Written by Stephanie Dagg⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
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My grateful thanks to author Stephanie Dagg for a free digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
The blurb:
Fa-La-Llama-LaIt’s very nearly Christmas and, temporarily jobless and homeless, Noelle is back at home with her parents. However, a phone call from her cousin Joe, who runs a house-and-pet-sitting service, saves her from a festive season of Whist, boredom and overindulging.
So Noelle is off to France to mind a dozen South American mammals. She arrives amidst a blizzard and quickly discovers that something is definitely wrong at the farm. The animals are there all right, but pretty much nothing else – no power, no furniture and, disastrously, no fee. Add to that a short-tempered intruder in the middle of the night, a premature delivery, long-lost relatives and participation in a living crèche, and this is shaping up to be a noel that Noelle will never forget.
Fa-La-Llama-La is a feel-good, festive and fun romcom with a resourceful heroine, a hero who's a bit of a handful and some right woolly charmers.
Fiction
Humour
My thoughts:
I was sorely in need of a good laugh when I started this book, and had forgotten just how much I'd enjoyed Haircuts, Hens and Homicides.
Fa-La-Llama-La is written in the first person from the point of view of Noelle Green, a recently dumped, suddenly unemployed and back living with her parents, young woman. Nothing seems to be going right for poor Noelle and then her cousin, Joe finds her a holiday job looking after some llamas in the middle of nowhere in a deeply snowed-in part of France. This takes her away from her family at Christmas. And as she soon finds out... all other creature comforts.
I love Dagg's easy writing style and humour. I knew from the start that things would not go to plan for Noelle, and was delighted when Nick turned up - initially grumpy and exhausted from his travels, to find the house he had bought unseen, was not filled with the furniture he had paid for, and was, at the point he arrived, without electricity.
Noelle deals with everything that is thrown at her, and comes out a winner in my eyes! I found the story comical and thoroughly entertaining, and would highly recommend it. I'm now settling down to read Deck the Halles, the next in this series... Review due on 13th December...
| 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 |
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