{"id":13644,"date":"2020-12-04T16:14:24","date_gmt":"2020-12-04T21:14:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/?p=13644"},"modified":"2024-01-22T19:41:58","modified_gmt":"2024-01-23T00:41:58","slug":"love-all-year-a-holidays-anthology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/13644","title":{"rendered":"Love All Year: A Holidays Anthology"},"content":{"rendered":"

Love All Year: A Holidays Anthology<\/a><\/em> (2020) Stacey Agdern, Hallie Alexander, Savannah J. Frierson, Felicia Grossman, Farah Heron, Celestine Martin, Ekaterine Xia<\/p>\n

\"Love<\/a>This is an anthology of romances set around holidays that are NOT Christmas, Thanksgiving, or Valentines Day.<\/p>\n

Three Stars in The Sky<\/em> by Stacey Agdern
\nIt Happened One Yule<\/em> by Celestine Martin
\nQueen Esther, Unmasked<\/em> by Hallie Alexander
\nLegacy of Love<\/em> by Savannah J. Frierson
\nMaking Up With Eid Bae<\/em> by Farah Heron
\nA Bridge of Magpies<\/em> by Ekaterine Xia
\nThe Sweet Spot<\/em> by Felicia Grossman<\/p>\n

I really wanted to like this anthology–the idea of it is marvelous. But very few of the stories worked for me–mostly because almost all of them were boinking stories, and that is almost never going to work for me in a short format. So it’s quite likely these stories will work for other people, who don’t have my quirks.<\/p>\n

Three Stars in The Sky<\/em> by Stacey Agdern is set during Sukkot, of two musicians who had dated in high school, but after he stood her up at prom she ended up writing a hit song based upon her feelings. He joined a boy band and now is a big solo artist, and says wants her song writing skills for his next album. But what he really wants is to make up for their past.<\/p>\n

This was a fine second chance story. But I kept being confused as to what their past really was, which kept making me wonder what actually was happening. The fact that he was in a huge boy band isn’t really clear until late in the story, so he really came across as a complete jerk, as opposed to a confused teenager who was not in control of any of his life.<\/p>\n

It Happened One Yule<\/em> by Celestine Martin is a wicca story, and nothing here worked for me. <\/p>\n

Queen Esther, Unmasked<\/em> by Hallie Alexander was an historical set during Purim. She has broken her engagement, and may now be considered unmarriageable. <\/p>\n

He’s locally famous for being a boxer, and ends up playing her opposite in the Purim play.<\/p>\n

I feel like this needed to be a longer story. We were told a lot in a rush about the two characters, but I never really got a feel for either of them. Neither who they were or who they were perceived to be.<\/p>\n

Legacy of Love<\/em> by Savannah J. Frierson is a Juneteenth story, and again felt like it needed a little more. Also, I’m not sure that he deserved his second chance, because he had a lot to come back from, and I don’t feel like he really made up for it. <\/p>\n

Making Up With Eid Bae<\/em> by Farah Heron is an Eid story, and probably the one I liked the best. I actually believed his need to his second changes, and the fact they were so young when they had their falling out excused the behavior on both of their parts (Because: teenagers). <\/p>\n

A Bridge of Magpies<\/em> by Ekaterine Xia is set during the festival of Qixi. This was also an interesting story, although I initially was confused as to the relationship between Yulan and Verity, which made the rest of the story confusing, until I got that sorted.<\/p>\n

The Sweet Spot<\/em> by Felicia Grossman is set during Rosh Hashanah and is the other story that really didn’t work for me at all.<\/p>\n

I know that for an anthology, only two out of seven stories that totally didn’t work for me isn’t that bad, but since I didn’t fall in love with any of the other stories, it made the whole thing feel like a disappointment.<\/p>\n

Rating: 4\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Love All Year: A Holidays Anthology (2020) Stacey Agdern, Hallie Alexander, Savannah J. Frierson, Felicia Grossman, Farah Heron, Celestine Martin, Ekaterine Xia This is an anthology of romances set around holidays that are NOT Christmas, Thanksgiving, or Valentines Day. Three Stars in The Sky by Stacey Agdern It Happened One Yule by Celestine Martin Queen […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18,292,48,148,26,56],"tags":[50,738],"class_list":["post-13644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anthology","category-ebook","category-female","category-queer","category-romance","category-sexual-content","tag-boinking","tag-holiday"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/piQkW-3y4","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4613,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/4613","url_meta":{"origin":13644,"position":0},"title":"Tales of the Otherworld","author":"Michelle","date":"May 18, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Tales of the Otherworld (2010) Kelley Armstrong Not knowing what I was in the mood to read, an anthology seemed just the thing. These are stories from Kelley Armstrong's Otherworld series--stories that fill in the cracks between her novels--most of which I have not read. (I believe I have read\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"tales-of-the-otherworld","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/tales-of-the-otherworld.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":13571,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/13571","url_meta":{"origin":13644,"position":1},"title":"Gifts for the Season: Winter & Christmas MM Charity Anthology","author":"Michelle","date":"November 12, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Gifts for the Season: Winter & Christmas MM Charity Anthology (2020) This is an anthology of short stories, which are always to have some stories that don't work for me. The issue with this anthology is that there were short stories--most of which were quite good--and there were tales that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Anthology"","block_context":{"text":"Anthology","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/anthology"},"img":{"alt_text":"Gifts for the Season","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Gifts-for-the-Season.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":17372,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/17372","url_meta":{"origin":13644,"position":2},"title":"Scenes from the Holidays","author":"Michelle","date":"June 6, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Scenes from the Holidays (2021) K.D. Edwards (Tarot Sequence) \"The Playground\" (7 pages) \u201cThe Sanctum\u201d (7 pages) \u201cThe Ghost\u201d (10 pages) \u201cThe Principality Ciaran\u201d (13 pages) \"The Tree\" (7 pages) \"The Dinner\" (20 pages) \"The Equinox\" (13 pages) Scenes from the Holidays consists of short Tarot Sequence vignettes, released serially\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "7.5\/10"","block_context":{"text":"7.5\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/7-5-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2507,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/2507","url_meta":{"origin":13644,"position":3},"title":"Kiss Me, Kill Me","author":"Michelle","date":"August 30, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Kiss Me, Kill Me: A Paranormal Anthology (2011) Definitely a mixed bag. But for 99 cents, it's hard to complain too much. \"Impulse Control\" by Susan Bischoff was very very good. It's about teens with superheroes in a \"school\" for kids with \"Talents\". Or more accurately, it's little better than\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Anthology"","block_context":{"text":"Anthology","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/anthology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":122,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/122","url_meta":{"origin":13644,"position":4},"title":"Assassin Fantastic","author":"Michelle","date":"September 12, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Assassin Fantastic (2001) edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Alexander Potter I know that Martin Greenberg puts together good anthologies, however there's something about the \"Fantastic\" that gets tacked onto the end of each anthology theme title that puts me off for some reason. However, I've always been fond of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Anthology"","block_context":{"text":"Anthology","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/anthology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2005\/09\/Assassin-Fantastic.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2328,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/2328","url_meta":{"origin":13644,"position":5},"title":"Full Moon City","author":"Michelle","date":"April 4, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Full Moon City (2010) edited by Darrell Schweitzer and Martin H Greenberg I love anthologies. Though I have to admit that with the way paranormal romance has taken off, the ratio of wheat to chaff has been unfavorable for me. However, Carrie Vaughn and Peter S. Beagle were pretty compelling\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/Full-Moon-City.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13644\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}