Christmas Quotes: From The Last Charm by Ella Allbright

This isn't the most festive of quotes overall, but it definitely is something I have felt. I am getting better at embracing the festive season, but it is something I have to work at by consciously making decisions to watch Christmas movies and listen to Christmas music. 

It feel very real. I have definitely been in this place mentally!

The Christmas tree is up in the corner, bedecked with turquoise and purple baubles and dripping with tinsel. It twinkles with flashing LED lights, and sits in a large red ceramic pot to hold it steady. A red velvet ribbon is fastened to its top branch rather than the more traditional gold star. I'd have preferred a real tree, but the first year we had Fleur and got one she kept spinning around beneath it rapturously, snuffling and trying to hoover the pine needles up. She obviously didn't realise they're toxic for dogs, and within a day Dad had to donate our gorgeous tree to a family down the road. I really can't see the attraction of putting sharp in your mouth, even if you think it tastes good. Mad beagle.

I look around the lounge from where I'm digging our stockings out of an ancient box. Winterberry-scented candles are dotted around the room, brightening the dark walls and ancient furniture, and covering up the smell of emulsion from upstairs.  I started  redecorating months ago,  but have only managed to do mine and Dad's bedrooms so far, what with work and Craig....I shudder, steering my thoughts away. The point is, it's take far longer than planned to create the new vision I had for our house. Even Dad's getting impatient with me now, and he's usually the most laid back person going. He's at a Saturday job, so I'm all alone. El and Chloe are both busy with their lovely boyfriends, and Edwin has given me a rare weekend off as a reward for increasing sales at the gallery. Although I've got Fleur's waggy company, I can feel the sharp edge of loneliness digging into my skin, so an MTV Christmas channel is playing seasonal songs to create background noise, and the smell of cinnamon and aromatic alcohol wafts from the kitchen where mulled wine's slowly simmering on the hob.

I've done everything I can to create a Christmassy spirit in the house, to make it nice and festive for us. The weather's even joining in, the winter wind rattling the draughty windows, shimmering frost coating the leaves on the trees like they've been breathed on by Jack Frost. A thick carpet of snow coats the ground from where icy flakes fell and settled overnight. I've also been to two Christmas parties, eaten turkey with cranberry sauce and all the trimmings, and gone to a fete with Eloise, surrounded by adorable  children dressed as elves, reindeer, and shepherds, running around high on excitement and sugar in the form of minty striped candy canes.

And then a bit later on...

I've had plenty of opportunity to gear myself up for the season, but I'm not feeling it. At. All. If anything, it's making me feel worse, as if I'm trying too hard. It's forced and faked. I'm starting to hate Christmas and everything that comes with it.

Which reminds me....we really must put the Christmas tree up this week.

The Last Charm by Ella Allbright

When Leila loses her charm bracelet she is devastated, because the charms represent her life story over the past twenty years. When she was a young girl, her mother gave her a charm  bracelet with a heart charm on it and then promptly disappears from her life. Then, as Leila grows, she receives charms to commemorate the important events in her life. For her, it is the connection with her mother that she holds onto, rightly or wrongly. The person who finds the lost charm bracelet asks Leila to describe it and so this book is, in effect, her telling the story of each charm.

Leila's mother leaving means that Leila and her dad have to move away from their home. Before they leave, Leila meets Jake, the young boy who has moved into Leila's old house with his dysfunctional family.

Over the years, Jake and Leila's lives continued to intersect as Leila comes back to visit her granddad Ray (loved him!) and then when Leila moves back to the town.

I loved the premise of this book. The idea that when something momentous happens you add some kind of momento so that you can sit and touch it to bring back the memories, to evoke the feelings, to bring that moment to mind, to bring the people you love back to mind.

It will depend on what you think of the characters as to how this book resonates for you, and this was mixed for me.

Jake......sigh....what a man he grew up to be. Jake overcame such challenges from his childhood and through sheer grit and determination became more, much more. I struggled more with Leila who also had to overcome childhood trauma, but it took her a long time to be able see what was right in front of her, and a long time to grow up. Quite frankly, I think Jake had the patience of a saint, and there were numerous times when I wanted to lead into the book and yell at Leila to just have a proper conversation with Jake.

Having said that, I had very tangible reactions to the book. It made me smile, it made me laugh, and yes, I cried.

Rating 3.5/5

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for this review copy.

