Ofelia Gränd's Blog, page 73
January 20, 2017
Friday Reads | Thirteen: Part One
OMG! I read
Thirteen: Part One
(The Others Project #2) by Adrienne Wilder and I had promised myself not to, not until Part Two was out. Why did I?! *wail* Well, I know why. I really liked
Seven
and has been waiting for the next part of the series for ages (feel like ages at least), and every time I've gone through my TBR list I've seen that green number there.
I'm not overly big on Sci-Fi, or rather this is my kind of Sci-Fi. I tend to avoid the first contact alien invasion kind of stories but books like this grab hold of me and never let go until there is nothing left to read.
So why wait to read this book? Because it ends right in the middle, and when I say right in the middle, I mean right in the middle. I don't think there was a single chapter ending with such a cliffhanger as the book did. There was a silent NO! bouncing around in my head when I came to last line of the page and it said 'End Book One.' So now I almost wish I hadn't read it *sigh*
It was awesome, though. I love the grittiness of the world presented and I really hope there will be more Others books...soon.
Book Two (part one) of the Other's Project.
Quinn Farlin’s life just went from the frying pan into the fire.
All because he made one stupid mistake: he fell in love. Then he was left behind by the love of his life as payment for her freedom. Now Quinn lives as a slave to the Kent Family Empire; counterfeiting, money, paintings, rare coins, and anything else to keep his knees intact and his heart beating.
There seems to be no way out until one night a fireball falls from the sky and a mysterious voice on the phone saves his life. All the stranger asks in return is help for friend.
A friend with scars down his spine. A tattoo of the number 13 on the back of his neck. A friend who upon meeting Quinn can read his mind and watches him with adoration.
And while Quinn is convinced he’s still in love with the woman who left him, his heart has other plans.
Now it’s just a matter of staying alive; a task easier said than done, since nothing is what it seems to be, and the world he’s always known just fell down the rabbit hole.
I'm not overly big on Sci-Fi, or rather this is my kind of Sci-Fi. I tend to avoid the first contact alien invasion kind of stories but books like this grab hold of me and never let go until there is nothing left to read.
So why wait to read this book? Because it ends right in the middle, and when I say right in the middle, I mean right in the middle. I don't think there was a single chapter ending with such a cliffhanger as the book did. There was a silent NO! bouncing around in my head when I came to last line of the page and it said 'End Book One.' So now I almost wish I hadn't read it *sigh*
It was awesome, though. I love the grittiness of the world presented and I really hope there will be more Others books...soon.
Book Two (part one) of the Other's Project.Quinn Farlin’s life just went from the frying pan into the fire.
All because he made one stupid mistake: he fell in love. Then he was left behind by the love of his life as payment for her freedom. Now Quinn lives as a slave to the Kent Family Empire; counterfeiting, money, paintings, rare coins, and anything else to keep his knees intact and his heart beating.
There seems to be no way out until one night a fireball falls from the sky and a mysterious voice on the phone saves his life. All the stranger asks in return is help for friend.
A friend with scars down his spine. A tattoo of the number 13 on the back of his neck. A friend who upon meeting Quinn can read his mind and watches him with adoration.
And while Quinn is convinced he’s still in love with the woman who left him, his heart has other plans.
Now it’s just a matter of staying alive; a task easier said than done, since nothing is what it seems to be, and the world he’s always known just fell down the rabbit hole.
January 13, 2017
Friday Reads | Drawing Love
For this Friday I've read Tully Vincent's
Drawing Love
. It's been out for almost a year but I first saw it now - shows how good I am at paying attention. I've been meaning to read Tully Vincent's debut story,
The Last Yeti
, since it came out in 2015 but it's still there on my to-read list *sigh*. I'm glad I read Drawing Love as soon as I saw it, though. It's super cute.
Taylor is organising the Cupid Dance at his school. The pressure is wearing on him, as is having to make a decision about what to do in the future. All the stress is making his agoraphobia worse and walking through the school doors is threatening to set off a panic attack. But, turns out, Taylor isn't the only one being nervous today. Gordon, Taylor's kindergarten sweetheart, has something he wants to ask Taylor.
Drawing Love left me smiling, and it managed to do so in only nineteen pages. I love short fiction when it's done well!
Taylor Elliott takes being head of the Cupid Dance decorating committee very seriously--he's determined to dazzle his fellow students with his knack for glitz and glamour. Until the committee’s techie bails at the last minute and Taylor's agoraphobia kicks in, leaving him on the verge of a panic attack.
