Title : Escaping Christmas
Author : Marie Landry
Genre : Romance ; Holiday fiction ; Christmas
Pages : 267
Publication date : 22nd of November 2021
We received this Advance Review Copy from the Author in exchange for an honest review.
Thank you so much Marie for giving us the opportunity to read, enjoy and review this cozy Christmas book.
BLURB
Joss’s no-strings-attached holiday is about to become more tangled than a string of Christmas lights.
What happens when the so-called Queen of Christmas feels more like Scrooge? In actress Josslyn Hazelwood’s case, she decides to escape it all: the heartache and mess of her very public divorce, the press, and, most of all, the holidays and everything that comes with them. Spending a few weeks in the small town of Honeywell Hollow as “just Joss” is exactly what she needs.
Liam Doherty is happy to help Joss test her BFF’s theory that the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else. Her no-strings-attached holiday fling soon becomes more entangled than a string of Christmas lights, and she finds herself not only caught up in a whirlwind romance with Liam, but also getting sucked into the festive fun of Honeywell.
Joss knows she’s falling for both Liam and Honeywell, but the ghost of Christmas Past is determined to visit this Scrooge after all. No matter how much she tries to escape her past and Christmas, she’s forced to confront them both before she can appreciate the gifts of Christmas Present.
REVIEW
Marie Landry has clearly captured the hearts of her fans with yet another Christmas love story “Escaping Christmas”. Escaping Christmas is the Story of a movie Actress Josslyn Hazelwood who is famous for her Christmas movies and is fondly called Queen of Christmas. But whereas Joss’s personal life depicts something very different. Joss practically plans to run away from the world’s attention due to her recent divorce, in order to find her true self outside her career and also to find solitude to her shattered soul.
Ironically the so-called Queen of Christmas has no interest in celebrating Christmas because of her current situation. But Honeywell hollow has other ideas. Honeywell Hollow is a small town where she plans to hide out from people’s intrusion and holiday cheer. What she didn’t know was this little town was a look-a-like of Santa’s Village itself. Instantly Joss regrets her decision of coming to this place by seeing the Christmas magic that has engulfed the whole town which she has only seen in the movie sets. But that feeling doesn’t last long. As soon as she meets the local hottie-handyman, Liam Doherty who incidentally owns a pickup truck just like the heroes in her holiday movies, she is hit by his charms.
Every time Marie Landry brings about beautiful, strong, and Independent woman characters through her books. By independent and strong, I do not mean the conventional way of portraying women with men’s attributes. But rather, her female leads possess girly-girl kind of characteristic traits that break the stereotype, and I personally like that about Marie Landry’s books and characters.
The next best thing about her protagonists is, they are ever resilient. Despite hitting the rock bottom, they always buoyant back with exquisite, quivering joy. It is definitely a source of inspiration.
Joss’s character has been penned in such a way that every minute emotion and thoughts going through her mind has been clearly shown in the pages of the book. At some point, I almost felt like I was none other than Joss.
Marie with her usual expertise has beautifully created each and every character that has been portrayed in the book – like the motherly affection of Mrs. Murphy, the unadulterated love from an eight-year-old boy, Rex, and the stiff but affectionate friend, Nathan, and a lot of other characters, without confusing the readers. The author has also elaborated how one longs for the affection and attention of their mother irrespective of their age. This gave me a deep insight into motherhood and the relationship between a mother and their children. That was pretty deep.
Right from my childhood Christmas was something very special to my sister and me. We used to enjoy the entire festive celebrations at our school, it has always been fun. But after relocating to an entirely different continent that adores the festive season two months earlier. Yes, I am not kidding- two months earlier. I realized Christmas is not just another holiday. It is about the magic that is created by love and affection. You can literally smell love in the air. I swear!
The shops filled with the holiday decorations in the aisle, tree lightings in common parks and malls, photos with Santa, family pictures for the holiday cards, Christmas lights all around the town, aroma of the Special winter drinks and delicacies that are filled in cafes, and everything Christmasy has been fabricated in the form of words right in front of us in this book. This is something Marie Landry does effortlessly and beautifully in her books.
One of the specialties which is unique about Marie Landry is she creates stories inside the story. That is she picks a notable and easy-on-the-eye character from her former novel and creates an entirely different and beautiful new story of their own. If you look closely, the way she creates these stories are mind-boggling and flawless. That is something I find very amusing. For example, she aptly introduces all her characters to one and another. If you are reading Marie Landry’s books regularly, you will almost feel like you are one among the fictional characters she has created or you are friends with each one of them. She blended all her novels in such a way that she designed a whole little imaginary town filled with her perfect human beings and I really crave to have them in my life.
The author has promised once again with the follow-up story of a long-lost love of Nathan, Liam’s best friend, and Fiona, the daughter of Mrs. Murphy in Spring 2022. There are a lot of other interesting characters in this book that I love to read in detail, including Natalie Huang and Thea Doherty which I hope the author will fulfill.
Escaping Christmas is also a steaming romance story that will rekindle your love interest. The author evidently describes in her words that home is not just a place, it is where everyone is rooting for you. As usual, I enjoyed the love-filled romance novel and there is no escaping from the spell of Escaping Christmas in this holiday season.
My rating for this book would be 4.4 out of 5 stars
I would like to recommend this book to everyone to get drowned in this holiday cheer.
Buy the book here!
Also, by the author,
Book Review of Only you
Book Review of A Very Perry Christmas
Book Review of A Very Perry Wedding
~ Mano
What a fabulous review, Mano! <3 I'm currently reading this and absolutely loving it! Marie's books are always so wonderful! xx
Thank you so much Jaimie. Yes the book was absolutely fun with so much emotions involved. One of the best read to draw in to the holiday season
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