Five books to read this Christmas

Hello everyone! It feels as if it’s been a long time since I wrote to you all last. Then again, I suppose I’ve had quite a busy couple of months.

It’s so strange the way this year has passed by with Covid and everything. I felt as if the first couple of months flew by in a bit of a blur.

Then with lockdown we hit the brakes and March through to around June/July dragged quite a bit (for me at least).

Then the summer came, and although it wasn’t exactly the summer I’d expected or planned, I managed to have quite a bit of fun with my friends and family, which I was glad for before going to uni in September.

And now it feels as if it’s hardly been ten minutes since September and yet somehow we’re staring down the barrel of the end of the year.

Conclusion: very weird.

So, why have I been so quiet over the last few months? For those of you who didn’t get chance to read my last blog post, I’ve been rather busy over this term developing a creative writing blog as part of my English module.

I may have mentioned in my last blog post that I was a bit dubious about this module – I knew that I would either love it or hate it and there would be no in between.

For context, structured creative writing isn’t usually my thing. In fact, when I told my English teacher that not only was I publishing a book, but that I had also published a fair bit of work online by that point, I think she was genuinely surprised. To be fair to her, I’m pretty sure I hadn’t shown her a piece of work since about year eight, and even then, it was a very badly veiled retelling of the final scene of Jane Eyre as a ghost story… not my best work, even I will admit. It’s not surprising that she didn’t immediately jump to the conclusion I loved writing.

And I wouldn’t blame her. Throughout all my years of high school, if anyone had asked me about creative writing in English, I’d have told them I hated it. Dreaded it, even. You would think that there isn’t much difference between free writing and studying creative writing, but I always found that there was.

Anyway, so I met this module with mixed thoughts, and I have to say that I’ve been pleasantly surprised. It’s actually been really fun; I’ve really enjoyed being challenged to learn new skills, write something each week, and review what I’m writing with a more critical gaze than I would usually use.

And something which I’d never considered deeply, but has proved to be really enriching, was discussing my work with a group of people. I know that “two heads are better than one”, but apart from sharing my in progress stuff with a few selected friends and family members, I never really thought anyone else would be that interested in giving me feedback to help improve my work.

This module has taught me that even when you don’t share specific things, general comments of feedback can be really helpful in helping you figure out what you want to do with a story. It also helped me to build my confidence in sharing my work; you wouldn’t really think it, given the fact I’ve posted blog posts nearly every week for the past three years, but I do have a real fear of sharing my work.

Forcing myself to post pieces, extracts or ideas in the group chat for feedback from a bunch of people who I essentially didn’t know very well was quite daunting at first, but now, I think it’s helped me be able to share my work without fear of negative feedback. For instance, with my final submission piece which I’m currently working on, I can already think of a load of people I’d love to give me feedback on it. Definite progress :)

Some of the stories I worked on, I’ve been quite proud of actually, and so I decided I would launch a few of them on my Inkitt page as a small short story collection (you can go and read the first one and the blurbs for the other two now!). I’m going to have to wait a bit before I can submit the other two, but if you like the first one, keep your eyes peeled, because in my humble opinion, the other two are much better.

[Link to my Inkitt page, if you haven’t already seen it the dozen or so times I’ve posted it ;) https://www.inkitt.com/RoxyElle]

I’ve also taken two of my ideas away to expand into larger pieces of work – I haven’t quite decided how large yet, or when I’m going to get around to actually writing them, but I’ll keep you posted on my decisions with those two. They’re both quite out of my usual genres, so I hope you like them when you get to read them.

One last thing before I get onto the actual topic of the post and stop boring you all with how much I’ve loved this module this term: if you’d like to read any of the pieces I was working on, or are looking for some creative writing tips yourself, or even just fancy reading some more of my spiels (they’re not quite as reader-friendly as these ones are just as an fyi), here’s the link to check out the site: https://roxyelle01.wixsite.com/creativewritingbas

Ok, so as you may have gleaned from the title, I’ve made a list of five books you should check out over this Christmas holiday. I know as we’re halfway into the month five books might be a bit of a big ask, but who knows, there might be some of you reading this who read a lot faster than I do.

And I like to work in round numbers like 3, 5 and 10; one of my quirky things :)

As you may know if you’ve been reading this blog for a while, Christmas is my favourite time of the year. It’s a time for family, love, happiness and hope. Which I think we could all do with a bit of this year given everything that has happened. I know that we’re all dealing with really difficult circumstances this year, but I really hope that you all can find a little bit of Christmas spirit out there somewhere. Maybe one of these books will help lift your spirits a little :)

Since the last time I wrote to you all, a lot of good things have happened for me, and so I find myself with quite a few things to be thankful for this Christmas. Last Christmas, for a multitude of reasons, I was finding it quite hard to stay positive, and I’m thankful to my friends and family for helping put a smile on my face when I needed it most.

And so, I really hope that I can do the same for any of you who are struggling this year, and this post and next week’s post are going to be my ways of trying to do that.

[As ever, if you need someone to talk to, or even just want to vent a bit, my Instagram DMs are always open (@roxyelle01) – I’m always happy to listen :) ]

The genre of Christmas books is quite a wide one as most people have more spare time to read around Christmas and when they go on holiday. So, what Christmas themed books have made my list?

- For those who love a feel-good novel to warm your hearts in the chilly weather, “A Gift in December” by Jenny Gladwell.

I’m currently reading this novel and it is such a perfect novel to get you into the Christmas spirit. The vivid descriptions of beautiful Norway at Christmas time could make even the worst scrooge feel a little bit of Christmas cheer, I’m sure. Reader Review has described the novel as ‘a great, feel-good read with some real Christmas magic’, so I felt it was probably the best suited book to a feel-good category.

- For the murder mystery lovers of you out there (like me 😉), I recommend “Mistletoe and Murder” by Carola Dunn

Incidentally, the books in this series are some of the books that got me into writing in the first place, so they have a special place in my heart 😊 This book is quite far on in the series, and so will make more sense if you’ve read other books in this series, but this Christmas-themed novel stands on its own enough to put you in a Christmassy mood, and contains enough of a thrilling murder than you’ll want to solve it.

- For those who love a Christmas themed romance, I recommend “Starry Night” by Debbie Macomber

I read this novel a couple of years ago, and it’s such a good story. The Alaskan setting will put you right in the Christmas mood and who doesn’t love a romance at Christmas time? As Good Reads describes it, “Starry Night is a delightful novel of finding happiness in the most surprising places.”

- For those who want a good classic, it doesn’t get better than “A Christmas Carol”, does it?

Now, I’m not stereotypically a fan of Dickens (although, sidebar, I did watch the BBC adaptation of Bleak House recently, and god it was good!). For me, his writing can be quite depressing, but this book is probably my favourite of his. I think it’s a really well written book with an interesting story, but also a powerful message behind it that can remind us to think about our actions and intentions.

- And finally, for those who are into your history/legends/magical stories, I cannot

recommend “The Story of Santa Claus” by Joseph McCullough enough.

I love stories that are fictional but skirt around legends and roots of truth, and that’s what this story does. It manages to tell an engaging and beautiful story whilst also teaching you the roots of the Santa Claus legends around the world, which I found to be a really interesting element.

So, there you go. I hope you get time to read one or more of the books on that list; I tried to cover as many of the popular reading genres that I could in books that I’ve read before. If you have other recommendations for other genres, share them below :)

I’ll be back with another post next Wednesday, so watch out for that, and until then I hope you all have a really good week. For those of you travelling home, safe journeys, and for those of you staying where you are, hope you're getting nice and cosy!

#christmas #bookrecommendations #roxyelle