Written by Stephanie Dagg⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
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My thanks to author Stephanie Dagg, and Rachel of Rachel's Random Resources for the invitation to join the blog tour for Deck the Halles and a free digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
The blurb:
Deck the Halles
It’s next Christmas at the little French llama farm.
Last Christmas infamous Australian author Nick bought the farm, that was meant to be furnished and without llamas. The reverse proved to be the case. Noelle had been sent to pet sit the llamas until his arrival. After a decidedly frosty start, Nick and Noelle’s relationship warmed up rapidly and they’re now happily living together, with an ever growing assortment of animals.
They’re looking forward to a quiet, romantic Christmas together but at the last moment Noelle is called on to find a venue for the annual national llama show. The local agricultural halles are free so she books them, thinking that’s all she’ll have to do to help. She couldn’t be more wrong! On top of that, various relatives start turning up on her doorstep unexpectedly, as the result of assorted crises. The farmhouse is about to burst at the seams. Add in a few other events, such as playing the part of a pixie at a Christmas fête, organising Nick’s book launch and training a non-cooperative llama for the agility class in the show, and Noelle is pushed ever closer to the end of her tether. Can she hold it together and stay as calm as a llama? Or will she be the next member of her family to make a bolt for pastures new?
This festive, feel-good and fun novel is the sequel to ‘Fa-La-Llama-La: Christmas at the Little French Llama Farm’ but can be read as a standalone.
Fiction
Humour
My thoughts:
Another brilliantly funny story from Stephanie Dagg, Deck the Halles is the sequel to Fa-La-Llama-La, which I have just finished and thoroughly enjoyed. This is one of those few occasions when I've managed to read all the books in a series in the right order, but I would say Deck the Halles could easily be read as a standalone. References to events in Fa-La-Llama-La and given sufficient detail so the reader does not feel they've missed anything. In this book, Noelle and Nick have been living toegther for almost a year and are very happily looking forward to a quiet Christmas together. 'Quiet' it will not be, as members of Noelle's family arrive one-by-one for different reasons, as well as Ivy, the mother-in-law of Mr King who sold Nick the farm last year, and her new gentleman friend. All of them arrive needing accommodation, and it looks less likely that Noelle and Nick will have that quiet Christmas they hoped for.
To compound matters, Sylvie Frossard of AssCam (Association des Camélidés en France), asks Noelle to be the local contact on her behalf, and deal with the paperwork for arranging a llama and alpaca show, scheduled for two days before Christmas Day. Noelle naively agrees, assuming it will all be very straightforward, only to find that Sylvie abdicates her responsibilities as soon as her daughter has a baby three weeks ahead of schedule. It is now down to Noelle to pull everything together for the show. When Sylvie's arrangements for manpower to set up the halles fail to materialise, Noelle drafts in friends and family to help.
This is another lovely, funny, happy-ending story which I thoroughly enjoyed reading, and would wholeheartedly recommend.
| Author Bio – Stephanie Dagg |
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 I'm an English expat living in France, having moved here with my family in 2006 after fourteen years as an expat in Ireland. I now consider myself a European rather than 'belonging' to any particular country. The last ten years have been interesting, to put it mildly. Taking on seventy-five acres with three lakes, two hovels and one cathedral-sized barn, not to mention an ever increasing menagerie, makes for exciting times. The current array of animals includes alpacas, llamas, huarizos (alpaca-llama crossbreds, unintended in our case and all of them thanks to one very determined alpaca male), sheep, goats, pigs, ducks, geese, chickens and turkeys, not forgetting our pets of dogs, cats, zebra finches, budgies , canaries, lovebirds and Chinese quail. Before we came to France all we had was a dog and two chickens, so it's been a steep learning curve. I recount these experiences in my book Heads Above Water: Staying Afloat in France and the sequel to that, Total Immersion: Ten Years in France. I also blog regularly at www.bloginfrance.com. I'm married to Chris and we have three bilingual TCKs (third culture kids) who are resilient and resourceful and generally wonderful. I'm a traditionally-published author of many children's books, and am now self-publishing too. I have worked part-time as a freelance editor for thirty years after starting out as a desk editor for Hodder & Stoughton. Find me at www.editing.zone. The rest of the time I'm running carp fishing lakes with Chris and inevitably cleaning up some or other animal's poop. |
| Social Media Links – | |
| Web site | http://www.bloginfrance.com/ |
| Facebook Author Page | http://www.facebook.com/StephanieDaggBooks/ |
| X | https://twitter.com/llamamum |
Thanks for the lovely review! I appreciate all your time and trouble in reading not Deck the Halles, but also Fa-La-Llama-La. I hope you have a very happy Christmas and book-filled New Year x
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