Book Reviews: Three for the Twelfth Day of Christmas (a little late)

Growing up, January 6th (the twelfth day of Christmas; Three Kings Day; Epiphany; Theophany) was the day we took down our Christmas decorations (which went up, unfailingly, the day after Thanksgiving). For me, that includes putting away all the Christmas books (and I have a LOT of Christmas and winter holiday-related books!) So I figured, why not use today to talk about a few of my favorite Christmas reads from the past month? Maybe you’ll want to seek them out now to have in hand for next year. Or maybe you’re one of those folks who enjoy reading Christmas stories all year long, which is totally cool.

EDIT TO ADD: Somehow, this didn’t post on January 6th like it was supposed to, so here it is on January 8th. I’ll figure this scheduling posts thing out eventually.

cover by Inspiral Design

TITLE: Upon the Midnight Queer

AUTHOR: ‘Nathan Burgoine

202 pages, Dominant Trident Press, ISBN 9781777352363 (paperback, e-book, audiobook)

MY RATING: 5 stars out of 5

For several years now, ‘Nathan Burgoine has been writing a new queer retelling or reinterpretation of a classic Christmas tale and posting it for free on his website. This year, he’s collected them into book form (print, e-book, and audio, narrated by Giancarlo Herrera and Hannah Schooner), and added a new “Little Village novella” not available on his website. He started this project at a time when there was far less representation for the LGBTQIA+ community in televised Christmas movies (and especially, televised Christmas romances). That centered representation (as opposed to stories that just include a seemingly celibate gay best friend or neighbor) still has a long way to go. But the landscape is much more diverse in print, and Burgoine is one of the reasons why. Not just because of the short stories collected here, but also because of his Little Village holiday romance novellas (three of which, to date, take place on or near Christmas).

The previously available stories include twists on the well-known classics (Rudolph, Frosty and Jack Frost, Jingle Bells, the Little Matchstick Girl), expand upon supporting characters from other classics (Peter Cratchit from A Christmas Carol) classic Christmas tales from the well-known (Rudolph, Frosty, A Christmas Carol, Jingle Bells), and bring back to light some less well known Christmas stories from the past (including The Christmas Hirelings by Mary Elizabeth Braddon, a novella I'd never heard of before reading Burgoine's story but have come to really love; and The Romance of a Christmas Card by Kate Douglas Wiggin). There's also one story brand new to the collection (that is, not available for free on the author’s website), “Folly,” that is set in Burgoine's Little Village novella series and is an excellent addition to that world, introducing us to characters I do hope will show up in future Little Village novellas.

These are stories that show that no matter the time and place, LGBTQIA people exist and deserve love and to celebrate as much as straight people do. These are stories of hope, love, redemption, and making a place for yourself, during the holidays and all year long.

cover design by Olga Grlic, cover illustration by Nina Hunter

TITLE: The Merriest Misters

AUTHOR: Timothy Janovsky

305 pages, St. Martins Griffin, ISBN 9781250338938 (paperback, e-book, audiobook)

MY RATING: 4 stars out of 5

I’ll be honest: I was sold on this book when I heard it described as “a queer The Santa Clause.” Take one of my favorite Christmas movies and make it less heteronormative? And then tweak the world-building and magic system so that the only real connection to The Santa Clause is the concept of the main characters discovering, through an accident, that “Santa” identity/mantle is passed down (sometimes in a planned way, sometimes not-so-planned)? I’m definitely in.

This is the first Timothy Janovsky book I’ve read (although You’re a Mean One, Matthew Prince has been sitting on my shelf since last Christmas…. Sorry, previously purchased book!), and it won’t be the last because I mostly had a blast reading this. The main characters, Patrick and Quinn, are lovable and relatable (if, near the start, a bit infuriating). Through flashbacks we see how they met, how their romance developed, how they got married and rushed into buying a home (because heteronormative expectations of wedded life…), and how they perceived their families’ reactions to all of it. This is important because, as I mentioned … they’re a bit infuriating at the start. I am not usually a fan of books where everything that happens hinges on a total lack of communication between people who should be communicating. There were several times early on where I stopped reading to shout “Oh, for Kringle’s sake, JUST TALK TO HIM!” But just as I was hitting my limit, the characters did start to talk it out – haltingly, yes, but just enough to keep me invested. And I’m glad I stuck with it, because the second half of the book was even more worth sticking around for. I laughed a lot, and I got teary-eyed as well. And may have cheered once or twice. (Without spoilers, let me hit you with this phrase: Non-Binary Young Elf Poet.)

