All I Want for Christmas by Joanna Bolouri

 About the Book

Title: All I Want for Christmas

Author: Joanna Bolouri

Publication: Quercus (1 Oct. 2020)

Summary (taken from the back cover):

What if the love of your life was your best friend's girlfriend... and you were the one to set them up?

When Nick loses his job and is dumped by his glamorous but demanding girlfriend, he is forced to grudgingly accept work as a Santa at a local Christmas grotto. As his friends are getting married or promoted, Nick spends his days being terrorised by unfriendly elves and cried on by snotty, spoiled children.

Then he meets 4-year-old Alfie. All Alfie wants for Christmas is for his mum, Sarah, to be happy again. Moved by the boy's selfless wish, Nick arranges a date between Sarah and his best friend, Matt. But as Sarah and Alfie become part of all their lives, Nick realises that happiness for Sarah and Matt might mean heartbreak for himself.

What I Think

Joanna Bolouri throws her readers straight into Christmas and with it Nick's dire situation as we join him in the dressing room putting on his outfit for his first shift as Southview Shopping Centre's Father Christmas. Only in subsequent chapters do we find out which events led up to his donning of the festive Santa suit. 

Nick and Matt's banter in the early chapters belied their deep friendship and I wasn't sure that I was going to like either of them. However, as the book progressed and more details of their pasts were revealed, I liked them both more and more, which is what made the book so compelling and difficult to put down, because although I was rooting for Nick, I didn't want Matt to get hurt either. 

All I Want for Christmas is a lovely festive novel with a wonderful cast of characters. If you're looking for something to read on a dark evening in the run up to Christmas, look no further than Joanna Bolouri's latest novel. 

Thank you to Katya Ellis at Quercus books for my ARC in return for an honest review. 

About the Author

Joanna Bolouri worked in sales before she began writing professionally at the age of thirty. Winning a BBC comedy script competition allowed her to work and write with stand-up comedians, comedy scriptwriters and actors from across the UK. She's had articles and reviews published in The Skinny, the Scottish Sun, the Huffington Post and HecklerSpray. She lives in Glasgow with her daughter. 

Website: joannabolouri.wordpress.com/

#BabyintheHouse - Happy New Year!

You know there's a baby in the house when...

...you're getting up on New Year's Day at a similar time to when party-goers are going to bed! 

Happy New Year everyone - may it be happy & healthy!

***

To read last week's post: #BabyintheHouse - first Christmas click here. 

***

Having recently (well, seven months ago) become a parent for the first time, my world has been turned upside down. I'd like to share some of the ideas I've had, the discoveries I've made, and the secrets of parenthood. I hope that both parents and non-parents will be able to enjoy these posts. 

Please feel free to leave comments and share your experiences.

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#BabyintheHouse - first Christmas

You know it's baby's first Christmas...

...when two grandmothers fly halfway around the world to spend it with him! 

Merry Christmas everyone and a happy & healthy 2015!

***

To read last week's post: #BabyintheHouse - Shower click here. 

***

Having recently (well, six months ago) become a parent for the first time, my world has been turned upside down. I'd like to share some of the ideas I've had, the discoveries I've made, and the secrets of parenthood. I hope that both parents and non-parents will be able to enjoy these posts. 

Please feel free to leave comments and share your experiences.

***

Friday Flash Fiction - The Mysterious Christmas Card

The Mysterious Christmas Card

Every year when I get the boxes of decorations down from the loft I wonder about the mysterious Christmas card that arrives addressed to a woman called Mavis Lockheart. I’ve tried my very best over the years to find out who Mavis Lockheart is, but no one has ever heard of her. She wasn’t the previous owner, or the one before that, and I even went so far one year to ask all the elderly neighbours whether they could remember anyone who had lived here by that name. The answer was a big fat no and the mystery continues.

There was no return address, so the first year I left the large envelope with loopy handwriting unopened on the little table in the hallway, where the downstairs telephone, the pot for keys and various other odds and ends are, in the hope that someone would come to claim it. It sat there for the weeks running up to Christmas and well into the new year. By the end of January I realized that no one was going to come and claim it, so I stashed it away with all my other correspondence.

