Farewell!

Everybody, the Christmas Reading Challenge blog is going into summer break and will be back with more Christmas books next season. Thank you so much for being part of this throughout the last two months and for all your emails, comments and support. I loved doing this, the reading and discussing about what I love so much ... books! Have a happy new year 2011 and I so hope to see you back here at the beginning of November 2011. In case, you wanna stay in touch and read about my reading and anything else I do over the year, you can find me here.

Happy Reading! Love and hugs, Sanna

Giveaway Winner!

I picked a winner for the giveaway, which can be found here.

Review: The Lakeshore Chronicles

Title: Fireside
Author: Susan Wiggs
Publisher: Mira
Pages: 410

Title: The Winter Lodge
Author: Susan Wiggs
Publisher: Mira
Pages: 408

Plot: Both books are part of the Lakeshore Chronicle series, which seemed to be perfect for me, because I am a junkie when it comes to romance series. I haven't read other parts of it and was planning to read a third book Lakeshore Christmas, but then skipped it. You'll see why pretty soon.

Fireside: Baseball pitcher Bo Crutcher is on his way into the majors, but then he has to take care of his unknown son AJ and everything changes,

Kimberly van Dorn was hired to smooth the rough edges of Bo's behaviour and to train him how to handle life as a baseball pro. She expected one of the to her well-known shallow athletes, but soon finds out that Bo is very different and willing to do everything for his son.

The Winter Lodge: Jenny Majesky and Rourke McKnight have a history, which they both try to ignore until Jenny's house burns down and she has no other place to stay then Rourke's. Although she lost all her belongings in the fire, she finds something, which might lead her to truth...and love.

I think ... First of all, I have to tell you, that I liked "Fireside" much more than "The Winter Lodge". I thought the characters were much more interesting, the love story very well-developed and believable and Bo's son AJ is a great kid. It is a funny, emotional, loveable and heart-warming story, although not really a Christmas book, but that was fine for me. I liked it a lot.

"The Winter Lodge" was , IMO, a huge disappointment. I just didn't understand what the whole fuss about hero and heroine was about, and why they act like immature kids over wide parts. All the time, I was wondering "Why's he saying this?" or "Why's she doing that?" and so on and so on. (Yes, I know that there are time shifts, not talking about that.) And believe me, I have no idea, why that particular title was chosen. There are some scenes in the winter lodge, but the text on the back cover and the title seem to have nothing in common with the book. I hate, when that happens. So, definately not a book for me.

And that's why I didn't find the motivation to grab the third book and read it. It's a fifty-fifty chance. Maybe I like it, maybe I don't. I usually prefer the first, when I read authors, whose work I have read before. Plus, I like my books steamy. It's not a criteria if I like a book or not, but I surely missed some heat between the sheets in these.

Have you read those? What do you think? About these in particular or the whole series?

Don't forget to be in the giveaway and read the Christmas novella written by April, Amanda and Emily!

The Christmas novella

With the help of Leetid, I finally managed to upload the novella at scripd.com. To read and/or for more information, please check out the Christmas Novella page above. Thanks.

Giveaway and problems

As promised, here is the Christmas giveaway! You can win a nice set of stationery, with a MisbehavinAngel calendar, two pencils and the lovely tape. All you have to do is leave a comment to this post. I appreciate followers, but that's not a criteria for the contest. Contest runs until December,25th midnight (German time). Good luck!

I also promised to publish the Christmas novella today, but I do have so many technical difficulties, that I have to wait until DH finds the time to help me out. I would love to offer it as a free PDF for download, but not even simple posting is working and I have no idea why. I hope you can read it as soon as possible. Just make sure to check in often and I am hoping to have it up and running by tonight. Happy Reading!

I'm late...

...with the giveaway and the publishing of the Christmas Novella, but I had problems figuring out how to post a free PDF download (still don't know) and haven't had a chance to make good photos of the giveaway. It will be online tomorrow. I promise.

Review: A Wallflower Christmas

Title: A Wallflower Christmas
Author: Lisa Kleypas
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Pages: 205

Plot: Rafe Bowman is supposed to marry Natalie, the daughter of Lady and Lord Blandford. Unfortunately, his good looks cannot bare the fact, that he is a rude American with a shocking reputation, who has to learn the rules of the London society. But then, four former wall flowers start their matchmaking and it turns out to be, that the bride-to-be won't be what Rafe expected.

I think... Ah, what a lovely read! I haven't read the other books in the series, which didn't bother me at all. I had no problems with the number of characters or the relationships to each other, cause it was well explained and in most cases obviously. Although, someone told me, I might have enjoyed it much more, when I would have read all books before.

I nevertheless enjoyed this book a lot. Lisa Kleypas has a great style of writing, a witty tone and the characters are amazing. Plus, this is a very christmassy story, which is exactly what I have been looking for for the challenge. A great historical read, although I am not a big fan of historicals. Happy Reading!