The world-building is also fun, including looks into the elf society and the existence of a Council of Priors whose guidance isn’t always perfect but at least is heartfelt (including changing the title of Mrs. Claus to the titular Merriest Mister). I would welcome a repeat visit with Patrick, Quinn, their human families and friends, and their new extended family at the North Pole.

Cover art by lilithsour

TITLE: The Nightmare Before Kissmas (A Royals and Romance novel)

AUTHOR: Sara Raasch

356 pages, Bramble/Tor Publishing, ISBN 9781250333193 (paperback, e-book, audiobook)

MY RATING: 4 stars out of 5

I’ve always loved the idea of the personifications of different holidays meeting (perhaps clashing and then teaming up, perhaps getting right to the teaming up part). Through in a little gay romance to move the plot along and all the better. The Nightmare Before Kissmas, the first entry in Sara Raasch’s “Royals and Romance” series (the sequel, Go Luck Yourself, comes out in March) is silly, giddy fun from start to stop. This does not mean that the emotional stakes aren’t real – they are, and range from living up to your parents’ expectations to realizing your parents are not as infallible as child-you thought, to making amends to people you didn’t realize you were hurting – but those stakes are surrounded by a comedy of errors. And all the main characters, male and female, are hot and very human. This is less Nightmare Before Christmas and more Red, White & Royal Blue for the soon-to-be monarchs of the holidays. I liked that we meet Nicholas “Coal” Claus, prince of Christmas, at essentially rock-bottom and slowly get to see why his brother Kris and best friend Iris (the princess of Easter) support him and love him despite all the ways he self-sabotages himself under the weight of the family legacy (and a decent helping of generational trauma). I enjoyed meeting Hex, the prince of Halloween, before we really know who he is, and learning about his own family pressures. These four main characters are the core of the book, although it is narrated in the first person by Coal so most of our views of the other holidays are from his (sometimes skewed) perspective. I also like that most of the drama stems from Christmas’ ongoing, ever-quickening, encroachment of the other holiday. Raasch is not afraid to make that a clear point of contention in this fictional world, as it is for many people in the real world. (If you know me, you know how much I love Christmas – but not to the point that we’re putting Christmas trees up in October and taking them down in March.) While very few are mentioned by name, the author acknowledges that there are a lot of holidays observed and celebrated during the winter months.

I enjoyed this enough that I’m intrigued to see where the sequel, focused on younger brother Kris, will go in exploring holidays other than Halloween, Christmas, and Easter.

I received electronic advance reading copies of these books for free (one from the publisher, two via NetGalley) in exchange for honest reviews. This does not affect my opinion of the books nor the content of my reviews.

The Firflake Performed Live!

I haven’t been very good about talking about this here on my own site, but my novelette THE FIRFLAKE: A CHRISTMAS STORY has been adapted for the stage by Theatre Box of Floral Park, New York and director Kate Lenzo.

Kate and I are old college friends, and when she was looking for a project to work on with her community theater during the ongoing Covid pandemic that has shut down live theater and music venues, she approached me about doing a stage adaptation of The Firflake. It took me all of about 3.5 seconds to say “go for it.” She took a first pass at turning the book into a script and put her cast together. After the first rehearsal (and after the second, and after the third…) we made tweaks to the script (things that read well in your head don’t always translate well to live performance). Then the cast performed on Zoom and Kate recorded and edited, adding opening and closing credits and wonderful music (composed by Frank Sanchez, who really understood the whole “Rankin-Bass claymation special” feel I was going for).

And now, the performance is ready to be viewed by the public!

The Firflake: A Christmas Story is about the legend of the first snowflake of winter and also about how the elves met Santa. It’s also about family, tradition, and the friendships we build that carry us through hard times. It is wonderfully brought to life in this staged reading by a multi-generational cast from across Long Island.

Clicking the below link will take you to Theatre Box’s website. While the production is free, we’re asking for a donation of some kind (seriously, even $1.00!). Full disclosure: donations go to the United Methodist Church of Floral Park, which is the physical home of Theatre Box of Floral Park. Like many live theater, live music, and other gathering-places, UMC of Floral Park has had financial problems thanks to the pandemic. If the church closes permanently, so does the theater. A donation to view The Firflake benefits both the church and the theater, and increases the odds that both will be around when theaters are allowed to reopen. The hope is that in December 2021, we’ll be able to bring you a fully staged production of The Firflake!

In the meantime, we have this filmed reading. Once you make a donation, you will be taken directly to the performance, which is approximately 45 minutes long.