Goodreads synopsis

A moving and heartwarming love story perfect for fans of Me Before You and One Day in December…
Leila’s charm bracelet tells a story of love, a story of loss, a story of hope. This is the story of her … and the story of Jake.
When Leila Jones loses her precious charm bracelet and a stranger finds it, she has to tell the story of how she got the charms to prove she’s the owner. Each and every one is a precious memory of her life with Jake.
So Leila starts at the beginning, recounting the charms and experiences that have led her to the present. A present she never could have expected when she met Jake nearly twenty years ago…

Reading Reflections: August 2020

I a little bit surprised to see that I read quite so many books this month. But I do need to be honest and confess that a couple of these were quite short!

You Were Made for Me by Jenna Guillaume - 4/5 (Australian)

A super fun read where a couple of young girls create the perfect boy!  Read my review here.

The Switch by Beth O'Leary - 4/5 (Audiobook)

As soon as I saw that this was available as part of Netgalley's new offering of audiobooks and their app. I enjoyed the book and the performance but the app was a bit glitchy. Read my review here.

The Roommate by Dervla McTiernan - 4/5 (Australian Authors)

This is a prequel to the Cormac Reilly series, featuring a young garda Cormac Reilly as he investigates a murder in Dublin. This one is/was available from Audible for free for members.

The Secrets of Saffron Hall by Clare Marchant - 4/5

Ooopss. I swear I had posted the review for this book but it seems that maybe I only wrote this in my head. Must get onto writing it for real. I love a good dual timeline, and a story of a building with a long hidden history and this book had both!

Matilda Next Door by Kelly Hunter - 4/5 (Australian author)

I really enjoy Kelly Hunter's books at the best of times, and I have previously enjoyed all the books set in the small town of Wirralong. This is the first book in the new quartet called the Outback Brides Return to Wirralong. I am really looking forward to reading the last two books!

Maeve's Baby by Fiona Macarthur - 3.5/5 (Australian author)

No I didn't make a mistake in the last paragraph. I already read the second book in the quartet. I actually completely forgot that I preordered this entire series so it was something of a surprise when this one dropped onto my Kindle, but I did enjoy reading both off these stories over the course of one weekend.

The Last Charm by Ella Allbright (3.5/5)

This is one where I knew that I haven't yet finished the review. I mean I have an opening paragraph, I have a bit near the middle and some of the ending. Just need to fill in the gaps really! Watch this space.

The Deadly Hours by Susanna Kearsley, Anna Lee Huber, Christine Trent and CS Harris (4/5)

This is a collection of  4 stories that follows a cursed watch through history from the 1700s through to the 1940s. I read this because I love Susanna Kearsley, and this story actually feature characters from a couple of her previous books. I enjoyed the last two books but the Anna Lee Huber was the one I enjoyed the most. It clearly is part of a series, and I don't read series out of order but still!

I am linking my post up to the Monthly Wrap up which is hosted at Feed Your Fiction Addiction

This week.....

I'm reading...

I really need to find some more reading time from somewhere. I did finish reading The Last Charm by Ella Allbright which was a nice book. I would hope to have a review up within the next couple of days.

I did start reading the short story collection, The Deadly Hours. The first story is by one of my favourites authors of all time, Susanna Kearsley. The collection follows a cursed watch as it changes owners. Kearsley's short story brings together characters from some of her previous books which is a real treat and i have been taken right back into her world. I am looking forward to reading more, and also to see how the other stories tie into the watch.

After spending a lot of time watching sessions from Melbourne Writer's Festival over the last couple of weeks, I did take the opportunity this week to watch a couple of the sessions from Edinburgh International Book Festival and I will watch a couple more during this week. I watched Hilary Mantel talk about the third and final book in the Thomas Cromwell trilogy. I also watched Jenny Colgan interview Marian Keyes. That was a delight, although it did feel a bit like eavesdropping on a random conversation between two friends!

I'm watching....

After starting the Umbrella Academy last week, we have now finished season 1, and I think there is every chance we will go straight into season 2. It is a lot of fun, with a great soundtrack. I guess once we finish season 2 we will go back to watch other shows, but I think this one will keep us occupied for a bit longer yet.


Life

It's been a pretty quiet week really. I am super busy at work and, as a result of working from home, it makes it really easy to work very long hours. We are still only half way through our current lockdown period. We have at least another three weeks, and then I guess it will depend on the numbers as to whether restrictions will be eased or not.

