Tag: Christmas

Wrap-Up Wednesday | December Reads

~ Ofelia Gränd ~ Leave a comment

X-mas-read

It’s been a pleasure to have so many people guesting my blog this month, and we have a few more to go before the month is over. Normally, I post a little something about the books I read, but there hasn’t been any space – not that I’m complaining LOL

I thought I’d do a Wrap-Up Wednesday thingy. And the month isn’t over yet, so I might read more books, but this is what I have so far:

Love at First Spray

I was reading this on my phone while my kids were shouting and shrieking, jumping and climbing, fighting and laughing – yes, it changes that fast. Love at First Spray by Tom Caval is a short Christmas story about Simon who’s unfortunate enough not to understand his boyfriend is a spoiled brat.

It annoyed me LOL

Simon is out hunting for a certain perfume in the Christmas crowd – this was pre-covid – but it’s sold out everywhere. When he steps into yet another shop, he gets sprayed by some sample cologne. Tariq, the sprayer, does his best to help Simon and sparks fly.

I liked it, but I would’ve wanted more an ending. Keep in mind, I was a bit distracted by the kids while reading, but I wasn’t really feeling the Christmas joy. Sure there were gifts and such, but I would’ve wanted more.

The idea is cute, though! And it’s free!

books2read.com/LoveAtFirstSpray

Love At First SprayA Christmas Short Story

Oh! Oh! Oh! It’s Love time!

It’s the night before Christmas in London. Simon, a small-time clerk in the Big City, has just two hours to buy all the items on a ridiculously detailed (and expensive) gift list. A long list provided by Joshua, his handsome boyfriend, who also happens to be a self-absorbed aspiring model.

Now the race is on to check all the items on the list. For the sake of love. Simon is almost done, but there is only one item left: the latest perfume obsession for gays. Of course, it is sold-out and a desperate Simon needs to scour the city for it. But little does he know, he will have the help of a sexy and exotic stranger.

Love at First Spray is a funny, romantic and cosy gay Christmas short story, about finding love in the most unexpected place. 

I Saw Daddy Kissing Santa Claus

This is another short story. Jacob is recovering from the loss of his wife, juggling life with two kids on his own. They’re going to the mall to see Santa as they do every year.

When it’s his daughter’s turn to sit on Santa’s lap, he can’t hear what they’re saying but notices how Santa is watching him. Later that night, he meets a man at a bar…

It’s a cute story. I liked the beginning, but then there is some skimming over things. It’s a 10k story, and it takes place over a year. But cute!

books2read.com/ISawDaddyKissingSantaClaus

I-saw-Daddy-Kissing-SantaStill recovering from an unexpected tragedy, single dad Jacob isn’t sure he’s ready to move on – until he meets Theo in a bar at Christmas. When what was meant to be a simple one-off encounter becomes more complicated, will Jacob have the strength to fall and trust Theo to catch him?

A sweet festive short story of 10,000 words.

Unwrapping

Unwrapping by Clare London is a short-short, only twelve pages. Matt and Harry have been seeing each other for a year, only they’ve never made it official. They might spend almost every day together, tell each other everything, but what are they? Friends? With benefits? Or…

I feel like I’m overusing the word cute, but this is cute! LOL

You can read it on Clare’s site.

UnwrappingLast Christmas Eve, Harry and Matt got together. Sort of. This Christmas Eve – and with the help of a Secret Santa gift – will they make it official?

Free online story, published in December 2017 on the author’s web site.

Home in a Snowstorm

Home in a Snowstorm (Snow Globes #1) by Ava Kelly. I got this much because of the cover, pretty! Here we have a teacher and a dad with a broken leg. It’s a gentle slow-building story.

Daniel is a teacher, and on the last day of school, one of his students needs a ride home because her dad has broken his leg and can’t come and get her. Snow and slippery roads prevent Daniel from leaving, and little by little sparks fly.

books2read.com/HomeinaSnowstorm

Home-in-a-SnowstormDaniel Wu is an elementary school teacher with a big heart and a collection of snow globes to match his travels. The small town he has settled in, however, feels like it could be home. All that’s missing is someone special and a family to call his own.

Resigned to spending the holidays alone, Daniel finishes work on the last day of school, only to stumble upon one his students, Abby Weber, who needs a ride home. Jeffrey Weber, single father and recent owner of a cast on his broken leg, needs quite a bit of help around the house when Daniel drops Abby off. Christmas Eve is around the corner, so Daniel can’t let the two fend for themselves. What he doesn’t expect, however, is the snowstorm that strands him in their remote home in the forest. But is this misfortune, or could it be a wish come true?

Oranges and Cloves

We’re continuing with the cover! Oranges and Cloves by Annabelle Jay is another Christmas story about a single dad.

