Category: Christmas Read

Bitmo Sunday book review

Sunday Book Review – #HolidayReads – Christmas Heartfelt Reads -The Christmas Bird by Robbie Cheadle – #microfiction and, A Long Walk Home by D. L. Finn

Published on by dgkaye44 Comments

Welcome to my Sunday Book Review. Two seasonal reads, today I’m sharing. Two heartfelt short story reads by Robbie Cheadle – The Christmas Bird, and D. L. Finn’s – A Long Walk Home. These are two short reads that are sure to touch our hearts and remind us about the spirit of Christmas.

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Blurb:

The Deanne family is having a difficult time financially. Mr. Deanne’s business has failed and there is no money for Christmas presents and other luxuries. The family’s undernourished dogs discover a bird’s nest on Christmas Day and attack and kill the chicks. All except one tiny ball of fluff with luminous bright eyes like drops of oil. The baby bird is in shock, but the four Deanne girls try to save it. Will the Christmas Bird survive?

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My 5 Star Review:

My 5 Star Review:

Hard times in the Deanne family. Mr. Deanne scrounges up what he can, enough to buy two chickens and cherries for Christmas. This would be a great treat for the family with four daughters who haven’t had the luxury of a savory meal in awhile. Even their pet dogs were emaciated looking from a non substancial diet. So no doubts they found the nest up on a tree tempting and killed the brand new baby chicks – except one.

When the girls hear all the commotion out front with the dogs barking, the one tiny Hoopoe bird is still alive. The girls take care of him and nurse him back to health and name him Hoopie.

A few months later, Mr. Deanne picks up a new job, and the eldest daughter, Stella also gets a part-time job. When Easter rolls around, the mother announces they are all going on a beach holiday for school break. By then, Hoopie is home- trained, and they of course take him with them on vacation. Hoopie enjoyed flying around there freely. The girls worried he may fly away now that he learned to forage for his own food and they hadn’t seen him now for a few days. Hoopie does return and he goes back home with the family. Later Hoopie meets a mate. The girls are sad for Hoopie’s new independence, but realize he is a creature of the skies who must make a family of his own, so they build a nest in preparation for the one day Hoopie will come back to nest with family. Will he?

This is a lovely story about a loving family with kindness and nurturing for each other and their feathered friends.

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Blurb:

All alone on Christmas Eve, Kenzie was feeling the betrayal of her recent break-up. While the sky was heavy with the dark clouds of an impending storm, she walked home from work to clear her head. Lost in her memories, Kenzie was completely unaware she was being followed by a man with green-eyes. Was this not-so-human being the good or evil that lurked around her? On the most magical night of the year, will Kenzie be able to save herself from that evil or will she need some divine inspiration? The outcome will depend on whether she can find the strength to forgive as the storm not only rages outside, but deep within her soul.

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My 5 Star Review:

This is a short heartfelt Christmas story with all the elements of the season – a blustery cold almost Christmas day, friendship, angels, furry friends, and one evil man to disrupt hearts, but is eventually rewarded with his due karma.

Kenzie is not having a good Christmas. Her fiance has dumped her, her parents are dead, and her best friend has betrayed her, leaving Kenzie feeling there isn’t much left for her to live for, when her guardian angel gives her a new reason to want to continue on.

Kenzie was ‘left at the altar’ so to speak, when her awful fiance Heath stiffs her days before her Christmas wedding day. If that wasn’t bad enough, she discovers her best friend is now the one to marry Heath. That’s a hard pill to swallow. But just as a furry litter of kittens has given Kenzie a new reason to soldier on, she discovers her now ex-bestie was dumped just as she was – a suspicious pattern of women being used. We discover more dirt on the dastardly Heath as the two girlfriends meet up serendipituously on a blustery Christmas Eve and discover Heath’s evil pattern. Will the spirit of Christmas bring these two friends back together? You will have to read on to find out.

©DGKaye2022

Breaking news, D.G. Kaye

Cover Reveal – New Book Coming Soon!

