Fall in love with this cozy story about two people from different worlds.
Franny Martin is an Oklahoma farm girl who’s preparing to spend the holidays alone…again. Then Charlie Landau shows up one day, all wealth and polish, and offers to buy Franny’s farm. Franny has no money to speak of, but she is clever and spirited, and she’s more than happy to sell the farm and move to the city.
As Sinatra croons from the radio and Christmas descends upon her charming farm, Franny teaches Charlie the curious and sometimes comical ways of country life. In the process, they unearth some discoveries of the heart—that sometimes love comes when you’re least ready for it. Will the holidays bring their most impossible dreams within reach?
My thoughts: This lovely Christmas novella begins with a bang when boy meets girl down on the farm and things start to really get mucked up a bit. She wants to sell the farm. He wants to buy the farm. She is a farm girl that wants a stab at city life and music. He is a city boy (wealthy) that wants to buy the farm to prove he can succeed at something.
It is October. Thanksgiving is coming. And Christmas is not far behind. They both love music and it has a lyrical impact on their lives and the book's storyline. But all is not sweet music or well down on the farm or in the city. It is 1961 and the civil rights movement is afoot. There are racial undercurrents afoot as well as at-hand. Then we throw into the mix a bit of family dysfunctionality and you have a whale of a story even though it is set on dry land.
Franny is a sweet, hysterically funny lady that is dedicated to doing the right thing. Charlie is a well-bred wealthy city boy that doesn't know a thing about farming and buys the farm right away. I really enjoyed this sweet tale but did feel that the racial and dysfunctional family issues a bit heavy for a Christmas novella. That threw the book out of the warm-fuzzy-Christmas-read category in some degree. However, I thoroughly enjoyed the story. I enjoyed the characters and Anita Higman writes a very readable story with beautifully developed characters. Be prepared to laugh, chuckle, and feel happy inside. But you will also feel pained and bad about some of the issues the characters face in their lives. I recommend!
Other reviews: http://litfusegroup.com/author/AHigman
Link to buy the book: http://ow.ly/eyLJH
DISCLOSURE: I was provided a complimentary copy of A Merry Little Christmas by Litfuse Publicity Group on behalf of the publisher, Summerside Press, and the author in exchange for my honest review. Opinions expressed are solely my own.
Vera, I was so pleased to see that you were reviewing this book (I'm about half way through it myself and really enjoying it) when I came to to your site to try to contact you about reviewing another one of Anita's books. Although Anita is primarily a fiction writer, she has taken those great skills and written a devotional book, WHERE GOD FINDS YOU, with 40 stories of Bible characters written in first person and then followed by the relevant scripture and comments.
ReplyDeleteWould you be interested in reviewing it? I love your site and would really appreciate your participation. Let me know (jbaker@buoyancypr.com), and in the meantime, here's an excerpt:
"I looked up from the spindle as a mystifying radiance spun its way into the room. It came into my presence like the falling of olive blossoms in the breeze, white and gleaming. Awestruck, I watched as the light took on the form of a creature of light!
I rose quickly, my heart bolting like that of a newborn lamb. I moved away from the light until my back pressed against the mud-brick wall. A faint sound, like a lyre, could be heard as if music radiated from his snowy robe. His face shone. Could it have been the lingering glow from being near the throne of the Almighty?
“Greetings,” the angel said. “You who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”
"I wanted to speak but could not. With tremulous hands I fingered my veil but did not lift it. What could this mean? What kind of greeting was this?