Landon is a stressed father of three who collides with a man in the grocery shop. He hurries on home to get his kids and go to the church’s Advent celebrations. There he sees the man again, by the cloves and oranges.

I liked how this story started, but then it was like the author forgot to write the last chapter or accidentally deleted the epilogue. Not bad, but a missed opportunity.

books2read.com/OrangesandCloves

Oranges-and-ClovesLandon, father of three, accidentally runs into another shopper while looking at oranges in the supermarket. He thinks little of the incident, but after being tasked to find a church by his mother and testing out a Children’s Advent Celebration with his kids, he discovers that the shopper is actually one of the instructors helping all of the children make spiced orange pomanders. The man gives Landon a pomander with his phone number on it, but since Landon swore off men for 2017 after his partner left him and his dates have all flakes on him, will he take the instructor up on his offer of a date?

Heathcliff and the Sexy Whippet

Last but not least, we have Heathcliff and the Sexy Whippet by A.M. Fox. This is hilarious. It’s a whirlwind of crazy, paws, and impromptu therapy sessions. Sean is normally working with dogs but is applying for a job at a movie set.

Who says humans don’t have the same needs dogs do? Sean. Sean says that, I’m not sure anyone else does. And to be honest, I think my dog would have eaten Sean LOL. But you never know, he is said to be a sexy Whippet.

I read this sitting on the sofa, chuckling while my husband gave me funny looks.

books2read.com/HeathcliffAndTheSexyWhippet

A.M. Fox was here n the blog earlier this month, and you can read his post here.

Heathcliff and the sexy WhippetA Christmas feel-good tale of snowy, cobbled streets, unfulfilled desires and the sexiest whippet in Yorkshire!
When bubbly Sean Miles applies for a job with a film company, little does he realise what he’s getting into. As an experienced dog groomer, he’s great with fur and claws and loves a poochie cuddle, but has never offered human treatments. Until now.
Heath Mailer is playing the character of Heathcliff. Dark, brooding and intense, the lead actor can scowl aplenty but when he’s in trouble he doesn’t know how to ask for help. Who’s going to offer a hand to Mister Moody?
Forced to work together, Sean and Heath discover some unusual techniques that not only aid the production but also get to the heart of what ails the lead actor. Whoever said dog therapy can’t work on people?

Happy reading!

X-mas Read | Honey Baked

~ Ofelia Gränd ~ Leave a comment

X-mas-read
“Eww! It’s goats’ cheese.”
“Drizzled in honey.” Jian popped one in his mouth too. “Delicious.”
“Nasty! Those will not go on the menu.”
“I knew you’d say that.”
“Why did you make me eat it?”
His eyes sparkled as he met Victor’s gaze. “Because I hope you’ll learn to love goats’ cheese one day, and we can have some goats’ cheese and honey kind of fun.”
Victor scrunched up his face. “We’re not the kind of people who mix food and sex, it’s not sanitary.”
The laugh filled Victor’s chest with tingles. “One day, darling.”

That’s Victor and Jian talking from 24 Dates. Notice how the cheese and honey aren’t sanitary? John and Zachary from Honey Baked may or may not agree.

Eww, as Victor says above, was Amy Spector’s reaction when she beta-read Honey Baked for me LOL

This is a short story, featuring John and Zach from Once in May. Of all the Nortown stories, Once in May is my favourite. While I’ve written several short stories with Aiden and Tristan, John and Zach are the only other characters getting to continue outside their main story.

Tristan is supposed to dress up as Santa but gets sick, so Zach has to cover for him.

Honey baked honey

Excerpt:

Carefully placing the morsel in John’s mouth, he almost groaned as John’s lips closed around his fingers.

“Mm…” John nodded and chewed.

“Better?”

“You always make things better.”

“I do?”

“Of course. Give me more.”

Zachary huffed a laugh and reached for another piece, but before he fed it to John, he leaned in until their lips practically touched. “It might cost you.”

John brought their lips together, the fake beard getting in the way, and giggled, plucking the rye bread from Zach’s hand. “Take off the beard.”

“I won’t be Santa if I do,” Zach protested but gladly got rid of the beard. It was itchy and hot.

John rearranged himself, sliding his butt higher up Zach’s leg. “Yeah…” He buried his fingertips in his real beard. “Perhaps my Santa hasn’t gone all white-haired yet.”

Zach curled his hand around John’s hip. “Any more wishes I may fulfil?”

***

Nervousness flitted through John’s chest. “There might be something…”

“Yeah?” Zachary’s blue eyes were filled with mischief, and John hesitated. It was a far too serious request to bring up here, not like they were gonna do it here anyway, and saying it out loud only to then have it hanging over him would be too stressful. And what if Zachary didn’t want to, or wanted it and then would be disappointed?