Published on by dgkaye118 Comments

I’m not quite sure where this year has flown to, but I also never mentioned I’ve been working on getting my book I finished writing in 2019, published this year. Seems I’m cutting it to the last days of 2022, but it’s coming.

The eventual coming of a new book … In 2019 I finished writing a little memoir called Fifteen First Times – Beginnings: A Collection of Indelible Firsts. It was late fall and my plan was to let the book marinate through the winter of 2020 while my husband and I went to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico for two months to dodge the worst of winter here. Little did I know, that would be our last vacation together, and I discovered he wasn’t looking well. We got home just in time – the day before Covid lockdowns began here, and coincidentally, my husband’s scheduled hospital checkup was cancelled.

The year 2020 became a difficult one as the days, weeks and months passed and I had yet to know that I was losing the love of my life to cancer and I couldn’t get him into the hospital until is was much too late. I digress. Needless to say, the last thing on my mind was going through edits, which requires concentration, and all the tedious bits that go into publishing. The year 2020 passed, and in spring of 2021 so did my husband. Needless to say, I was non productive in 2021.

I promised myself I’d publish this book in 2022. Edits began, and in between book stuff, was life, and learning to do podcasts, and writing for them, and well, as you know, before we know it, year’s end is approaching. And so now as we near the end of 2022, I will be publishing this book by hook or by crook before the calendar flips to 2023.

My spiritual Sister, Colleen Chesebro of Unicorn Cats Publishing designed this cover for my book:

Here’s the blurb:

This book is a collection of stories about some of Kaye’s first-time experiences with life’s most natural events. Told through the intimate conversational writing we’ve come to know from this author, poignant personal stepping-stones to learning moments are revealed. She encompasses the heart of each matter with sincerity and sprinkled inflections of humor.

From first kiss to first car to walking in the desert with four-inch heels, Kaye’s short coming-of-age stories take us through her awakenings and important moments of growth, often without warning.  Some good and some not, life lessons are learned through trial and error, winging it, and navigating by the seat of her pants.

💜💚🧡

I’m aiming to publish somewhere within the next two weeks. I hope once published that some of you in this wonderful community will help spread the word. 💜

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©DGKaye2022

Bitmo Sunday book review

Sunday Book Review – Oh Baubles by Harmony Kent

Published on by dgkaye67 Comments

My Sunday book review today is for Harmony Kent’s novella, Oh Baubles. A story about a young woman Charlene who had some terrible misfortune in her life and thought all chances of love were off the table, not realizing love was right under her nose.

Blurb:

After a tragic accident one Christmas, Charlene loses her husband and her leg.Scarred and damaged, the losses leave her lost and reeling, and a long recovery lies ahead of her.

When John, a hot young physiotherapist, comes into her life with his ripped abs and good-god good-looks, she can’t imagine he’d give somebody like her a second glance.

Then she falls for him.

Can Charlene overcome all obstacles to gain back her life and find true love once more?

Find out in this fun-filled, clean Christmas romance novella from award-winning author Harmony Kent.

My 5 Star Review:

Charlene has survived a car crash, and the collateral damage was she lost both her husband and her leg in the crash. And with all she’d been through with coping, and therapy, it didn’t leave her much of a self-esteem. Enter Dr. John her Adonis-like physiotherapist, and Charlene becomes attracted to him, at the same time she couldn’t even fathom that he would be interested in a mess like her.

The book continues on with the encounters between these two characters, sometimes so close, yet so far, as we learn there is a mutual attraction, yet mishaps, misinterpreted signs and setbacks seem to always get in the way of them getting together. The author does a great job of inviting us into all the thoughts these two characters have, and will keep us rooting throughout the roadblocks for them to finally get together.

More than just a romance story with some well developed characters and some insight as to what an amputee endures, both physically and mentally. A sweet holiday read you can enjoy in a two-hour sitting.