Can a childhood cupid show Taylor how to use his flair for creating sparkle in a whole new way?
Taylor is organising the Cupid Dance at his school. The pressure is wearing on him, as is having to make a decision about what to do in the future. All the stress is making his agoraphobia worse and walking through the school doors is threatening to set off a panic attack. But, turns out, Taylor isn't the only one being nervous today. Gordon, Taylor's kindergarten sweetheart, has something he wants to ask Taylor.
Drawing Love left me smiling, and it managed to do so in only nineteen pages. I love short fiction when it's done well!
Taylor Elliott takes being head of the Cupid Dance decorating committee very seriously--he's determined to dazzle his fellow students with his knack for glitz and glamour. Until the committee’s techie bails at the last minute and Taylor's agoraphobia kicks in, leaving him on the verge of a panic attack.
Can a childhood cupid show Taylor how to use his flair for creating sparkle in a whole new way?
January 6, 2017
Friday Reads | Tommy's Blind Date
The first Friday Reads post of the year *rubs hands*. I've been reading
Tommy's Blind Date
by Anne Brooke, not because I longed to read it, I didn't even know what it was about - though the title says it all, doesn't it? No, I read it because those rubber ducks glare at me every time I look at my library. I'm not sorry I read it, though.
Opening the book, I don't know what my expectations were but it made me smile. A couple of pages in Tommy is on a blind date with the much younger, much hornier, and much drunker Hector and I just love it when Tommy 'queens it up for Britan'.
This is not a story filled with surprises, you pretty much knows what's going to happen all along, but it didn't bother me. It's short, it's steamy, funny at places, and a good friends to lovers read. Definitely, worth the glaring ducks.
Thirty-two year old Tommy Godolphin has been on a series of blind dates, as he doesn’t want to be single any more. However, none of them really hits the spot and the latest one has proved a complete, if amusing, disaster.
When he recounts what happened to his best friend, Jacob, he expects Jacob to laugh with him as usual, but this time he doesn’t. Instead, Jacob challenges Tommy to go out on a blind date with him, to see what, if anything, he might be doing wrong. If Tommy accepts, how will their friendship survive?
Opening the book, I don't know what my expectations were but it made me smile. A couple of pages in Tommy is on a blind date with the much younger, much hornier, and much drunker Hector and I just love it when Tommy 'queens it up for Britan'.
This is not a story filled with surprises, you pretty much knows what's going to happen all along, but it didn't bother me. It's short, it's steamy, funny at places, and a good friends to lovers read. Definitely, worth the glaring ducks.
Thirty-two year old Tommy Godolphin has been on a series of blind dates, as he doesn’t want to be single any more. However, none of them really hits the spot and the latest one has proved a complete, if amusing, disaster.When he recounts what happened to his best friend, Jacob, he expects Jacob to laugh with him as usual, but this time he doesn’t. Instead, Jacob challenges Tommy to go out on a blind date with him, to see what, if anything, he might be doing wrong. If Tommy accepts, how will their friendship survive?
January 1, 2017
The Best Year Ever
The first of January! I do love the first of January, it's my favourite day of the whole year. Everything seems new and fresh, though I have to admit this first of January has caught me a bit unprepared.
I usually have everything figured out goal-wise but I haven't this year. There are too many uncertain things looming for me to have the slightest idea of how much time I'll be able to spend writing. The horrible truth is I might have to get a job *shudder*. A real job, with working hours and time away from the computer, and kids in nursery schools and whatnots. I'll stick my head in the sand for a bit longer and pretend I have all the time in the world to write but...
So...was 2016 the Best Year Ever?
I guess it depends on how you see things. I have refrained from making any political statements throughout the year, but how can a year where an orange man has been elected president of the USA, the UK has decided to leave EU, refugees have been, and still are, running for their lives only to drown on their way to safety, unassuming people were shot when they were out dancing, run over by a truck, or blown to pieces by some lunatic somewhere - how can that be considered the best year ever?
Did I reach my personal goals for 2016 - yes I did. I said to write six stories, and I wrote eight. Or that's not entirely true, one of those stories was written during 2015 but published in 2016. So seven stories were written and eight stories published.
