24 Perfect Cozy, Winter Books To Read When It’s Snowing

In New York City in 1899, Clara Stole, the mayor’s proper daughter, is leading a double life. Since her mother was murdered, she has been training herself in self defense. On Christmas Eve, disaster strikes.

Her home is destroyed and her father is abducted by beings that are definitely not human. To find her father she must journey to the land of Cane with her only companion being Nicholas, a dethroned prince. If she wants to survive, she has to trust him but his eyes burn with secrets and a need she can’t define.

Soon she realizes she won’t leave Cane unscathed, if at all, with the seductive faery queen Anise hunting them.

This tale was inspired by Alaskan folklore and takes Olive, a 20-year-old resident in a remote psychiatric hospital on a journey into the tundra with her arctic fox companion, a young Athabascan child, and an old trapper where she discovers the secrets of the black wolf, the story of the land’s ancestors, and the power of the northern lights that could unite them all.

This is a collection of four cozy winter stories in one book by four different authors.

There is a snowy road trip with secrets and crushes revealed from Kasie West, a Hanukkah miracle when a Jewish girl working as a department store elf finds love from Aimee Friedman, a Christmas Eve plot twist when a high school couple exchange gifts from Melissa de la Cruz, and a scavenger hunt turned romantic at a crowded airport from Nic Stone.

Alaska in 1920 is a brutal place to homestead, especially for Jack and Mabel, new arrivals. They are childless and drifting apart as he breaks under the weight of the farm and she crumbles under the loneliness and despair.

During a moment of fun at the first snowfall, they build a child out of snow. The next morning it’s gone but they spot a young blonde-haired girl running through the trees.

The little girl, Faina, seems to be a child of the woods who hunts with a red fox at her side, skims lightly across the snow, and somehow survives the Alaskan wilderness. As they struggle to understand this child, they begin to love her as their own, but things rarely appear as they are and what they learn about Faina will transform all of them.

Ok, I usually paraphrase book descriptions but this one was too good to change, so here it is direct from Good Reads.

“Welcome to Alaska!

A special welcome to my boyfriend, Jake, the cutest tourist I’ve ever met!

Explore our natural beauties and untouched wilderness.

Jake and I like to hike our great (romantic!) nature trails. . . .

Enjoy our perfect skiing and snowboarding conditions.

Be sure to catch Will Parker doing his snowboarding tricks. He makes all the girls in town melt. (Except for me. Who needs Will when you’ve got Jake?)

Experience our world-class resorts and spas.

While you’re there, find out what’s up with that hot girl Jake brought to the lodge this year. She’s probably just his cousin or something. Right?!

Get ready for a vacation you’ll never forget!”

Every winter Evan, straight laced and Ivy league-bound, looks forward to a visit from his childhood friend Lucy who moved away after her parents divorce.

This year when Lucy arrives, she isn’t the girl next door she used to be. Now she has chopped, dyed black hair, a nose ring, and a scowl, but Evan knows the old Lucy is under there somewhere and he’s determined to find her, even if it means making her mad.

If you’re looking for a winter book and graphic novel, check this one out!

Katrina sees a homeless man sleeping in an alley outside of a coffee shop and decides to leave him coffee and pastries.

Malcom is a guardian angel on break between missons and wants to reward Katrina by fulfilling her deepest desire if only she can decide what that is.

Ashleigh is seventeen and about to experience a lot of things for the first time in her life: snow, small town life, and boys. She is moving from sunny Texas to a freezing island in the middle of Lake Michigan with her mom.

It’s completely snow-bound and doesn’t even have cars, just sleighs. Only 30 people attend the high school and now she has to face irresistible boys like Josh Wynter.

Kristen came up with three New Year’s Resolutions with the help of her friends Crystal, Jones, and Emma:

Survive the month at my crazy sister’s house with my three-year-old nephew.

Learn to ice skate better. Or fall less. Or just get a cute new skating outfit.

