My Thoughts
There are so many Christmassy things included in this book to have you feeling all cosy and fill you with Christmas cheer, from festive baking, to the Christmas craft fair, carol singers and of course, there is some snow though not always when you might expect it…
Perhaps Cerys has to learn that some new beginnings take a while to … well, begin! But with a bit of patience, some mild espionage, a generous sprinkling of festive magic and a flock of pub-crashing sheep, could her fifth Christmas in Padcock lead to her best new beginning yet?
Not all festive wishes come true right away – sometimes it takes five Christmases …
About the book
This is the first book in a series and I can’t wait to return to Padcock to catch up with Cerys and Lovely Sam again – he really did sound lovely! Christmas of New Beginnings is such a gorgeous romance, the joy of Christmas wrapped up in a book.
Folk singer Cerys Davies left Wales for the South Downs village of Padcock at Christmas, desperate for a new beginning. And she ends up having plenty of those: opening a new craft shop-tea room, helping set up the village’s first festive craft fair, and, of course, falling desperately in love with Lovely Sam, the owner of the local pub. It’s just too bad he’s firmly in the clutches of Awful Belinda …
Kirsty’s first timeslip novel ‘The Memory of Snow’, commended in the Northern Writers’ Awards, is set on Hadrian’s Wall, with the vampire tale ‘Refuge’ set on the Holy Island of Lindisfarne. She has also put together a collection of short stories, a non-fiction collection of articles and writes Gothic Fiction under the pen name Cathryn Ramsay.
I loved this Christmas novella from the very first page which made me giggle with a stampede of sheep in the local pub! It’s most definitely what you’d call a slow burn romance as the storyline takes place over five Christmases moving back and forward though those years, as we get to know Cerys, Sam and Edie. The book is funny, warm and highly entertaining. Even the chapter titles made me smile!
Kirsty is from the North East of England and won the English Heritage/Belsay Hall National Creative Writing competition in 2009 with the ghostly tale ‘Enchantment’.
Kirsty has had articles and short stories published in Your Cat, Peoples Friend, Ghost Voices, The Weekly News and It’s Fate, and her short stories appear in several anthologies. She was a judge in the Paws ‘n’ Claws ‘Wild and Free’ Children’s Story competition in 2011, 2013 and 2014, and graduated from Northumbria University in December 2016, having achieved a Masters with Distinction in Creative Writing.
About the Author
You can find out more about Kirsty and her work at http://www.rosethornpress.co.uk, catch her on her Facebook AuthorPage, follow her on Twitter @kirsty_ferry or pop by her blog at http://www.rosethornramblings.wordpress.com.
Her timeslip novel, ‘Some Veil Did Fall’, a paranormal romance set in Whitby, was published by Choc Lit in Autumn 2014. This was followed by another Choc Lit timeslip, ‘The Girl in the Painting’ in February 2016. ‘The Girl in the Photograph’, published in March 2017, completes the Rossetti Mysteries series. The experience of signing ‘Some Veil Did Fall’ in a quirky bookshop in the midst of Goth Weekend in Whitby, dressed as a recently undead person was one of the highlights of her writing career so far!
Thanks to Liz at ChocLit for my review copy of this book. Christmas of New beginnings is published by Ruby Fiction and is available now. You will find buying options on the Ruby Fiction website here.
Just last week Kirsty Ferry took part in my #AuthorInTheFestiveSpotlight feature – you can read that here – and I’m so pleased to be sharing my review today of the book she was talking about then Christmas of New Beginnings. Spoiler alert – I loved it! Read on to find out more.