He Melted Us (Part of the Love Unlocked Anthology)
Falling Through
Once in a Forest (Nortown #2)
The Empty Egg (Nortown #2.5)
Once in May (Nortwon #3)
Happy Endings (Nortown 3.5)
Deadly Lies (Deadly Sugar#2)(Part of Buried Desires #2)
Deadly Dates (Deadly Sugar 2.5)
The Maddest of Men
I realise now that that makes nine, but we can pretend Deadly Dates doesn't count since it's not really published anywhere else but here. Still, I'm not really sure 2016 can be names the best year ever.
Will 2017 be the Best Year Ever?
I sure hope so, but the things I mentioned above are still happening, aren't they? But my personal hopes and wants for 2017, apart from peace on earth, are to:
Finish the Nortown series - I've written a first draft of Nortown #4 and will start working on that now so I can send it to my publisher. Then I'm planning two additional stories. If I can write them both in 2017 I don't know, but I hope so.
Write a sequel to The Maddest of Men
Write a sequel to Falling Through
Write a sequel to Blood on Sand
It's somewhere here I realise I'll never have the time to write everything I want to this year, because not only do I want to write the six stories I've listed above, I also want to do some collaborations.
I hope Beaten Track puts together an anthology this year too and for the last two years I've done something with Amy Spector and that's always fun so I hope we can do something and maybe fool Claire Davis and Al Stewart into joining us...but none of that is decided yet. I also have a couple of drafts on other stories lying around that I really should have a second look at - a spring cleaning of my notice boards is in order.
So will 2017 be the best year ever? Well, we all have to try our best to make it that.
I usually have everything figured out goal-wise but I haven't this year. There are too many uncertain things looming for me to have the slightest idea of how much time I'll be able to spend writing. The horrible truth is I might have to get a job *shudder*. A real job, with working hours and time away from the computer, and kids in nursery schools and whatnots. I'll stick my head in the sand for a bit longer and pretend I have all the time in the world to write but...
So...was 2016 the Best Year Ever?
I guess it depends on how you see things. I have refrained from making any political statements throughout the year, but how can a year where an orange man has been elected president of the USA, the UK has decided to leave EU, refugees have been, and still are, running for their lives only to drown on their way to safety, unassuming people were shot when they were out dancing, run over by a truck, or blown to pieces by some lunatic somewhere - how can that be considered the best year ever?
Did I reach my personal goals for 2016 - yes I did. I said to write six stories, and I wrote eight. Or that's not entirely true, one of those stories was written during 2015 but published in 2016. So seven stories were written and eight stories published.
He Melted Us (Part of the Love Unlocked Anthology)
Falling Through
Once in a Forest (Nortown #2)
The Empty Egg (Nortown #2.5)
Once in May (Nortwon #3)
Happy Endings (Nortown 3.5)
Deadly Lies (Deadly Sugar#2)(Part of Buried Desires #2)
Deadly Dates (Deadly Sugar 2.5)
The Maddest of Men
I realise now that that makes nine, but we can pretend Deadly Dates doesn't count since it's not really published anywhere else but here. Still, I'm not really sure 2016 can be names the best year ever.
Will 2017 be the Best Year Ever?
I sure hope so, but the things I mentioned above are still happening, aren't they? But my personal hopes and wants for 2017, apart from peace on earth, are to:
Finish the Nortown series - I've written a first draft of Nortown #4 and will start working on that now so I can send it to my publisher. Then I'm planning two additional stories. If I can write them both in 2017 I don't know, but I hope so.
Write a sequel to The Maddest of Men
Write a sequel to Falling Through
Write a sequel to Blood on Sand
It's somewhere here I realise I'll never have the time to write everything I want to this year, because not only do I want to write the six stories I've listed above, I also want to do some collaborations.
I hope Beaten Track puts together an anthology this year too and for the last two years I've done something with Amy Spector and that's always fun so I hope we can do something and maybe fool Claire Davis and Al Stewart into joining us...but none of that is decided yet. I also have a couple of drafts on other stories lying around that I really should have a second look at - a spring cleaning of my notice boards is in order.
So will 2017 be the best year ever? Well, we all have to try our best to make it that.
December 30, 2016
Friday Reads | The Christmas Mansion
The last read of the year! I was going back, thinking maybe this would be post #52 in the Friday Reads category and turning it into an anniversary post of sorts - it's #54. Apparently, I didn't start 2016 by deciding to do Friday Reads posts, I started in December 2015. Time flies. So, for this 54th post, I've read
The Christmas Mansion
by Hollis Shiloh.
