It’s Read Around the Rainbow time!!! The last one of the year, which is crazy. On the last Friday of every month, we’re a group of authors who get together and blog on the same topic. The topic this time around is Five Winter Holiday Reads.
We said it could be stories we’ve read recently, stories on our TBR, stories we recommend, stories we’ve written.
Should be easy, right?
Well… here’s the thing. I don’t really read holiday stories. Funny since when I’m not Ofelia, I’m Holly Day and she has dedicated her life to holidays.
My favourite stories are paranormal with a lot of blood, gore, and violence. I want monsters, I want suffering, I want evil creatures, and do you know when they’re not around??
During Christmas.
Most holiday stories I pick, I squirm and cringe because they’re so effing sweet I fear they’ll give me diabetes. Another thing that works against me when it comes to holiday stories is that I do my very best not to read stories with characters under thirty. I’m fine with the occasional twenty-five-year-old, but I much prefer a forty-five-year-old to a twenty-five-year-old, and do you know when the young adults come out to play? Yes, around the holidays. They’re home from college to visit their parents or something similar.
So holiday reads? Well, I’ll do my best.
I think my favourite holiday story is The Remaking of Corbin Wale by Roan Parrish. I love bakers and this is a bakery story where they’re celebrating Hannukah. It’s magical, and if you haven’t read it, I think you should.
Do you remember what I said above, about me preferring paranormal stories with adult characters? I should add that if I happen to read the blurb of a book and it says one of the characters is a virgin, I instantly dismiss the book. Nope. Not going there. I refuse to read stories where they make a thing about it. So this one is a surprise. For my second pick, I’m gonna go with Mr. Frosty Pants by Leta Blake. Virgin character, MC coming home from college over the holidays, contemporary. Everything I dislike in a book LOL.
It’s lovely. I really enjoyed it 😊
Third, I think I’ll go with Shiny Things by Amy Spector. It’s a Thanksgiving story, and again we have a new adult contemporary one, but there is a scene in this story that always makes me cry. And I’ve read it several times. Check it out!
Fourth, Up! by Al Stewart. I don’t remember if it’s Christmas or New Year, but this deals with mental health and art. It’s free, so if you haven’t read it, do!
Last but not least, I’m gonna go with A Christmas Outing by Jonathan Hill. YA, again, contemporary, again, but I laughed a lot. It’s a short story that shouldn’t be missed!
That’s it! Sorry for the Grinch energy 😆 For more recs and more cheery feelings, check out what the others have to say!
Ofelia Grand 
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