Time to get Christmassy! I’m delighted to be kicking off Advent by taking part in the blitz for this lovely festive story.
Him With The Beard
Do you remember that moment you stopped believing in Santa Claus?
When nine-year-old Mille suddenly no longer believes in Santa Claus, it turns the house upside down.
Her mother, Stella, is in a pickle as the hunt to find Santa Claus unearths some family secrets.
Christmas is at risk!
And there’s only one person who can save it.
My review
This is a lively and lovey festive novella. Our heroine is mum Stella, office mouse for most of the year but every December coming out of her shell and into her own as a Christmas elf helping out at Santa’s grotto. This year, though, she goes even further…
Every household needs a Stella at Christmas! What a kind and energetic and total Christmas-crazy person she is, galvanising everyone around her into the Christmas spirit. But not daughter Mille this year. She’s decided Santa doesn’t exist, and that’s that. She sees through all her mother’s efforts to persuade her he’s real. And worse, her cynicism begins to eat into Stella’s beliefs and enthusiasm too. Husband Kalle tries to keep everyone happy and upbeat but there’s a lot of tension this Christmas. Has the season of goodwill been ruined for ever now that him with the beard no longer holds sway?
This is a funny and clever story. It touches on so many key Christmas issues – Santa of course, family love and gatherings, tradition and memories. Christmas is a time that really brings back moments from the past – our childhood Christmases, recollections of time with grandparents or parents or other relatives now passed away, that magical belief in Santa. It’s true that once our children stop believing in Santa, Christmas can lose a good chunk of its charm and raison d’être. But, if like Stella, Kalle and Mille, we look beyond the man in red and all the consumerism we can see that the Christmas values are still there and are to be cherished. Santa comes in many different forms.
I adored the atmosphere of this novella, which is set in Denmark. I was lucky enough to experience the run-up to a Danish Christmas many years ago when my husband worked there temporarily. I had the famous and delicious rice porridge and a glass or two of Christmas aquavit, and came home with loads of beautiful wooden and paper Christmas decorations that still adorn the house and tree even though they’re all thirty years old now!
Do read this gorgeous little story. It’ll truly get you into a Christmassy mood but also make you think about what this rather crazy season is actually all about.
Purchase Links
Amazon UK – https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pernille-Meldgaard-Pedersen/e/B07HXLPDSJ/
Amazon US – https://www.amazon.com/Pernille-Meldgaard-Pedersen/e/B07HXLPDSJ/
Kobo – https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/him-with-the-beard
Itunes UK – https://itunes.apple.com/gb/book/isbn9788797086216
Itunes US – https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/isbn9788797086216
Author bio
Pernille was born in 1988 and loves that she was born in the decade with the tallest hair, the most colourful clothes, and the best music.
Her imagination never stands still, and it’s often expressed in words and pictures.
She wrote her first story when she was six years old. It was about the cat she unfortunately never got but wished for more than anything.
She loves autumn and Christmas and believes in elves.
From day to day she is a knight in training, an animator, and a secret agent – she has saved the world a few times by now.
She’s also a professional daydreamer.
She thinks the recipe for a good book is the same as the one for having a good life – a sense of kinship, humour, love, and that one thing that gives you a daily smile.
Vestercity is a fictional city based on her upbringing near the city of Herning in Denmark.
Social Media Links –
twitter: https://twitter.com/Pernille56
facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PernilleMeldgaardPedersenAuthor
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pernillemeldgaardpedersen/
website: https://pernillemeldgaardpedersenuk.blogspot.com/
And look, there’s a giveaway!
Giveaway
Win A Cosy Christmas Pack – with One Jim Shore Santa Claus Ornament, Santa Claus Marshmallows, A Chocolate Advent Calendar, A Pretty Christmas Storage Box and finally, A Signed Copy of my book Him With The Beard.
Open internationally.
link to giveaway: http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/2ed2358c3/
A Hollow Sky is a thoughtful and thought-provoking mystery with a definitely unsettling undercurrent of menace. It unrolls slowly to begin with, but as it gains momentum it really begins to sweep you along as the tension mounts. This is the result of excellent, careful writing.
Born in the UK and raised in South Africa, M. Sean Coleman developed a love for reading and writing novels in his early teens, thanks to two incredibly passionate English teachers who infected him with their love of words and stories. Over the intervening years, he has written film and television drama, cross-platform series, an interactive children’s storybook and a graphic novel series.