The second year I did the same, but by the third year my curiosity was getting the better of me and I could no longer leave that envelope unopened. I slid my silver letter opener under the flap of the envelope like a thief in the night and in one clean sweep it was open. Afterwards I wondered whether I should have used steam from the kettle like you see them doing on the television, but we’re all wise in hindsight, aren’t we? For weeks I was worried that Mavis Lockheart would come to claim it and I would have to admit to my crime. There was a short message from a Dorothy, enquiring about Mavis, her black and white pet cat and her brother Arnold. Dorothy’s husband, Thomas, was still working, but hoping to retire in the next couple of years. I had been right: it was an older woman. I had guessed as much by the handwriting and had suspected that Mavis was a woman of around the same age. I asked around the neighbours again, this time asking about the brother Arnold as well. Mr. Peterson, at the far end of the road, thought that something rang a bell, but he couldn’t put a finger on what. ‘I’ve got such a terrible memory, these days,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there’s no grain of truth in what I’ve just said at all.’

But no one came to claim it that year, the year after or any year for that matter.

Every year when I take down the Christmas decorations – by January 6th, of course – I take Mavis Lockheart’s card and stow it away, wrapping it up with a Christmas ribbon along with the all the others. My husband tells me I’m overly sentimental, not to mention silly, keeping them. Over the years I’ve learned that Dorothy’s husband, Thomas, has passed away and now she lives alone. I can only begin to wonder at Mavis’ life. I really wish I could get in touch with either of them as in some respects they have come to feel almost like friends. But the most likely case is that these Christmas cards, along with their lives, will always remain a mystery.

©2013 Laura Besley

Flash Fiction Diary  

This is the first of my NaNoWriMo_2013 pieces to see the light of day. It was inspired by a friend's post on facebook; she had received a Christmas card addressed to someone and she didn't know who it was. 

This will be my last post of 2013, so I'd like to wish you all happy holidays and all the best for 2014. 

Friday Flash Fiction - Another Christmas Abroad

Another Christmas Abroad

Daisy could never have predicted how many Christmases she would be away from home when she booked her first flights to New Zealand on the old computer in her dad's study. The plan was to do some fruit picking, possibly work in a vineyard or two, a ski season in Queenstown and then home via Asia, taking in Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and wherever else she still had the funds for. 

She had had her arguments lined up like soldiers ready for battle, but to her utter surprise her parents were all for it. Go, they said. Enjoy yourself. You're only young once. With a backpack big enough to hold a small person in, they waved her off at London Heathrow two days after her twenty-third birthday. 

***

Daisy sighed as she opened the small box of Christmas decorations she had accumulated over the years. Her mother had at least three times as much and still insisted on getting a real tree. Stu had bought them an artificial one, with the lights already woven into it, the first Christmas they spent together in their small Auckland house. Every year she pulled it out from under their double bed and decorated it, sipping mulled wine despite the outside temperature being around twenty degrees Celsius.

She had met Stu in Queenstown six weeks before she was due to leave. She had been working as a ski instructor when she fell and pulled something that caused an excruciating pain in her back. He was also working the slopes that winter, and was finishing his physiotherapy degree the following year. Daisy went back to Auckland with him and never left. 

***

This time of year she missed England the most. Cold days, long dark evenings, candles, roasted vegetables, mulled wine, hot chocolate, Christmas telly. But she had Stu, who she loved, and her little girl, Skylar. As long as they were here, this would be her home.  

©2013 Laura Besley

Flash Fiction Diary  

I wanted to write a piece on the theme of Christmas and as an expat living abroad (and not going home for Christmas this year...boo hoo), this is what I came up with. 

Christmas in Hong Kong (part 3)

Christmas in Hong Kong is well underway now with decorations and music everywhere! Here are a few more pictures for you to take a look at. 

An interesting window display

A rather impressive tree in Central

Even the beef jerky shop is decorated!

A beautiful tree on the way to yoga class

A nice little display outside the cinema

Christmas in Hong Kong (part 2)

The festive season is here, even in Hong Kong. Christmas songs are being played in the MTR (underground train) stations. Here are a few more snapshots of what Christmas is like in this part of the world! 

Reindeer display in IFC, Central

Not sure what I think of the display in our local shopping mall in Tai Koo. Let me know what you think! 

The stage where no doubt there'll be some 
sort of Christmas performance

And a blue one too!

Massive gold-dressed fairy

            

Christmas in Hong Kong (part 1)

British people celebrate Christmas in a big way! It's interesting to see to what extent Christmas is celebrated in places where Christmas is not part of a centuries-old tradition. I'm living in Hong Kong and obviously this part of the East was under British rule until 1997, so it's logical that Christmas is celebrated a little. Last year I stayed here for Christmas and went out for Christmas lunch and all the shops were still open and it seemed that on Christmas Day local Hong Kongers were mainly shopping! I thought you might be interested in some of the photos of Hong Kong around Christmas time, so here you are...

Display in Pacific Place (shopping mall), Admiralty

Marks & Spencer window display, Central

Taxis parked outside decorated trees & shopping mall, Central