Find a cute hock and winter-loving boy to invite on the weekend cabin trip with everyone.

Easy, right?

This is a classic winter book and a series I’m going to read for the first time this winter and I’M SO EXCITED!

Lucy is the first of her siblings to find the secret of the wardrobe in the professor’s old, mysterious house. At first her siblings don’t believe her, but soon Edmund, Peter, and Susan step through the wardrobe themselves and find Narnia, the world buried under the evil enchantment of the White Witch.

When they meet Aslan the lion they realize they’ve been called to a great adventure and bravely join the battle to free Narnia.

Lily left a red notebook full off challenges on a shelf in her favorite bookstore, waiting for someone to come along and accept it’s dares.

Could Dash be the right guys or are they just destined to trade dares, dreams, and desires in the notebook they share and pass back and forth at locations across New York? Could they connect as well in-person as they do in the notebook or will it be a disastrous mismatch?

Grace has watched the wolves behind her house for years and the yellow-eyed wolf is a chilling presence she can’t seem to live without.

Sam has lived two lives. In the winter with the protection of the pack and silent company of a fearless girl in the frozen woods and in the summer with a few precious months as a human until the cold turns him back.

Grace meets a yellow-eyed boy who takes her breath away and know it’s her wolf. It has to be, but as winter approaches, Sam must find a way to remain human or risk losing himself and Grace forever.

Meredith and Nina Whitson are as different as sisters can be. One raised a family at home and managed the family apple orchard, the other pursued a dream to travel the world and become a famous photojournalist. But when their father falls ill, they find themselves together again alongside their cold, disapproving mother, Anya.

Their only connection with her is an old Russian Fairytale she told the girls at night when they were younger. On his deathbed, their father asks for one last promise: the fairytale will be told one last time all the way to the end.

This takes them on an unexpected journey into Anya’s life in war-torn Leningrad more than five decades ago.

Lyra is rushing to the cold, far north where witch clans and armored bears rule, where Gobblers take the children they steal – including her friend Roger, where her fearsome uncle Asriel is trying to build a bridge to a parallel world.

Lyra is a schemer and a liar, as fierce a champion as Roger or Asriel could ask for, but she doesn’t know that helping one of them will be betraying the other.

Vasilisa lives at the edge of the Russian wilderness where winter lasts most of the year and snowdrifts grow taller than houses, but she doesn’t mind. She and her siblings listen to their nurse’s fairy tales huddled around a fire, their favorite being about the blue-eyed winter demon. Her nurse says wise Russians fear him and honor the spirits of house, yard, and forest that protect their homes from evil.

After her mother dies, her father brings home a new fiercely devout, city-breed wife who forbids thee family from honoring household sprits. Crops begin to fail, evil creatures of the forest creep nearer, and misfortune stalks the village. Her step-mother continues to grow harsher, determined to groom her stepdaughter for marriage or confinement in a convent.

As danger circles, Vasilisa must defy the people she loves and call on dangerous gifts she has long kept hidden in order to protect her family from a threat straight from her nurse’s frightening tales.

I can’t wait to read this one!

If you’re looking for a lighthearted winter book or something middle grade, this is perfect.

Emery Mason does not like the holidays, with the tinsel, the shopping, and all the other trappings of the season. But this year she is forced to work as an elf at her parent’s Santa photo booth at the mall.

That’s where she meets Alejandro Perez who works at the hot cocoa shop next door and is always full of holiday spirit. He’s cute but nothing like her real crush, Sawyer Kade, a brooding artist.

But the more time she spends with Alex, the more she realizes she may not be the Grinch she always thought she was. Her world is thrown upside down, though, after a blizzard, a Secret Santa surprise, and a family disagreement. Can she embrace the holiday magic and find the perfect mistletoe kiss?

Now, if you’re looking for a short winter book, here you go! If you love The Princess Diaries (movies or books) this is part of thee series and perfect for you.