This is such a delightful book. There is so much happening – a mother dying early, a miscarriage, alcoholism, postnatal depression, an extra-marital relationship. But don’t panic! If that makes this book sound heavy and pretentious, it absolutely isn’t. These various problems are there but handled gently and subtly woven into the plot, rather than shoved in the reader’s face. It adds so much richness to what’s already a beautifully written and touching story.
Chrissie, 2016 winner of the Romantic Novelist’s Elizabeth Goudge writing trophy, is a seasoned tea drinker and a tenacious trainer of her welsh terrier, Oscar. She has always loved match-making a book to a reader. Writing the kind of book she loves to read takes this a step further. When Chrissie is not writing or reading, you will find her walking Oscar on the beach, trying to avoid the gym and spending time with her family and friends.
Win a Paperback copy of ‘The Barn of Buried Dreams’, limited edition mug featuring both of Chrissie Bradshaw’s novels and a box of fresh macarons delivered from ‘Urban Cakehouse’. (Open to UK Only)
This is a carefully written police procedural with a strong sense of place. London oozes out of every sentence and is created in detailed imagery. It’s not always pleasant but cities have their blemishes. There’s also the added dimension of mental health issues in the form of Dissociative Identity Disorder, which is dealt with sensitively although we see the devastating consequences it can have in this novel.
Born in the mid-fifties in East London, on part of the largest council estates ever built, I was the first pupil from my local secondary modern school to attend university.
With many thrillers, the emphasis is all the action which leaves us with cardboard cut-outs as characters, and rather bare writing. However, that’s not the case at all with this super thriller. Everyone we meet is a fully developed and convincing person, and some of the descriptive imagery in this book is searingly apt and, at times, beautiful.
Michael Jenkins served for twenty-eight years in the British
This is a wonderfully Christmassy book and a touching love story. The setting in Finland in the deep snow is beautifully festive, with people skiing and then enjoying warm wine in the evenings in the cosy bars and restaurants.
A prize-winning author, Helena Halme writes contemporary fiction with a hint of both Nordic Noir and romance. She’s a former BBC journalist, bookseller and magazine editor. Originally from Finland where she gained an MSc in Marketing, she also holds an MA in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University and writes in English.
This is a fast-paced, enjoyable cosy with an added splash of romance – definitely my favourite combination in a book! Kat makes for a lively and very likeable heroine. We really feel for her, forced to return to the mothership for a while and, in so doing, having to relinquish some of her independence. It also means she’ll run into a few people she’d far rather avoid…
Paula Williams is living her dream. She has written all her life – her earliest efforts involved blackmailing her unfortunate younger brothers into appearing in her plays and pageants. But it is only in recent years, when she turned her attention to writing short stories and serials for women’s magazines that she discovered, to her surprise, that people with better judgement than her brothers actually liked what she wrote and were prepared to pay her for it.
If you’ve read the first book in this series, The Second Footman, you’ll know what to expect: complex characters, rich imagery and a tale that’s intriguing as well as full of intrigue. And if you haven’t, you’ll soon work out for yourself that Jasper Barry is a fabulous novelist who drags you through many different emotions as you read. This novel works as a standalone since you soon pick up who’s who and what’s what, but it’s a richer read if you’ve read the first novel.
I have to admit that I’d expected a rather darker mystery from the cover, but this is a very lively and subtly amusing novel. It’s one in a series but you don’t need to have read the preceding books, although that would be the ideal scenario. You get enough info to work out who’s who and what’s what, and can pick up on the running themes.
Before turning to crime, Alice Castle had a long career as a feature writer on national newspapers including the Daily Express, The Times and The Daily Telegraph. Alice grew up in south London and, after a brief stint in Brussels (where her first novel, Hot Chocolate, is set) she is back where she belongs, dreaming up adventures for her heroine, amateur detective and single mum Beth Haldane. Alice is married with two children, two stepchildren and two cats. Find out more about her London Murder Mystery series on her website, www.alicecastleauthor.com. Death in Dulwich was published in September 2017 by Crooked Cat Books and was #1 in the Amazon Satire/Detective charts in the UK, US, Canada, France, Spain and Germany. The Girl in the Gallery came out in December 2017 and the third in the series, Calamity in Camberwell, was published on 13th August 2018. Revenge on the Rye will follow in 2019, with more books in the pipeline.
Jo and Hattie have transformed Kirkton Hall into the Best Boomerville Hotel, a place offering holidays with creative and self-improving courses to older, single persons. They’re the ones with time and money and so this is a very astute business move. It also doesn’t hurt the venue is becoming known as a posh dating destination. But not everyone goes to the hotel in the hope of finding friendship and love. There are a few other motives at play.
