It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas (Reads) GIVEAWAY: It’s a Wonderful Christmas

today’s book: It’s a Wonderful Christmas

Winter is drawing ever closer (hooray!!), and it’s time for our annual blog series spotlighting (over 60 this year) new and recently-released Christmas reads! This is our largest year yet, with the most authors & books, and we’re back with an all-new look, too.

Christmas is still 31 days away, though, so… snuggle in, grab your fave hot beverage and comfiest blanket, turn on some Christmas tunes and start your bookish Christmas list! Oh… and did I mention there are GIVEAWAYS with EACH POST in this series??!! (Because authors are awesome!)

Today’s first featured book is a collection of classic movies, reimagined, and author Janyre Tromp shares an excerpt from her story!

IT’S A WONDERFUL CHRISTMAS: Classics Reimagined
AUTHORS: Julie Cantrell, Lynne Gentry, Allison Pittman, Kelli Stuart, & Janyre Tromp
GENRE: Christmas Novella Collection
RELEASE DATE: October 12, 2021
PAGES: 495

If you love holiday movies—and who doesn’t?—I can’t think of a better read than this charming, inventive anthology by five of today’s most talented authors. Completely original and filled with heart, each story proves that Christmas really is the most wonderful time of the year! I savored every page and can’t wait to unwrap this gift of a book year after year! —Kristy Woodson Harvey, New York Times Bestselling Author of Christmas in Peachtree Bluff

It’s the most wonderful time of the year!

To celebrate, five bestselling authors have joined together to create this enchanting set of holiday novellas.

Nothing jump-starts Christmas nostalgia quite like the movies. With stirring images of snow-covered hills, crackling fireplaces, and happy families gathered around the decorated tree, these silver-screen tales capture all the magic and wonder of the season. Inspired by some of their favorite holiday films, each of these novelists has paid homage to the classic stories we all love, crafting an eclectic collection that delivers something for everyone.

From small town romance to a Sugar Plum Fairy, this Christmas box set includes five stories sparked by National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, White Christmas, Miracle on 34th Street, The Nutcracker, and Remember the Night.

Topped with a whole lot of cheer and sentimentality, It’s a Wonderful Christmas: Classics Reimagined will delight readers from the first page to the last.

So grab a cup of hot cocoa, nestle under your favorite cozy blanket, and enjoy these holiday stories in a whole new way!

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from “Lovely Life” by Janyre Tromp, part of It’s a Wonderful Christmas

Streetlights glowed amber through the windows of the brand new ’70 Mustang. Lionel had refused to put the top down, citing the fact that it was December, and we were in Michigan. But Lord, I needed fresh air, and not just because of the cigarette dangling between his stubby fingers. How the man played guitar with those meat sticks, I didn’t know.

As we turned off what passed as a highway, lights flickered past less and less frequently. My breath fogged the window, then dissipated, leaving my face ghosted over the ethereal glow of Waverly Castle in the distance. Familiar stone turrets spiked through a forest that stretched to Lake Michigan beyond. As the chart-topping lead singer of Westward, I had been to the White House and on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. I’d even shared a stage with the likes of Bob Dylan, The Mamas and the Papas, and even Janis Joplin before she died. I was a certified star. But this?

I adjusted the small tiara pinned to my curls and wished I had chosen to be a bit . . . less ostentatious . . . less Beatriz Harris, star of the stage . . . and more bookworm Bea, the barefoot, local kid who’d once roamed these castle grounds with Robby, the boy who became the love of her life. Who knew that gawky girl would someday grow up and place an actual rhinestone crown on her head, as if pretending to be a princess might fix her history here? No one told that girl that life isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

“You look beautiful.” Lionel patted my knee.

A practiced smile spread on my face, deflecting the comment and the gesture.

“I mean it, Bea. We can turn around right now. Robby said he never wanted to see either of us again.”

“It’s been four years,” I said, modulating the frustration out of my voice. “And he wrote and asked me to come help rescue the castle.”

“But he hasn’t even apologized.”

I sighed. “You know Robby. The fact that he wrote the letter telling me he needed help says he still sees me as a friend—someone trustworthy enough to reveal his soft underbelly.”

Lionel snorted. “That’s enough for you?”

“You didn’t have to come,” I said, in lieu of actually answering his question. There was no point disagreeing with Lionel. Not that I could. I’d been arguing with myself about coming back to Michigan since booking the flights from New York. I was, in fact, a ninny. An undecided ninny. In the end, Robby had offered a way for me to make amends for all that had gone wrong between the three of us. His humble, typewritten page pleading for me to use my fame to help save his home and livelihood from bankruptcy was a white flag so out of character I couldn’t ignore it. As my oldest friend, Lionel would just have to accept that . . . I hoped.

We dipped into a valley, and the dense tree line swallowed the castle. Maple tree trunks flickered past my window, sentries lining the rolling hills of the cemetery. A lit U.S. flag whipped in the breeze outside the little chapel, and a creek ran by the headstones, leaping down the incline. Keep running, little stream. Too many souls gone from the world. Too much grief to stop and bear witness. I turned away and counted the headlights bouncing along the grassy berm. At least Robby had come home from Vietnam. How many had been lost before they’d made peace with their best friends? I may be a ninny, but I wouldn’t make that mistake again.

Janyre Tromp is offering an ebook copy of It’s a Wonderful Christmas to one of my readers! (Void where prohibited by law or logistics.) This giveaway is subject to Reading Is My SuperPower’s giveaway policies which can be found here. Enter via the Rafflecopter form below.

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What about you? What makes you want to read It’s a Wonderful Christmas by Janyre Tromp & her coauthors?