I'm absolutely certain I've read Hollis Shiloh before but according to my read shelf on Goodreads I haven't. That doesn't really mean that I haven't, though. The Christmas Mansion is a short, sweet story about a man fixing up a mansion for a Christmas party and the magician he hires to help him.
It's a gentle story in a historical setting, but apart from the mentioning of Christmas a few times I didn't get a holiday feeling. This is not a steamy read, it's not packed with action, and even though the love interest is a magician there isn't much of the paranormal either...but it's sweet.
If you want one last Christmas read for the year, check it out.
In a world of gas lighting and horse-drawn carriages, Rex is fixing up an old mansion to host a Christmas party for his wealthy family's business. He meets a gentle, insecure magician named Gene, who's come to work on the crumbling mansion's moldings. He doesn't expect to fall in love.
Note: This story first appeared in "Christmas Delights," a collection of Male/Male gay romance stories set in and around the
Christmas season.
Length: 9,615 words
Heat level: sweet
Themes: Christmas, magic, gay romance, sweet romance, historical fantasy
I'm absolutely certain I've read Hollis Shiloh before but according to my read shelf on Goodreads I haven't. That doesn't really mean that I haven't, though. The Christmas Mansion is a short, sweet story about a man fixing up a mansion for a Christmas party and the magician he hires to help him.
It's a gentle story in a historical setting, but apart from the mentioning of Christmas a few times I didn't get a holiday feeling. This is not a steamy read, it's not packed with action, and even though the love interest is a magician there isn't much of the paranormal either...but it's sweet.
If you want one last Christmas read for the year, check it out.
In a world of gas lighting and horse-drawn carriages, Rex is fixing up an old mansion to host a Christmas party for his wealthy family's business. He meets a gentle, insecure magician named Gene, who's come to work on the crumbling mansion's moldings. He doesn't expect to fall in love.Note: This story first appeared in "Christmas Delights," a collection of Male/Male gay romance stories set in and around the
Christmas season.
Length: 9,615 words
Heat level: sweet
Themes: Christmas, magic, gay romance, sweet romance, historical fantasy
December 23, 2016
Friday Reads | A Christmas Outing
I'm in the middle of utter chaos - the food is on the stove, my sister has gone into labour, my little one fell down the stairs and does now have a black eye, my mum is in her way, the vacuum cleaner is still in the kitchen, the rest of the kids are vibrating with expectations, my husband is shielding himself with his guitar, and one of the cats is walking all over the keyboard. But, I have read a story! I picked a short story for this day since it's the day before the day (here, I know most of you celebrate on the 25th but we don't).
A Christmas Outing
by Jonathan Hill is a Christmas coming out story, not necessarily what I usually read but this is brilliant.
I had a laugh reading about poor David and his insane family - there was a lot of recognition there LOL. David is planning on telling his parents he's gay and that Jamie, his boyfriend, actually is his boyfriend and not just a friend from school, but his parents' focus is everything else and making himself heard in the chaos isn't easy. It's sweet and it's funny, and David's sister is insane. I also might have to steal the name Godfrey for some future story, it has a certain ring to it.
I know no one has any time over this weekend but if you happen to find yourself with half and hour or so do check this one out, it's well worth it.
It's that time of year again, when Mum insists on dragging us to the Christmas markets. This year is a bit different, though, as my friend Jamie is coming too.
Mum is so stressed about enjoying the evening that she probably won't enjoy it, Dad has conveniently developed a sudden fear of crowds to try to get out of it, and I'm waiting for the right moment to tell them both that Jamie is more than just a friend...
A feel-good comedy short story of around 10,000 words.
I had a laugh reading about poor David and his insane family - there was a lot of recognition there LOL. David is planning on telling his parents he's gay and that Jamie, his boyfriend, actually is his boyfriend and not just a friend from school, but his parents' focus is everything else and making himself heard in the chaos isn't easy. It's sweet and it's funny, and David's sister is insane. I also might have to steal the name Godfrey for some future story, it has a certain ring to it.
I know no one has any time over this weekend but if you happen to find yourself with half and hour or so do check this one out, it's well worth it.
It's that time of year again, when Mum insists on dragging us to the Christmas markets. This year is a bit different, though, as my friend Jamie is coming too.
Mum is so stressed about enjoying the evening that she probably won't enjoy it, Dad has conveniently developed a sudden fear of crowds to try to get out of it, and I'm waiting for the right moment to tell them both that Jamie is more than just a friend...