We did finish the puzzle we started last week. It was a puzzle made from a photo that we took when we were in New York three years ago when we were at the Top of the Rock.  It was a challenging puzzle but it has turned out great. I think we will probably start another new puzzle in the next couple of weeks. We have a couple here to do still and another three on their way from a Kickstarter project that we backed a couple of months ago. We expect to receive those in September or October I think.

Here on the blog I was very excited to relaunch the Why I Love feature that we used to run at Historical Tapestry, and I can't wait to share more posts in the future. Please check out the guest post from Donna Russo Morin about American Suffragettes if you haven't done so yet.

Don't forget you can now follow my blog on Facebook here.

Posts from the last week

Top Ten Tuesday: Why I Love
You Were Made for Me by Jenna Guillaume
Why I Love American Suffragettes
Weekend Cooking: When you can't go on holidays...

I've linked this post to It's Monday, what are you reading? as hosted by Book Date

This week....

I'm reading...

In the last week I managed to finish three books. The first one I finished Secrets of Saffron Hall which I mentioned last week. After finishing that I was really looking for something really fun and engrossing to get lost in, and so Matilda Next Door by Kelly Hunter fit the bill perfectly.

Kelly Hunter is one of those authors who I know that I can pick up at any time and will love. There's just something about her writing.  The other reason why this is such a comfortable read is that this is the first book in the third quartet of books set in the small fictional town of Wirralong. Each book in the quartet is written by a different author, but Kelly Hunter has written one of the books in each of the quartets. Because this is the ninth book set in the town there are many familiar characters and land marks, but there was a part that was also set in London. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I might have tempted fate by jumping straight into the next book in the series, Maeve's Baby by Fiona Macarthur. The weird thing is that I have no recollection of pre-ordering this book but it was already on my Kindle, but it was already there, so I must have done. This book unfortunately didn't work quite as well for me, but that's okay. The next two book in the quartet are out later this month and you can guarantee I will be returning to Wirralong then.

The I started reading The Last Charm by Ella Allbright. I love the concept, which is that it tells the story of two young friends through the charms on a charm bracelet. So far, I am enjoying it, so hopefully I will continue to do so.

I also finished listening to The Roommate by Dervla McTiernan and started listening to Recipe for a Perfect Wife by Karma Brown.

I'm watching...

Our quest to watch all the feel good shows continues with Anh's Brush with Fame. Anh Do is an Australian artist/author/comedian/so many other things. The premise of his show is that he invites a celebrity to come into his art studio and he talks to them about their lives while he paints their portrait.

His style of painting is quite unusual but very effective. He has even been nominated for the Archibald Prize, which is Australia's most prestigious portrait prize. He uses trowels and knifes to slather paint on and then he uses his fingers, and other small tools to finish off. Some times I am blown away by the painting. Other times not so much. I am always impressed with the stories that he manages to get out of his guests, often emotional and often funny.

The other thing that we started watching this week is Umbrella Academy. My son suggested that we watch it not long ago. I did mention to the team at work that we were going to start it but I was told that it wasn't my kind of thing. I am pleased to say that I am proving him wrong.

Life

We took a day off on Friday to give ourselves a three day weekend which was needed because work has been very intense.  One day back in the office today and I am already feeling the strain.

I spent most of the weekend attending Melbourne Writers Festival (you can read my wrap up here) so I did enjoy getting to indulge in all things bookish. I am going to be continuing to indulge by attending a few session at Edinburgh Writers Festival, although I probably won't do write ups for those. This morning I listened to Hilary Mantel talk about her final book in the Cromwell trilogy, Mirror and the Light which was a very interesting conversation.

We also did some cooking and we started a new jigsaw puzzle (I say we, but really it is my lovely husband). It is actually a picture of us at Top of the Rock in New York. My husband is cursing me a little bit because apparently doing an arty angle is fine for putting a photo on Instagram but it doesn't translate particularly well into a jigsaw.


Don't forget you can now follow my blog on Facebook here.

Posts from the last week

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I've Loved but Haven't Reviewed Yet
Library Loot
Alphabet 2020: Q is for Quiet Please
Weekend Cooking: Making Macarons
Sunday Salon: MWF Digital Week 2

I've linked this post to It's Monday, what are you reading? as hosted by Book Date