change the minds of those who don’t." --Booklist“Sheila Roberts will make you laugh and cry with her latest novel about three women facing life’s trials and tribulations.” --The National Examiner
“Roberts’ witty and effervescently funny novel will warm hearts. Realistic characters populate the pages of this captivating story, which is a great escape from the hustle and bustle.” --Romantic Times (Top Pick)
“The funny novel is all about love …and friendships. But, most of all, it's about learning to love yourself before you can love anyone else.” --The Columbus Dispatch
"Roberts manages to avoid genre clichés and crafts a heartfelt novel with nuggets of life trut...
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Fawn Island, Pacific Northwest
Something drew Kiley Gray to the antique shop. It could have been the carousel horse in the window or the sight of tables and shelves beyond, crammed with cast-off treasures. Whatever was in there calling to her, she knew she had to go in. She was a big believer in that sort of thing.
Actually, Kiley was a big believer, period. She’d been sure Santa was real until she was ten and even after waking up on Christmas Eve to discover her father hanging her filled stocking on the mantel, she kept pretending for another two years. She’d believed in Prince Charming and Mr. Right clear through college. She’d even believed in happy endings until just this past October when her boyfriend Jeremy Horne dumped her at her own Halloween party (how was that for tacky?), announcing that he couldn’t fight his attraction for her sister any longer.
It had been a very scary Halloween.
A bell chimed over the door as Kiley entered the shop and her nose twitched as she caught a whiff of dust.
Another shopper, a middle-aged woman in a stylish wool coat, stood at the counter, raving over the pink Depression glass pitcher she’d found. “And just in the nick of time,” she added. “I’m going to have to dash to make that ferry.” With hurried thanks, she took the piece the shop owner had carefully wrapped and hurried to the door, stuffing bills in her wallet as she went.
One fluttered to the floor and Kiley scooped it up. It was a fifty, maybe not a lot for this woman, who was well dressed and obviously had money to burn, but to Kiley it was a fortune. “Wait. You dropped this.”
“Oh. Thanks,” said the woman, barely looking at it. She stuffed it in her purse and hurried out the door.
The shopkeeper, a portly man with thinning, gray hair, smiled at Kiley. “People get in too big of a hurry.”
“I can’t afford to be in that big of a hurry,” she said. She probably couldn’t afford to be in here at all. But browsing didn’t cost anything, she told herself as she drifted to where the carousel horse stood frozen in mid-prance. Who had owned this and how had it wound up languishing here? Kiley gave it a comforting pat then wandered past a table overflowing with nautical knickknacks toward an antique sideboard displaying tarnished silver and faded china, waiting for their glory days to return.
Then she saw something out of the corner of her eye. She turned and moved to the far side of the shop for a closer look. Tucked behind a clock with a brass horse and a chipped crystal vase sat an old snow globe. She might never have noticed it if it hadn’t gotten caught by a stray sunbeam that managed to slip past the gray clouds outside and in through the window.
She picked it up, charmed by the scene inside the thick glass: a toyshop in the center of an Alpine village. She gave the globe a shake and watched the snow swirl around the little angel standing guard in front of the shop. It was simply too charming not to buy. Anyway, purchasing treasures was an integral part of any girls’ getaway weekend so, in a way, she was almost obligated.
She took it to where the shop owner sat behind his cash register, now reading a book. “I didn’t see a price tag on this. I’m just wondering what you want for it.”
She gulped when he told her. Not exactly a wise purchase for a girl who had a steady job, let alone one who was now unemployed. Maybe purchasing treasures wasn’t such an integral part of a girls’ getaway weekend. At least not this treasure, not this weekend. Heck, at that price, never.
The man looked over his reading glasses at her and smiled. “But, I think, for the right buyer, I could come down in price.”
Not enough, she was sure. Still, she couldn’t resist asking, “What does the right buyer look like?” Hopefully, a skinny woman edging toward thirty with unruly brown hair, hazel eyes, a fashionably full mouth, and a nose she hated.
“It’s not exactly about looks,” the shop owner said. “It’s more about where you are in life. You see, this little snow globe has quite a story to tell.”
“I like stories,” said Kiley, leaning her elbows on the counter.
“This one starts back when snow globes were first being made. Nobody knows the exact date, but the first one appeared at the Paris Exposition in 1878, and by 1879 at least five companies were producing snow globes and selling them throughout Europe. The woman who brought this to me claims it was one of them, so you can see it’s very valuable.”
“If it’s that valuable I wonder why she didn’t take it to Antiques Roadshow,” Kiley mused. It seemed like the kind of thing that would go for a king’s ransom at Sotheby’s.
The man nodded his agreement. “She had her reasons. You see, its age isn’t the only thing that makes it valuable.” He removed his reading glasses and set aside his book. “Would you like to hear more?”
“I’m not in a hurry,” said Kiley. “But I hope this story has a happy ending. I’m kind of in need of happy endings these days.”
“Are you? Well, you be the judge.”
Chicago, December 1880
It had been one year since Otto Schwartz had lost his whole world. And he was still alive, if one could call moving through each day like a ghost living. This particular day he stood at his toyshop window, watching snow carpet the street. Delivery wagons passed, people walked by with paper-wrapped parcels, happily shopping for Christmas.
Two children, a boy and a girl bundled in heavy coats, hats, and mittens, ran ahead of their mother and stopped in front of the shop window to peer at Otto’s display of porcelain dolls, tin toys, and stuffed animals. They pressed their faces to the glass and pointed excitedly. One even smiled at Otto. He tried to smile back. A ghost of a smile.