A feel-good comedy short story of around 10,000 words.
December 18, 2016
Goodreads M/M Romance Member's Choice Awards Best of 2016
2016 has soon come to an end. It's been fun, hasn't it? Like every year there's been ups and downs, but looking back at it now I did do what I set out to do. It might not have happened the way I'd planned it but I said I'd write six stories and I wrote eight, eleven if I count Love Unlocked, Buried Desires #2, and The Deadly Sugar Trilogy and not only my individual stories - so a good year.
I'll probably do a post closer to New Year about goals and stuff but the reason I started looking back at the year now is that Goodreads M/M Romance Group is hosting their annual Member's Choice Awards. The nomination round is now over and it's time for all of you (members of the Goodreads M/M Romance Group) to cast your vote!
I spend most of my online-time gossiping with Al Stewart and Amy Spector, we actually do talk a whole lot writing too, and therefore it gladdens me to see them nominated. There are many categories and many authors worthy of an award but here is where you'll find us:
All Time Favourite M/M Series: Tork and Adam by Clarie Davis and Al Stewart
Best Anthology: Love Unlocked (seven Beaten Track authors)
Best Book of the Year: The Invasion of Adam by Clarie Davis and Al Stewart
Best Coming of Age: The Invasion of Adam and Shut Your Face, Anthony Pace! by Clarie Davis and Al Stewart
Best Cover Art: Body of Work by Amy Spector and Shut Your Face, Anthony Pace! by Noah Homes
Best Dark Themed: Deadly Lies by Ofelia Gränd
Best Established Couple: The Invasion of Adam by Clarie Davis and Al Stewart
Best Friends to Lovers: Shut Your Face, Anthony Pace! by Clarie Davis and Al Stewart
Best Short Story (Less than 50 pages): Dalton Sikes Finds a Body by Amy Spector
Best Hurt/Comfort: Once in May by Ofelia Gränd
Best Main Character: The Invasion of Adam and Shut Your Face, Anthony Pace! by Clarie Davis and Al Stewart
Best Paranormal: Body of Work by Amy Spector
Best Performance/Visual Arts: The Trap by Clarie Davis and Al Stewart
So roll up your sleeves and get voting!
I'll probably do a post closer to New Year about goals and stuff but the reason I started looking back at the year now is that Goodreads M/M Romance Group is hosting their annual Member's Choice Awards. The nomination round is now over and it's time for all of you (members of the Goodreads M/M Romance Group) to cast your vote!
I spend most of my online-time gossiping with Al Stewart and Amy Spector, we actually do talk a whole lot writing too, and therefore it gladdens me to see them nominated. There are many categories and many authors worthy of an award but here is where you'll find us:
All Time Favourite M/M Series: Tork and Adam by Clarie Davis and Al Stewart
Best Anthology: Love Unlocked (seven Beaten Track authors)
Best Book of the Year: The Invasion of Adam by Clarie Davis and Al Stewart
Best Coming of Age: The Invasion of Adam and Shut Your Face, Anthony Pace! by Clarie Davis and Al Stewart
Best Cover Art: Body of Work by Amy Spector and Shut Your Face, Anthony Pace! by Noah Homes
Best Dark Themed: Deadly Lies by Ofelia Gränd
Best Established Couple: The Invasion of Adam by Clarie Davis and Al Stewart
Best Friends to Lovers: Shut Your Face, Anthony Pace! by Clarie Davis and Al Stewart
Best Short Story (Less than 50 pages): Dalton Sikes Finds a Body by Amy Spector
Best Hurt/Comfort: Once in May by Ofelia Gränd
Best Main Character: The Invasion of Adam and Shut Your Face, Anthony Pace! by Clarie Davis and Al Stewart
Best Paranormal: Body of Work by Amy Spector
Best Performance/Visual Arts: The Trap by Clarie Davis and Al Stewart
So roll up your sleeves and get voting!
December 16, 2016
Friday Reads | Joys R Us
I've just finished reading
Joys R Us
by Kim Fielding. If you're looking for a sweet Christmas read with a focus on the joy of the holiday instead of steamy scenes then this is a story for you!
I really enjoyed it. I loved the beginning of the story when Reece's sister orders him to help her get a special, queuing-all-night kind of toy and he is arguing for a deposit to the nephew's college fund instead. It could've been me. Not that my kids don't get toys but I do like practical things.