©DGKaye2021

Bitmo Sunday book review

Sunday Book Review – Grams’ Christmas Baby by Barbara Silkstone

Published on by 36 Comments

Welcome to my Sunday Book Review. Today I’m sharing a fun and delightful chick-littish, cozy mystery by Barbara Silkstone. Two years ago I got hooked on Barbara’s Cold Cream Series and I picked this one out of my Kindle to read just before Christmas as the theme was appropriate for the season. The dynamic duo of Olive and Lizzie have found a new matter to investigate – Grams’ Christmas Baby. Grandma may be 94 years of age and feisty, but how could she possibly think she could keep the baby that suddenly appeared on her doorstep?

 

 

Blurb:

Christmas Eve ~*~

Grams finds a baby on her doorstep—but what about the body in the bay?
Unarmed, can Olive keep the thugs away until the cops arrive?
Will Lizzy overcook the roasted faux goose?
Is WonderDog’s bite worse than his bark?
Will all this fit in one mini-read?

COLD CREAM MURDERS – series

When Olive Peroni put out her family therapy sign, she never thought her top client would be the retired head of a New York crime family. When Olive’s Nonna dies leaving her a condo in Florida and a secret recipe for miracle cold cream, Olive grabs the chance at a new life in Starfish Cove, Florida, making designer creams for ladies who spend far too much time at the beach.

But when the quiet little community on the Gulf of Mexico soon begins to compete with a certain notorious coastal village in Maine, Olive finds herself solving odd-ball murders as often as she soothes wrinkles.

Clean, wholesome and loaded with laughs!
Each book contains a recipe for homemade cosmetics!

 

My 5 Star Review:

I enjoyed this fun little romp again with the Lizzie and Olive’s adventures in this Christmas episode of the Cold Cream murders, along with the usual characters in her stories – Officer Kal, Lizzie’s feisty Grandma, Wonderdog and Puff. In this story, Olive and Lizzie are getting ready to close their magical skincare shop to enjoy Christmas Eve at Lizzie’s for the faux goose dinner Lizzie has been hinting about. But just as they’re about to wrap up with the last customer, Gram pulls up toting a baby she’d already named Herbie. Someone left Herbie on her doorstep. And then the fun ensues as Olive is determined to find out who would leave a baby on Gram’s doorstep, despite Gram thinking the baby was now hers.

Olive wants to get her friend Officer Kal involved but decides to wait a bit, being Christmas Eve and her concern that the baby would spend Christmas in child protective custody, besides, Kal was busy working on a case about a missing body in the bay. So in the meantime, while the regulars are congregated at Lizzie’s place well before faux goose dinner, Olive suggests Gram and the baby stay with them til the new mystery is solved – after all- where did that baby come from and it may not be safe for a 94 year old Gram to be left alone with this mysterious baby. But just in case a loving mother may have left the baby with Gram in desperation, Olive wants to go back to Gram’s and leave a coded note on the door.

They leave Herbie with Lizzie, and Olive and Gram head out with Lizzie’s Wonderdog to Gram’s to leave the note and for Gram to pick up a few items she’ll need for the overnight at Lizzie’s.  But life is never simple when Olive  once again finds herself walking into part of a mystery case.

Once they arrive at Gram’s, the story of fun heats up. It’s a good thing Lizzie knows how to prepare for danger as she’s found herself embroiled in quite a few of Officer Kal’s cases out of curiousity. Fully armed with hairspray, they approach the front door and an odd discovery leads them to believe there is someone inside Gram’s house. Who could it be? They enter and discover someone in the kitchen. After discovering the surprise guest isn’t dangerous, it isn’t long before the baddies are spotted outside the house.

If you think these women are left defenseless, let’s just say that there’s a lot more ‘homemade’ weaponry going on now in the kitchen. Foolishly, they’d left their purses in the car with their cellphones inside them. We can only hope too much time has passed and Lizzie at home gets suspicious and sends help after futile attempts at trying to call the ladies. But what happens until that happens? You can’t even imagine.

Silkstone has a gift for writing these believable characters who seem to always find themselves in a pickle and find the most creative ways to help them dodge danger. This is my 3rd book I’ve read in this series and I highly recommend a Cold Cream mystery fun read for a great escape.

 

©DGKaye2020

happy Christmas New year