A princess always knows how to celebrate the holidays from Christmas to Chinese New Year, Yule to Saturnalia, and Hanukkah to Kwanzaa, but what about Genovia?

They celebrate with the Genovian Faberge advent calendar, hot chocolate with marshmallows, and the fabulous holiday movies.

This cozy winter book takes us to Nantucket where Christina Antonioni is preparing for the holidays at her toy shop, unpacking last-minute shipments and decorating for her loyal customers. But when her Scrooge of a landlord raises her rent, she’s not sure if she’ll be able to continue business on the wharf.

She hopes there is a warm heart under his steely exterior and when she begins to bond with his young granddaughter, Wink, who frequents the shop, she learns he isn’t so cold after all. With the help of Wink’s charming and handsome uncle, it may be the best Christmas any of them have imagined.

Ella Savas is a waitress at the Noel Street Diner in Garland, Utah. She’s not sure what to make of Emerson Stone’s sudden appearance making a small stir in their town.

Their lives begin to unexpectedly intertwine and she learns he’s not only fighting demons as a decorated Vietnam POWE, but may even have the answer to her own past pain, leading to a remarkable act of forgiveness.

Joy misses her grandmother dearly, but when she hears the terms of Nana’s will, she is shocked a little irked. Joy moved to Denver to take over as the CEO of a nail polish company and now she is being asked to take over a bed and breakfast in North Carolina for six months.

As annoyed as she is, there is no denying the charm of Heart and Soul, especially at the holidays. It’s always elaborately decorated for the season with themed rooms and dazzling lawn displays. The whole town takes part in the festivities and Joy is letting her reservations melt away.

There’s another reason for it’s popularity, though. Rumor has it that guests can be reunited with the spirit of a loved one during the holiday season. Joy is skeptical but feels her Nana all around her, maybe even doing some matchmaking with her and Will Drake, a handsome estate attorney.

Mina is sixteen and motherless and her father is a vicious magician. Her father cut her failing heart out and replaced it with one made of glass which has never beat with love, or anything for that matter. When she visits Whitespring Castle for the first time, she sees the king and forms a plan to win his heart.

Lynet is fifteen and looks just like her late mother. Turns out, a magician made her from snow in the dead queen’s image. Even though she was made from her dead mother, she would much rather be like her fierce and regal stepmother Mina. Soon her father wants Lynet to take over the southern territories that were Mina’s. Mina starts looking at Lynet with hatred and Lynet has to decide if she should win back her only mother or defeat her.

I read this one and enjoyed it enough but it was pretty literal in the title. I would still recommend it though.

Erica Falck is returning to her hometown of Fjallbacka after her parent’s funeral where she finds the community on the brink of tragedy and the death of her childhood friend, Alex, is just the beginning.

It seems she has taken her own life when she is found frozen in a ice-cold bath with her wrists slashed. Her interest grows into an obsession as she decides to write a book about Alex.

Patrik Hedstrom is a local detective with his own suspicions about the case but the disturbing past of the town isn’t revealed until they start working together.

If you’re looking for a Nordic noir book to cozy up with this winter, look no further!

Just before Christmas is the darkest time of year in Lapland, above the Arctic Circle and people tend to go a little insane, whether they’ve killed someone or not.

A Somalian refugee-turned-actess is found murdered on a reindeer farm, gruesomely murdered with a racial slur carved into her chest. Inspector Kari Vaara is the head of the rural police force and under a lot of pressure to solve the crime himself and keep the potentially explosive case out of the media.

He is also dealing with culture shock at home with a young American wife who is pregnant. She doesn’t understand much about her new home and is struggling to come to terms with it. He is haunted by a rough past that keeps biting at his heels: the rich man his ex-wife left him for may be the killer.

This is a holiday anthology perfect for anyone that loves holiday specials and Hallmark Christmas movies.

Whether you enjoy Christmas, celebrate Hanukkah, Winter Solstice, or New Years, there’s a story for you. Definitely check out this perfect winter book for a cozy afternoon in.