Reece is standing in line all night, but then things get our of hand. He trampled to the ground and misses out on the toy. Angel, the toy store manager, is there to patch him up and then sparks fly. When I say sparks fly I don't mean that they rip each other's clothes off and get at it there in the toy store. No, this really is a sweet story with smiles, the occasional touch, and a promise of something more in the future.
I've read quite a few of Kim Fielding's stories and I always like them. If you haven't read anything by her you should check her out. Why not start with this? It's free and it is the season.
Reece is a practical, orderly man, a financial analyst who considers most holiday events wasteful. But his sister coerces him into standing in line overnight for this year's must-have toy. Supplies prove smaller than expected, and Reece gets trampled in the resulting stampede. Toy store manager Angel tends to Reece's wounds. When Angel discovers Reece's cynical attitude, he invites Reece to spend Christmas Eve with him. Over the course of the day, Angel shows Reece what Christmas means to him. With Angel's guidance, maybe Reece can finally understand the joy of the holiday—and maybe even find love as well.
I really enjoyed it. I loved the beginning of the story when Reece's sister orders him to help her get a special, queuing-all-night kind of toy and he is arguing for a deposit to the nephew's college fund instead. It could've been me. Not that my kids don't get toys but I do like practical things.
Reece is standing in line all night, but then things get our of hand. He trampled to the ground and misses out on the toy. Angel, the toy store manager, is there to patch him up and then sparks fly. When I say sparks fly I don't mean that they rip each other's clothes off and get at it there in the toy store. No, this really is a sweet story with smiles, the occasional touch, and a promise of something more in the future.
I've read quite a few of Kim Fielding's stories and I always like them. If you haven't read anything by her you should check her out. Why not start with this? It's free and it is the season.
Reece is a practical, orderly man, a financial analyst who considers most holiday events wasteful. But his sister coerces him into standing in line overnight for this year's must-have toy. Supplies prove smaller than expected, and Reece gets trampled in the resulting stampede. Toy store manager Angel tends to Reece's wounds. When Angel discovers Reece's cynical attitude, he invites Reece to spend Christmas Eve with him. Over the course of the day, Angel shows Reece what Christmas means to him. With Angel's guidance, maybe Reece can finally understand the joy of the holiday—and maybe even find love as well.
December 9, 2016
Friday Reads | The Elf and Cranberry Creampuff
For this Friday I've picked
The Elf and Cranberry Creampuff
by C.L. Etta. This really isn't my kind of story but it's that time of year, is it not?
As both the title and the cover suggest this is a lighthearted holiday romance. Edmund is an elf who has been banished from the North Pole for making inappropriate toys. Every December for the last fifty years he's been helping out at different malls. The rest of the year he's been trapped in a glass globe. Then, when the banishment is over, and it's time for him to go back to the Nort Pole he meets Dexter. Sparks fly and wood is created.
This novelette is filled with holiday cheer and love. Me being me, I'd rather gone without the love declarations but I think you romantics out the would object to that. Sometimes there was a little POV-confusion on my part but I had a few laughs and it did live up to my expectations so I won't complain.
I haven't read anything by C.L. Etta before but after having snooped around a little I saw that she has two other books out and one to come at the very beginning of 2017. If you like pink glitter and spunk tasting of Christmas cookies, be sure to check this one out!
Edmund is an esthetic over industrious elf banished from the North Pole. His punishment -- 50 years spent serving the suburban mall Santas. During his final earthbound Christmas season he meets one of his living and breathing creations--Cranberry Creampuff, the doll that got him banished five decades earlier.
As both the title and the cover suggest this is a lighthearted holiday romance. Edmund is an elf who has been banished from the North Pole for making inappropriate toys. Every December for the last fifty years he's been helping out at different malls. The rest of the year he's been trapped in a glass globe. Then, when the banishment is over, and it's time for him to go back to the Nort Pole he meets Dexter. Sparks fly and wood is created.
This novelette is filled with holiday cheer and love. Me being me, I'd rather gone without the love declarations but I think you romantics out the would object to that. Sometimes there was a little POV-confusion on my part but I had a few laughs and it did live up to my expectations so I won't complain.
I haven't read anything by C.L. Etta before but after having snooped around a little I saw that she has two other books out and one to come at the very beginning of 2017. If you like pink glitter and spunk tasting of Christmas cookies, be sure to check this one out!
