Twelve Days of Christmas…Day 10

Well, only 2 more days to go!! Hopefully these Holiday reads…and more to the point, these Holiday DRINKS have been helping to keep you all relaxed and sane.

Book the Tenth

2.5 out of 5 Stars

So, I feel a LITTLE bit bad for my rating on this one. It’s a nice cute easy read… but the editing is ATROCIOUS!  But first, the good. Drake Charming, now football star and his lost crush Elaina Walker just never seemed to have the right timing. Drake recieved some “Words of Wisdom” from his father in his younger year, before his father passed away, to look for the woman who fit his life. Were these Words of Wisdom? Or have they been holding Drake back?

“”Drake.” Drake Charming’s dad stood in front of him holding the football they’d been tossing between them moments before. “There are two things you need to know in life.” Five-year-old Drake knew what his father was saying was important. But Drake had no idea it would be the last advice his father would ever give him. “One, follow your dream.” That made sense to Drake. And he already knew what that dream was. It was the dream both he and his father had. For Drake to win a Super Bowl Championship. “Two. Now this one will be harder. There will be lots of girls in your life and you’ll learn from fairy tales and other stories that all you need to find is the one who wears the right shoe size.” Drake had heard that story and it hadn’t made sense then but now listening to his dad, Drake kind of hated it. “The most important thing a girl can do? She doesn’t need to fit a shoe; she needs to fit into your life. If she doesn’t do that? She ain’t worth it.””

When their high school crush ends in a misunderstanding they meet again 15 years later when both coming back to their hometown for Christmas…and for Drake’s wedding to Elaina’s stepsister Karla. Will they finally learn the truth of why things fell apart all those years ago? Or will Elaina’s evil Stepsister win the man of her dreams?

There were times in this book where I fell in love with the Cinderella story playing out…. and there were times that I literally highlighted huge portions of the book with the only Note being ???? I wish that Julia’s Editor, or friends, or whoever read over her book before it was published had said “Don’t blather! You’re losing the point!” A good example of this was

“Trey and Scott still hung out with Mike from time to time when they were all in town. Eliana wasn’t sure why, but Mike and Drake hadn’t spoken since the same night Eliana last spoke to Drake. She knew Mike had been slightly jealous of Drake since Mike knew all about Eliana’s high school crush, but why hadn’t Drake reached out to Mike? Since Eliana kept all thoughts about Drake as far away as she could, she’d never asked herself the question before. She had also assumed that Drake would have heard about her divorce from Karla, but Karla must have said as little to Drake about Eliana as she said to Eliana about Drake. Thanks to the Drake induced World War Three that had erupted the night of the Christmas Ball, even Ella’s parents stayed mum on the subject. The only recent news Ella knew about her future brother-in-law had been what she’d been unable to avoid thanks to TV or magazines in the checkout line at the grocery store.”

Now, I understand, after my own writing fiasco’s, that it’s hard to get some history put into the story with a lot of people mentioned without it sounding like blather… but, this was just confusing trying to keep everyone straight. This is not the only passage like this too. So, while a cute read, and I would never say to anyone NOT to read it, it definitely could have been complied a little better to make some passages clear instead of somewhat convoluted.

Merrily Ever After is Best Served With

Christmas Coffee

They always seem to be drinking, or talking about coffee in this book. It really made me want a Christmas Coffee! So, that’s just what I made.

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