Festive Reviews- Jingle Wars & Mr. Dickens and His Carol

Jingle Wars by R. Holmes & Veronica Eden

Two inns, one town, and there’s not enough room for the both of them.

Add in a reindeer-ish donkey, a Christmas competition, and a rivalry to end all rivalries and you’re bound to end up in disaster, right?

Finn Mayberry has enough on his plate trying to keep his Grandparents inn afloat. The last thing he needed was some California state of mind starlet bulldozing into his town and throwing up a five-star resort right next to his family’s inn.

But, now she’s here and he can’t get her out of his town or his head.

Freya Anderson took one look at the snowcapped mountains of Hollyridge and fell in love. She’s finally here and ready to take on the task of proving to her father that she can handle running Alpine.

She never expected to make enemies with the sinfully delicious lumberjack of a man who runs the inn next door. He’s moody, impossible and completely off limits.

There can only be one winner, but you know what they say. All is fair in love and… Jingle Wars?

“Grams, seriously, there’s nothing up here.”

If you are like me and you love a cheesy Hallmark Christmas movie, I think you will enjoy Jingle Wars. Just know going in that it is a whole lot steamier than what you would find on The Hallmark Channel. The characters have a lot of chemistry and it is a great hate-to-love romance. It also has that big city girl moving to a small town trope that is so common in Hallmark movies.

It did take me awhile to get used to the writing style. Something about it was jarring and didn’t flow at first, but I think it got better as the story went on.

Jingle Wars had the perfect amount of Christmasy elements for me! There is a holiday competition, so the main characters partake in many festive events. I loved every second and would have loved if there was even more about the competition. Also, what is it about stories set at inns that is so comforting?

Jingle Wars in available on Kindle Unlimited.

Mr. Dickens and His Carol by Samantha Silva

Charles Dickens is not feeling the Christmas spirit. His newest book is an utter flop, the critics have turned against him, relatives near and far hound him for money. While his wife plans a lavish holiday party for their ever-expanding family and circle of friends, Dickens has visions of the poor house. But when his publishers try to blackmail him into writing a Christmas book to save them all from financial ruin, he refuses. And a serious bout of writer’s block sets in.

Frazzled and filled with self-doubt, Dickens seeks solace in his great palace of thinking, the city of London itself. On one of his long night walks, in a once-beloved square, he meets the mysterious Eleanor Lovejoy, who might be just the muse he needs. As Dickens’ deadlines close in, Eleanor propels him on a Scrooge-like journey that tests everything he believes about generosity, friendship, ambition, and love. The story he writes will change Christmas forever.

On that unseasonably warm November day at One Devonshire Terrace, Christmas was not in his head at all.

Mr. Dickens and His Carol is much more literary than the other holiday books I have read this month, and it was a nice break from all of the romances. A Christmas Carol is my favourite Christmas story, and I have discovered that I love any sort of retelling of this classic story.

Mr. Dickens and His Carol is a fictional story of how Charles Dickens comes to write his famous Christmas story. We meet many characters throughout the book who would go on to inspire Dickens and whose names can be found within the pages of A Christmas Carol. If you have seen the movie The Man Who Invented Christmas, it is a very similar premise.

Are there any good biographies about Charles Dickens out there? I would love to know more about him. He meets someone in this book and his infatuation with them made me a little uncomfortable. I am curious if that was true to who he was or if it was done simply to propel the story along?

I think that if you are already a lover of A Christmas Carol, you will love this one. There is something so comforting and nostalgic about it.

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