No, it's not too soon for holiday reads, as the delightful The Matzah Ball by Jean Meltzer proves. Rachel Rubenstein-Goldblatt has a secret: she loves Christmas so much, she has a secret career as a Christmas romance novelist. But when her publisher asks her to write a Hanukkah romance, she needs inspiration fast . . . but what she definitely doesn't need is to run into her childhood enemy on a research trip.