A double dose of magical romance wraps up my Winter’s Respite of reading

 As we are now facing the lions of March, it’s time to recap my reading for Seasons of Reading’s Winter’s Respite challenge.

I began with B.K. Borison’s Good Spirits in which a Ghost of Christmas Past winds up falling in love with one of his assignments.

Harriet is far from the usual sort of person being visited by holiday ghosts in order to mend her ways; she’s a charming soul who runs her late aunt’s antique shop and adores this time of year( even keeps a candy cane or two in her pocket at all times!).

Nonetheless, Nolan is determined to do his ethereal duty by taking Harriet into her past so she’s on the road to redemption by Christmas Eve. Yet, those trips back in time are more pleasant than sad and when one of those journeys takes them both into a moment from Nolan’s mortal life, it’s quite clear that perhaps Harriet isn’t the one in need of saving.

Can Harriet help Nolan get what he needs to move on from his haunting position or will they face some less than Christmas cherry consequences?

Since I have read Borison’s  earlier novel,First Time Caller(which was a Book of the Year nominee at Book of the Month Club), this book was a must-have that I was happy to catch up on during the after holiday season. 

It’s just as engaging as that Nora Ephron inspired work, only this particular story put me in mind of a different movie and writer altogether.

If I had to pitch this book Hollywood style, I would have to say “It’s a Christmas Carol meets Defending Your Life”-the Albert Brooks 1991 comedy about a man in the afterlife facing his fears and falling in love with a perfectly wonderful woman to boot. See the movie and read this book, trust me-a match made in storytelling heaven there:

After that, I picked up Witch You Would by Lia Amador, set in a modern day Miami where magic is commonplace and spell casting can either be a celebrated art form or just commercially viable.

Penelope wants to do more with her spells than work at a thankless mystical retail outlet and becoming a contestant on the competition show Cast Judgement could truly be her magic ticket to success.

However, this season of Cast Judgement has contenders teaming up with celebrity partners and Penelope is matched with Leandro Presto, an internet sensation best known for his spells going hilariously wrong.

She is less than thrilled with this, wanting to be taken seriously and hoping to make a future business connection as well. As it turns out, Leandro is a bit taken aback as well, due to the fact that his real name is Gil, who created the Presto persona in order to raise funds for his grandfather’s magic school charity. 

Gil also has a blog where he helps others fix their spells and through one of those requests, became Penelope’s online pen pal. A chance encounter before the show has Gil recognize her but telling Penelope his secret identity might be tricky in more ways than one.

With the two of them growing closer during the course of the show (and being encouraged to “fake flirting “ by the obnoxious producer), things may unravel quickly for their futures both personally and professionally. Can Gil and Penelope make true magic together or are they cursed to disaster?

This novel is a solidly enchanting read that gives an everyday quality to the magical elements of the story that blend beautifully with the blossoming romance on page. 

The character work is nicely done and I look forward to revisiting these two, along with a few new friends, in the author’s next book, which is being highlighted on the side of this blog here! Amador does know how cast a great literary spell on her readers and I look forward to more of her bookish magic:

Alas, I was unable to get to my Ali Hazelwood book but I l’ll just save that one for the summer. In the meantime, much thanks to Michelle Miller at Seasons of Reading for starting us off on another year of great reads.

I’m sure that I don’t have to tell any of you out there just how incredibly awful things are right now and as of this writing, how much worse they may get.

 What I would like to say is that sticking together and giving each other the emotional support needed to get through these extremely challenging times is more vital than ever. Despair is completely understandable but let’s not fall into that trap if we can. 

Do give yourself breaks from ongoing coverage, if you can, as a means to revive your spirits. I’m rereading a very good romance novel at the moment (Something Wild & Wonderful by Anita Kelly) and it’s really helping me de-stress here.

 Whatever hobby or pop culture delight that you have in your life, don’t feel guilty about engaging with it during this time. Your mental health is just as important to maintain as your physical one, especially these days now and yet to come.

Speaking of tension, the next Seasons of Reading readathon will be in April with Spring Into Horror and yes, I already have a trio of books set aside for that! Hopefully, I will finish all three and my chances are good here as a) they’re much shorter in page count than these winter books are and b) scary stories are great for channeling anxiety , particularly those abounding in society of the moment.

Yeah, something tells me this is going to be quite the year for horror, both onscreen and on page(not to mention headlines yet to come) but with any luck. our collective fears will compel us to  mightily move forward rather than linger back in timid terror: