Christmas Treats

Christmas With Billy And Me, Dream A Little Christmas Dream

By Giovanna Fletcher

3/5

I love Christmas and a good Christmas book can really get me into the festive spirit. Sadly, I only received these books as a Christmas present so they weren’t able to help me gain the festive spirit I have been lacking this year.

I adore Giovanna Fletcher’s writing style. It is so honest and the characters she creates are your everyday man and woman that you can really relate to. I have read her three novels and I loved every single one but Billy and Me and Dream a Little Dream were my favourites, and when I saw that she had written small Christmas novellas for these books, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on them and they didn’t disappoint. Although only short, they were full to the brim of sickly sweet Christmas romance that I absolutely love. The characters were just as I remember and being transported back into their world for a short while was a real treat. The only flaw I found with these stories was that they were too short! I could happily have read away a few hours with cheerful Christmas stories such as these but sadly, it only took me just under an hour to read the two.

I have heard that Giovanna is currently writing her next novel and I cannot wait for it to be published as she is quickly becoming one of my favourite authors. I would highly recommend all of her novels to anyone who loves a good romance.

The Maze Runner Trilogy

The Maze Runner, The Scorch Trials, The Death Cure

By James Dashner

1.5/5

I began reading this series with high expectations (having been naughty and seen the film before reading the book and loving it) but I was quite disappointed. The plot really didn’t excite me and the third person narrative failed to engage me with the characters. Thankfully, all three novels contain very short chapters which led to me reading a chapter, having a quick peak to see how many pages the next chapter was, and then reading on due to only having to read a few pages at a time. If the novels contained quite weighty chapters, I fear I would have given up with the series shortly after starting The Maze Runner. That being said, they weren’t the worst books I’ve ever read and I would definitely recommend this series over The Hunger Games (I hold the unpopular opinion of finding these books predictable and rather boring). They held a few small plot twists that I wasn’t expecting but not enough to encourage me to read the prequel, The Kill Order. Overall, I found this series to be quite an easy read, with enough suspense to keep me reading on but I won’t be in a rush to re-read them.