“What are you thinking?” Zachary was still smiling, but he was too good at reading John by now not to notice something was up. John could see it in the way some of the sparkles in his eyes died.

“It’s nothing.”

“Tell me. I’m Santa, remember? I already know everything anyway.”

John smiled. “You do, huh? What was I thinking, then, Santa?” He could play. He might not be good at it, always fearing he’d say the wrong thing or give a false impression, but what could go wrong playing with Santa?

“You were thinking how you want to eat honey-baked Brie off my bare stomach.” Zach gave him a serious look. “I know because I read minds. Nothing to be embarrassed about. Many have that wish.”

John swallowed a laugh. “And you let them? I’m not sure I want to eat Brie from there if half the town have already been smearing theirs around.”

“Ha! You naughty little…of course, I don’t lend my stomach out to anyone. Only to the ones who are dear to me.”

“Of course, of course. You were wrong, though. It wasn’t what I was thinking.” John reached for the cheese knife and cut himself a piece, making sure he got plenty of honey and almonds on it.

Honey-BakedAll John wants is to stay at home in peace and quiet, but when the Santa booked for the town’s Christmas party at Jen’s cafe catches a fever, Zachary decides to take his place. It’s just for a few hours, John should be able to take part in the celebrations like any normal person, but instead, he finds himself hiding in the kitchen, eating loads of the delicious honey baked Brie cheese Jen has made.

Zachary loved the town’s Christmas party as a child, and he wants to spread some holiday cheer both to the kids in Nortown and to John. Being Santa is not as easy as he thought it would be, though. And how he’s gonna be able to lure John out of the kitchen and get him to sit on Santa’s lap, he doesn’t know.

books2read.com/HoneyBaked

Gust Post | Little Tree by Rafe Jadison

~ Ofelia Gränd ~ Leave a comment

Interview

Today we have an interview! Rafe Jadison has allowed me to ask him a few questions about him and his holiday story, Little Tree, so lets jump right in. Welcome Rafe!

Do you believe in the concept of a muse? What’s yours like?

It’s funny you should ask that, because I don’t know that I actually believe in a muse, but I often jokingly write about one on my oh so neglected blog.  I think there are many people and things that can inspire us to write.  The muse I write about in my blog is slightly sarcastic, and well, let’s just say she’s a lot.  In real life, the people who often inspire me to write are slightly more heroic.  There are times in my life where I see someone in a precarious situation and wonder what that person must be going through.  I think the more bothered I am by it, the more likely I am to write about it.  I want to give them a happy ending.  I want to work out their problems.  I want to tell their story.  Usually these are people who I really don’t know at all, and often people I haven’t even spoken to, just someone who caught my attention.  For all I know my ideas about these people are completely wrong, but filling in the blanks can be like sudoku for writers.

Do you read your reviews?

So, I carefully read my reviews.  I remember reading one when I first started publishing, and it really hurt my feelings.  I was grateful that the same book later received some good reviews.  I also felt better when I saw that some of my favorite authors, people who I think are talented and gifted people, had some bad reviews.  I try to remember that every book is really not for every person.  I try to remember that I am writing for the people who do appreciate my work, and one good review can quickly make up for a bad one in my opinion.  I also know that I have to prepare to read them.  I have to remind myself that they could be bad, and then I read them.

Can you share with us something about the book that’s not in the blurb?

Okay, Little Tree is a very personal story to me.  I am not the main character, although we have many things in common, and his love interest is not anyone that I’m seeing, but he does resemble someone I used to love.  Little Tree for me was an exploration of what would happen if the one who got away came back.  The house, well, that it is very similar to one of the houses that I grew up in, and it’s also in Florida.

What is your work schedule like? When do you fit your writing in?

My day job is hectic.  I frequently commit to things that I probably shouldn’t, but I think that my work is important, and so I do it. With that being said, my writing schedule comes in the evenings.  Instead of watching TV after dinner, I write.  It’s what I do on the weekend, other than clean and try to get some outdoor exercise.  I find that to maintain a writing schedule you may often need to give things up.  Once I acknowledged that, it was easier for me to make time to write.

What’s your pet peeve?

I am a stickler about manners.  I don’t mean that I police people about which fork they use, or freak out if people don’t send greeting cards.  I am referring to just generally treating people with respect.  I think how we talk to others says a great deal about who we are.  I appreciate people who even when going through hard times or having a bad day/year/life still manage to be polite to others.  Kindness goes much further with me than strength or intelligence.  I know we all have days, and there are times we need to complain to our BFFs, but I have little patience general nastiness toward others.

Thank you for stopping by Rafe! And here is a little about Rafe’s holiday story, Little Tree.

littletree

A few days before Christmas, David Weathers finds himself hopping a plane to his childhood home in Florida and doesn’t know why. His parents are gone, he has no siblings, yet something draws him on.

