Friday, November 20, 2015

Unwrapping a Review of THE GREAT CHRISTMAS KNIT-OFF by Alexandra Brown

I know Unwrapping Romance is all about romance especially that HEA promised us in romance novels but every so often, I read a book that just deserves a little shout out of excitement. With the holidays bearing down on us, I can’t think of a better time to give off some joy for a wonderful, delightful, and cockle-warming British chick-lit that comes as close to romance as you can get without a Happily-Ever-After. THE GREAT CHRISTMAS KNIT-OFF by Alexandra Brown is everything wonderful! Pure Holiday Joy. 

***print copy provided by publisher in exchange for an honest and unscripted review—thank you.

Blurb for THE GREAT CHRISTMAS KNIT-OFF:

Sybil has always taken comfort in her knitting, creating beautiful garments stitch by stitch. But her world suddenly unravels when her fiancé ditches her for her identical twin sister and things go from bad to worse when an incident jeopardizes her job.

Hoping to escape her woes and forget that she'll be alone for Christmas, she visits her friend in Tindledale—a winter wonderland of quaint shops and snowy rooftops. Embraced by welcoming—if eccentric—locals wearing handmade knits reminds Sybil of her own creations and her unrealized ambitions of selling them. So when the vintage boutique asks her to create a knitting display for their front window, she's thrilled. The hot town doctor has even taken an interest in Sybil, hoping to heal her broken heart.

But just when Sybil thinks she's going to have her fairy-tale Christmas after all, an unexpected turn of events threaten to unspool her happily ever after.


~*~       ~*~        ~*~       ~*~       ~*~

Life couldn’t get much lower for Sybil. Her fiancĂ© leaves her at the altar amidst a Star Wars themed wedding and runs off with her twin sister, and now there’s a chance, a great chance she will be on the hook for a huge money error at work. Really not wanting to face anything anymore, she packs up her little dog, Basil, and heads to Tindledale, a truly quaint little English village that when she steps off the train, she thinks she’s on a set for FROZEN. She’s eager to see her best friend, Cher, who will certainly help her see to making sure her life doesn’t get any more discombobulated but Cher is out of town, and the accommodations at the Duck & Puddle Pub, which Cher and her chef husband are now running, were highly lacking. With no other choice, she ventures to the Bed and Breakfast on the other side of the village. There she meets the incorrigible, Lawrence Rosenberg, host extraordinaire, and leader of the Tindledale Players. Lawrence sets her on the right path to discovering more about herself, her life, her desires, than she ever knew, and even encourages her to take a chance at love. Taking the road not traveled was the last thing she ever expected when she began her journey to Tindledale.

With a cast of the most delightful, unexpected, funny, endearing, and simply lovely characters, I would love to live in a place like Tindledale. I fell in love with this book so fast it surprised me. Although, we are greeted with not one, but two states of despair…first with Hettie, and the prospect of her losing her precious House of Haberdashery in Tindledale, but then Sybil whose life is a complete disaster…Alexandra Brown manages to makes us smile and even laugh.

I was sick as a dog with the cold from hell while reading this but I couldn’t have asked for a better escape into a warm, loving, and cozy read to make me feel better and smile. Okay, it’s sweet, most definitely, but its also romantic comedy at its holiday best. I can see this story being made into one of those wonderful feel good holiday movies that you want to take out once a year and watch it yet again. I can see reading this every holiday season for that feel good heartwarming experience too. I’m not a knitter, and it doesn’t matter but I would taking up knitting just to be invited to one of Syb’s and Hettie’s delightful natters…that seems to be what a gossip session is called in England. Tindledale is the most welcoming place on the planet, I think. Like I said, I’d love to live there.

I highly recommend reading THE GREAT CHRISTMAS KNIT-OFF by Alexandra Brown if you’re a fan of feel good, cozy holiday stories, funny clumsy kind of comedy, and I’ll clue you in…Sybil has everything come together for her and even has a hottie town doctor a little head over heels for her. Go ahead…take a trip to Tindledale and when it’s over, you can imagine your own HEA for Sybil.

Happy Reading Everyone!

THE GREAT CHRISTMAS KNIT-OFF by Alexandra Brown, William Morrow, available now in print and ebook formats at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Kobobooks.

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