Friday Reads | Joys R Us

December 16, 2016February 12, 2019 ~ Ofelia Gränd ~ Leave a comment

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 out 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 it on 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.

books2read.com/JoysRUs *

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.

* By clicking the Books2Read link you’ll be taken to an external page. Links to Smashwords, Kobo U.S and Amazon contain affiliate links that earn me a small commission at no additional cost to you. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Friday Reads | The Elf and Cranberry Creampuff

December 9, 2016February 12, 2019 ~ Ofelia Gränd ~ Leave a comment

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.

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!

books2read.com/CanberryCreampuff *

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.

* By clicking the Books2Read link you’ll be taken to an external page. Links to Smashwords, Kobo U.S and Amazon contain affiliate links that earn me a small commission at no additional cost to you. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Friday Reads | If I Should Stumble

December 2, 2016February 12, 2019 ~ Ofelia Gränd ~ Leave a comment

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.

books2read.com/IfIShouldStumble

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.

* By clicking the Books2Read link you’ll be taken to an external page. Links to Smashwords, Kobo U.S and Amazon contain affiliate links that earn me a small commission at no additional cost to you. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.