David can almost feel the magic in the air, but then he discovers Jared Acosta, the man who broke his heart twenty years earlier, has moved three doors away. Reluctantly David accepts Jared’s invitation to dinner, only to find that twenty years may not be enough for some wounds to heal.

Soon David seeks advice from his mother’s best friend Marisol, a vibrant, wise woman who believes in second chances. Can she convince David to take a chance on the man who is working so hard to be near him now? Will he be able to forgive a past that left both him and Jared unlucky in love?

Excerpt:

“I came to take you home. I came to tell you that it would be okay now, that we could be together, and that nothing was going to get in our way.”

“So why didn’t you?”

“That whole walk, and it had to have been at least a half-hour, there was barely a time when you quit smiling,” Jared said.

“I was still hurting. You saw that on my face.”

“Yeah, and I knew that I had been the one who had made you feel that way.”

“But you could have been the one who stopped me from feeling that way,” David said.

“Or, I could have just hurt you over and over again. When I saw you with this other guy, and I saw the way he made you laugh, it made me a little happy for you,” Jared said.

“That was George. He was just a friend. He was British and had a really wicked sense of humor. He knew what I was going through. His girlfriend broke up with him when he took the job in Korea. He was the person they hired to take the position you didn’t fill. He was my roommate, but that was it.”

“It didn’t matter,” Jared said. “I saw that you still had the potential to laugh, to go on, to find happiness with some other guy, and that made me feel great. When I saw the two of you with those kids, I started to think about all the possibilities that you could have in your life.”

“Not many gay couples had kids back then,” David said. “Same-sex marriage was far from a reality in most places.”

“But we dreamed of kids,” Jared protested. “We dreamed of them. Lots of gay people dreamed of that possibility. I know you did. I saw the way you interacted with them, not just that day, but any time you were around them. I had seen it a million times. I knew that you’d make an excellent father. Some gay couples found a way to be parents even then.”

“Well, I never did,” David said. “I didn’t want to do it alone, and I never met anyone that I felt was ready for that kind of commitment, or that I was ready to make that kind of commitment to.”

“I ran off that day. I got the hell out of Pusan before I could change my mind. I wanted you to have everything.”

“Well, I didn’t get it,” David replied. “I didn’t find true love, and I didn’t have kids. I didn’t do a lot of things, Jared, and I’m not sure exactly what you want me to do with this information.”

“I just wanted you to know.”

“Know what? That it’s not your fault?” David asked. “That you tried? Or that you didn’t because you didn’t want to hurt me again? Well, I don’t know, Jared. Maybe some of my life’s screw-ups are your fault. Or maybe they’re mine because I trusted you, or I didn’t trust someone else, or I worked too much, or maybe this is just where we end up at the end of the day, and maybe that’s okay. Maybe all of these things matter, and maybe none of them do. I don’t fucking know all the maybes, Jared.”

They sat silent for a moment, staring at each other, Jared in the driver’s seat, David the passenger. Finally, the silence broke.

“I still love you,” Jared said. “I still love you, and there’s no maybe about that.”

David sighed, and then climbed out of the car. With the door still open, he stuck his head back in the passenger side of the car.

“I just really don’t know what you want me to do with this information. You moved three houses away from my parents’ house. My house. Whatever it is. You went to Pusan to come get me. But you didn’t. Then you got married. You tell me you still love me. Now. When I’m forty. What the fuck do you want me to do, Jared? What do you want me to say?”

“Whatever it is that you’re feeling,” Jared said. “That’s all I want to hear. Just tell me the truth.”

“I don’t even know what that is,” David said, standing up straight and slamming the passenger seat door.

He walked up to the house, an agitated gait defining his mood. When he reached the front door, he turned around and looked back. Jared was staring at him from the car. David shrugged his shoulders, shook his head, and mouthed, “I don’t know.”

About Rafe Jadison

Rafe Jadison enjoys writing about many different types of people and situations, ultimately believing that we are all pretty much the same. He is author of Seduced by Shark Shifters, Seduced by Shark Shifters II: Logan’s Tail, Seduced by Shark Shifters III: Tom’s Turn, Seduced by Shark Shifters IV: Mark’s Midlife, Reap This, Blake Blacks Out, Little Tree, Snowed In: Dane and Heath, Peter Passenger and the Mothman, and The Divorceary. He has lived in a variety of places, many of them by the water. You can find out more about Rafe at rafejadison.com.

Buy Links

JMS Books
https://www.jms-books.com/rafe-jadison-c-224_381/little-tree-p-2575.html
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Little-Tree-Rafe-Jadison-ebook/dp/B07KTXBR46
Barnes and Noble
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/little-tree-rafe-jadison/1129915713?ean=9781634867788
Kobo
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/little-tree-5