Today I am glad to be one of the stops on the blog tour for The Silver Bells Christmas Pantomime by Lynsey James. I’ve reviewed the book below and you can even find a giveaway that ends tonight!
Synopsis
This Christmas pantomime is about to be the talk of the town! Luna Bay’s festive preparations are well under way and the much anticipated annual pantomime is to be, once again, the highlight of the season. Too bad that the village’s very own actress and darling of Broadway, Alice Woods, isn’t feeling in the mood for Christmas.
Until the pantomime comes under threat and a grief-stricken Alice is forced to push her personal pain aside and step up to direct – after all, the show must go on..
So with (more than) a little help from her new found friends, not to mention one very gorgeous Hollywood A-list celebrity, the play begins to come together, but will Alice finally believe that Christmas is a time for miracles after all?
Find it on Amazon // Find it on Goodreads
My Review
Well you all know just how much I have loved Lynsey’s previous offerings – I’ve spoken about both The Broken Hearts Book Club and The Sunflower Cottage Breakfast Club previously – so of course I wanted to get involved with the blog tour for her Christmas offering. So what did I think?
Well let me just say I did love a certain Mr Fox. After Twitter chats whilst Lynsey was in the process of writing this book, I had an inkling of who he was based on (and Lynsey recently confirmed I was right!) and thus this person stayed in my mind throughout the book as Ethan. I couldn’t imagine anyone else as him so if this book gets snapped up for a film, they better cast said person to play him!
I loved getting to see characters from Lynsey’s other books make their appearance in this book – it was nice to see Lucy and Emily being such good friends to Alice – and I felt that Lynsey told Alice’s back story very well. If I remember rightly, we were treated to a little teaser about Alice hiding something big back in The Sunflower Cottage Breakfast Club so it was nice to see how Lynsey seamlessly wove the two tales together and expanded on the story for us all.
Alice has certainly been through a lot in her fairly young life and I think Lynsey told her story well – delicate and sensitive where she needed to be and humorous where it was needed too. I know the book mentions Christmas in the title too so of course there is a lot of Christmas themed stuff going on – Alice’s job in the grotto, the Christmas pantomime and so much more – but it was just the right amount of festivity without it going completely over the top as some books have a way of doing.
I found myself cheering at the very end when a certain scene happens and I may even go as far as to say that this is my favourite book by Lynsey yet – the characters and their stories are wonderfully developed, Alice’s back story is a biggie and is treated as such rather than being pushed to the sideline and a certain Mr Fox literally epitomises what you would expect a UK born Hollywood actor to be like – very into the LA scene but it doesn’t take him long to get back to his roots.
A great read, I gave it 5 out of 5 stars.
About Lynsey James
Lynsey James was born in Fife in 1991 and has been telling people how to spell her name ever since. She’s an incurable bookworm who loves nothing more than getting lost in a good story with memorable characters. She started writing when she was really young and credits her lovely Grandad- and possibly a bump on the head from a Mr Frosty machine- with her love of telling stories. She used to write her own episodes of Friends and act them out in front of her family (in fact she’s sure she put Ross and Rachel together first!)
A careers adviser at school once told Lynsey writing wasn’t a “good option” and for a few years, she believed her. She tried a little bit of everything, including make-up artistry, teaching and doing admin for a chocolate fountain company. The free chocolate was brilliant. When Lynsey left my job a couple of years ago, she started writing full-time while she looked for another one. As soon as she started working on her story, Lynsey fell in love and decided to finally pursue her dream. She haven’t looked back since.
When Lynsey’s not writing, eating cake or drinking tea, she’s daydreaming about the day Dylan O’Brien FINALLY realises they’re meant to be together. It’ll happen one day…
You can find her on Twitter, Facebook and over on her blog.
** GIVEAWAY **
For your chance of winning £25 to spend on a theatre voucher with the ATG theatre group (check venues here) which ends TODAY, enter below. It’s UK only.