Edmund is an esthetic over industrious elf banished from the North Pole. His punishment -- 50 years spent serving the suburban mall Santas. During his final earthbound Christmas season he meets one of his living and breathing creations--Cranberry Creampuff, the doll that got him banished five decades earlier.
December 2, 2016
Friday Reads | If I Should Stumble
I've been staring at the screen for quite a while now not knowing what to write. My book this Friday is If I should Stumble by Claire Davis and Al Stewart and it's fabulous. I went to check what I've read this year as to be sure I'm not lying when I say it's one of my absolute favourites for 2016 - it is one of my absolute favourite 2016 reads. But that's not why I can't find the words to write, what I'm struggling with is that I want to say that this book is important.
Kaz has a home, a family, and a coach who helps him run. Every day he runs with his coach by his side until one day when he is told to keep running and never look back. Kaz's world falls apart, breaks, shatters. He ends up in the UK, but even though he has a place to stay and people around him who care, he is lost. Like so many in real life who has been forced to leave everything behind he struggles to find a way to cope. Nothing works until Tork persuades him to help coach their running team.
It's through that team he meets Zack.
I don't know if it's because I teach Swedish as a second language to immigrant in RL and have met people just like Kaz that this book affects me the way it does. I've talked to young men who have had to run for their lives, one who got his boyfriend murdered by his own family simply because he loved a man. I've had students who have described the days they've spent hidden away in trucks and boats.
They are real people, Kaz might not be but he very well could have been. And this book is important because if it can touch people's hearts, if they can empathise with Kaz, then maybe they will be a little more understanding next time they met a real life Kaz.
This story will rip you apart; it did rip me apart.
Love is sure and timeless and forever. It whispers over the morning coffee and the last thought before sleep. Love is beyond hope, and cruel as life.
Kaz has been in the UK for almost a year, but the days pass by in an endless round of alcohol and nothingness. He has a story but no words good or bad enough to tell it, until one day, he is assigned a new peer mentor who asks him to help train a sponsored running team. Something that was stretched as old parchment breaks inside, and memories begin to re-surface.
Zack is overjoyed when his friend Adam asks him to be part of the sponsored run team trying to make money for the local homeless shelter. All day he makes cakes to lighten people's load, but something is missing from his life. Then he meets the boy with eyes like the desert, and with every step he runs, Zack's light burns away the darkness in Kaz's heart.
As the race heats gets nearer, Tork, Adam, Zack and Jo realise that under Kaz's careful programme, they have a chance to qualify and set right some of the wrongs of this world.
This book features the characters Tork and Adam from The Invasion of Tork and The Invasion of Adam.
Kaz has a home, a family, and a coach who helps him run. Every day he runs with his coach by his side until one day when he is told to keep running and never look back. Kaz's world falls apart, breaks, shatters. He ends up in the UK, but even though he has a place to stay and people around him who care, he is lost. Like so many in real life who has been forced to leave everything behind he struggles to find a way to cope. Nothing works until Tork persuades him to help coach their running team.
It's through that team he meets Zack.
I don't know if it's because I teach Swedish as a second language to immigrant in RL and have met people just like Kaz that this book affects me the way it does. I've talked to young men who have had to run for their lives, one who got his boyfriend murdered by his own family simply because he loved a man. I've had students who have described the days they've spent hidden away in trucks and boats.
They are real people, Kaz might not be but he very well could have been. And this book is important because if it can touch people's hearts, if they can empathise with Kaz, then maybe they will be a little more understanding next time they met a real life Kaz.
This story will rip you apart; it did rip me apart.
Love is sure and timeless and forever. It whispers over the morning coffee and the last thought before sleep. Love is beyond hope, and cruel as life.Kaz has been in the UK for almost a year, but the days pass by in an endless round of alcohol and nothingness. He has a story but no words good or bad enough to tell it, until one day, he is assigned a new peer mentor who asks him to help train a sponsored running team. Something that was stretched as old parchment breaks inside, and memories begin to re-surface.
Zack is overjoyed when his friend Adam asks him to be part of the sponsored run team trying to make money for the local homeless shelter. All day he makes cakes to lighten people's load, but something is missing from his life. Then he meets the boy with eyes like the desert, and with every step he runs, Zack's light burns away the darkness in Kaz's heart.
As the race heats gets nearer, Tork, Adam, Zack and Jo realise that under Kaz's careful programme, they have a chance to qualify and set right some of the wrongs of this world.
This book features the characters Tork and Adam from The Invasion of Tork and The Invasion of Adam.
