Next Christmas in Girouette by Michael Welch

Next Christmas in Girouette is a full-length novel for people of all ages—nine to ninety-nine—who want to share a heart-warming literary adventure at Christmastime.   Set on the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains in Montana, this is the story of a brother and sister—Autry and Oxana Quinn—who find themselves stranded in a Girouette, a virtual ghost town, from Thanksgiving through Christmas when their father is taken ill.  Their grandfather, a Marine Captain long retired, plus an eccentric old café owner, a Blackfeet Indian horse trader who was once  the town’s mayor, a couple who published the local newspaper and an ancient deaf-mute trapper are the only remaining inhabitants of Girouette.  These self-styled “diehards” all seem to have one thing in common.  Thanks to a mysterious event 60 years earlier, they still believe in Santa Claus. Next Christmas in Girouette features something for everyone: carefree cowboys who race their horses over snow-covered country roads, a team of wolves trained by a mountain man to pull a sleigh, a stroll that nearly turns tragic on a treacherous buffalo jump, a serialized newspaper story titled “The Adventures of Rocky Mountain Santa,” a desperate attempt to escape from an abandoned copper mine, a night-time journey through the mountains on a frozen river and finally the miracle that delivers wayfaring strangers to Girouette during a white-out on Christmas Eve. The book revels in the solitary beauty of winter in Big Sky Country, the enduring wisdom of the elderly citizens of Girouette, the excitement of frontier history coming to life, the inspiration of a family healing itself and the magic of an old-fashioned western Christmas.  Read Next Christmas in Girouette with your family this year, and you’ll want to revisit it for years and years to come at holiday time.