Giovanni's Light: The Story of a Town Where Time Stopped for Christmas. This item is unavailable.Giovanni's Light: The Story of a Town Where Time Stopped for Christmas

Ryland Falls wasn't paradise, but there was a certain storybook quality about the town that made visitors catch their breath. As in a book, the order of the stories never changed. On December first, the Chamber of Commerce always hung out the "Yuletide Greetings" banners, the plastic Santa Claus went back on the top of the firehouse roof, and grumpy Diane at Elwood's Market started wearing her set of imitation reindeer antlers.

Yet on this particular Christmas, there were signs that the order of things would change. And when it did, the people in Ryland Falls never celebrated Christmas the same way again.

The Christmas spirit is alive and well in this inspiring story about the redeeming power of the imagination and the true nature of compassion.

Phyllis Theroux is the author of The Book of Eulogies, Nightlights: Bedtime Stories for Parents in the Dark, Peripheral Visions, California and Other States of Grace, and Serefina Under the Circumstances, a children's book. She is also the founder of Nightwriters (www.nightwriters.com), which holds writing seminars in the United States and Europe. She lives in Ashland, Virginia.