The woman caught up with them, keeping her face averted. Taking the children by the hand, she led them off down the street. He could hardly blame her for not wanting to look at him. His toys called to one and all to step inside and find fun and laughter. But once inside people found Otto and they hurriedly left, recalling more pressing errands.
He watched them walk away and sighed. Children and toys were meant to go together. Men who owned toyshops should have children. And wives.
The sigh became a sob. He turned his back on the snowy Chicago street scene, then dug a handkerchief out of the pocket of his black suit and blew his nose. At least he’d tried to smile.
But the effort was coming late. People expected a man to mourn when he lost his wife and baby—a full year in black and no social engagements (as if he had wanted any)—but they also expected a man to continue to run his business, to set aside his sorrow and take care of his customers. Otto couldn’t even care for his own bleeding heart. How could he be expected to care if little Johann would like a wooden marionette or to take an interest in which porcelain doll little Ingrid would want most? At first he had been bereft. He had closed up the shop and shut himself inside his darkened house. Everyone in the city’s German community had understood. But finally his sister had shoved Brötchen, sliced ham, and an egg under his nose and commanded that he eat. And that he then go and reopen his shop.
“You are not the first man to lose a wife in childbirth. You will not be the last,” she’d said sternly. “Liesel and Gottlieb are in heaven.”
“And I am in hell,” he had growled, causing his sister to gasp.
She had recovered quickly, shaking a finger at him and retorting, “Then I suggest you crawl out. It is time. You have a business to run.”
And so he had gone from bereft to morose, and his friends and neighbors tried to be patient. But when he went from morose to ill-tempered people failed to understand and he lost many a customer. Now Christmas was right around the corner and Otto was trying to remember how to smile. Except that was almost impossible with the snow coming down outside, reminding him of happier times in the village in the Bavarian alps where he had grown up, with people strolling by outside on their way to warm, happy homes.
Peter the mail carrier entered the shop, bringing with him the scent of snow. From somewhere outside the sound of a child’s laugh slipped in also, grabbing at Otto’s heart.
“Otto, look what I have. Something from your sister in France,” Peter called cheerfully, his grin making his moustache dance. If Peter weren’t so content with delivering mail he would have made a great diplomat. He was always happy. Even on Otto’s grumpiest days Peter entered the shop smiling and left the same way. “Open it and let’s see what it is,” he suggested. A package from France was worth a five-minute delay in his deliveries.
Otto took the package, carefully unwrapping it and prying open the wooden box. Nested inside the excelsior he found something more amazing than all the toys in his shop put together.
“What is it?” asked Peter, his voice filled with awe.
“I don’t know,” said Otto. He picked up the delicate item. It easily fit in the palm of his large hand. A glass globe sat on an ornate ceramic base. Inside it was a nostalgic scene of a toyshop that looked like his father’s toyshop on a street in what could have been his village in the Bavarian Alps. Amazing! How had the maker managed that small wonder? The mountains, the snow-capped trees—oh yes, it could have been his village! In front of the toyshop stood a beautiful angel in a white gown with golden...
Product details
- ASIN : B003P9VZHA
- Publisher : St. Martin's Press (October 26, 2010)
- Publication date : October 26, 2010
- Language : English
- File size : 1397 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Not Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 178 pages
- Page numbers source ISBN : 0312594488
- Best Sellers Rank: #465,311 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #700 in Single Women Fiction
- #8,905 in Contemporary Women's Fiction
- #12,827 in Women's Romance Fiction
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
With more than fifty books to her name, Sheila Roberts is a frequent USA Today and Publishers Weekly bestseller - and a fan favorite. Her Christmas perennial "On Strike for Christmas" was made into a movie for the Lifetime Channel and her novel "The Nine Lives of Christmas" was made into a movie for Hallmark. Hallmark also made a sequel, titled "The Nine Kittens of Christmas." Her most recent novel to hit the small screen was "Christmas on Candy Cane Lane," which aired on the Great American Family Channel in 2022. Before settling into her writing career, Sheila owned a singing telegram company and played in band. When she's not traveling, she splits her time between the Pacific Northwest and Southern California.
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She decides to treat herself to an antiques store trip, where she finds a snow globe that she fancies, but should she spend some of her dwindling money to buy it. The store owner convinces her with a story of it's history, that it is special for people who need it. When she takes it home, she realizes that it has special powers. She eventually shares it with her doubting friends, and they too find it does great things for them too.
I found this book to be an uplifting read. Very creative thinking and just a perfect read for the miracles of the season. Though it is a small book, the simplicity makes it a fun read. We love snow globes in our house, which might have added to enjoyment to this fantasy read!!
The book description should tell you if it's right for you or not. But if you happen to like these sort of books- she's just the author to do it well.
Top reviews from other countries
wanted the story to get on. An uplifting story.
Kiley is browsing in a small shop when she comes across the snow globe, according to the owner this isn't an ordinary snow globe...
The snow globe gives each owner a glimpse into their future, Kiley sees a toy store and follows her instincts.
Suzanne sees something she doesn't want to see and thinks the snow globe is jinxed.
Allison thinks the snow globe hasn't worked for her.
The three friends are about to have their lives changed in so many different ways. The story isn't just about the snow globe it's about friendship and what is important in life.
The book is written so that you follow each of the characters story. It is a easy read with lots of feel good factor, not necessarily as a Christmas Story. Yes the history of the snow globe is a bit unbelievable, but isn't that what miracles are all about.
I liked all three main characters, even Suzanne, she had just lost sight if what is important in life. This is the first book of Sheila Roberts I have read and look forward to reading more.