If you’re interested in viewing the Zoom-reading of The Firflake, CLICK THIS LINK.

Top Ten(ish): Christmas Books

Top Ten(ish) is exactly what it sounds like: I list of ten or so of my favorite things that have something in common (books by the same author or editor or publisher; music by the same band/performer, etc.). The (ish) allows me to run slightly higher or lower, because exactly 10 is often hard for me to decide. Note: they’re MY favorites, for a variety of reasons not always having to do with quality alone. I’m not saying they are The Best (in fact, I never make that determination, about anything). Your Mileage May Vary (YMMV). Please, don’t yuck my yum and tell me how I’m completely wrong about anything on this list.

Since it’s the night before Christmas, here’s my Top Ten(ish) Christmas books, in no particular order other than #1:

1.       A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens: I sincerely doubt anything will ever knock this novel from the top spot. I have re-read it every year for as long as I can remember, one “Stave” (chapter) per night starting on December 21st so that Scrooge awakens a changed man on the morning of December 25th. I also usually watch at least one movie version and listen to at least one audiobook version sometime during the month of December. It’s probably the first novella I ever read (holiday or not), and you’ll notice quite a few novellas on this list. I am typically not a Dickens fan, but you’d never know that based on how much I love this book.

2.       Homemade Holidays / Faux Ho Ho by ‘Nathan Burgoine: Speaking of novellas. I was never a real big romance reader, until I started reading ‘Nathan Burgoine. Granted, I started with his more paranormal romance Triad series, but I guess that was the gateway drug. Like the Carol, ‘Nathan’s two (so far) gay romance novellas that take place at Christmas time have become annual re-reads. Homemade Holidays is about a span of years in the life of a young gay writer who was disowned by his family and how he builds new traditions, and a new family, around himself, including finding true love. Faux Ho Ho is a classic “fake relationship” story: the gay son of a rich Conservative family pretends his platonic roommate is his boyfriend to get out of traveling home for Thanksgiving, but then the couple gets invited to his sister’s wedding. Sparks fly, but the truth – and love – will out. (I’d also like to mention that ‘Nathan rewrites a classic Christmas tale through a gay lens every year on his website, and this year’s tale is a take on “Jingle Bells” that is really terrific. I can’t wait until he has enough of these to print a collection.) I wrote a review of Handmade Holidays you can find here and can’t believe I haven’t reviewed Faux Ho Ho yet.

3.       State v. Claus by P. Jo Anne Burgh: Sometimes a book just “clicks.” This year, it was State v. Claus, in which Connecticut lawyer Meg Riley finds herself defending a man who claims to be the son of Santa Claus from a home-invasion charge … and finds herself falling in love and learning to believe in the magic of Christmas again. I reviewed it in full earlier this week, but just can’t recommend it enough. Like most of the books on this list, it’s likely to become a frequent, if not annual, reread.

4.       A Wish for Wings That Work / Red Ranger Came Calling by Berke Breathed: Anyone who knows my love of the comic strip Bloom County will not be surprised to see either of these books on the list. A Wish for Wings That Work stars Bloom County’s penguin Opus, wishing he could do what other birds could do. Red Ranger Came Calling is another tale of Christmas magic that doesn’t feature any Bloom County characters but is an endearing tale about, again, the magic of belief.

5.       How The Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss: I mean … ‘nuff said, amirite?  (Okay … it’s also my favorite Seuss book, the first Christmas book I ever read to my nieces and nephews, and I cannot read it without hearing Boris Karloff in my head.)

6.       A Wish to Be A Christmas Tree by Colleen Monroe (illustrated by Michael Glenn Monroe): A tall, aged pine tree grows in the forest, left behind every year as humans come and pick other trees to cut down and take home. The animals of the forest rally to lift the tree’s spirits and show it that it is loved. A simple, yet surprisingly powerful, picture book about loneliness at the holidays and the power of friendship.

7.       If Dragon’s Mass Eve Be Cold and Clear: Ken Scholes’ novelette looks at a different but still recognizable holiday tradition on a faraway planet, through the eyes of a young woman who has lost her father and lost her hope but who goes through the motions of the holiday traditions because her father would want her to. Along the way, Scholes muses not just on tradition but family expectation, community (the good and less-good aspects) and how hope can be found in the smallest of spaces. I wrote a full review last year around this time.

8.       Miracle and Other Christmas Stories by Connie Willis: There are quite a few Christmas/Winter short story collections and anthologies on my shelf. Most of them I have to admit I’ve re-read a story or two out of every so often, but this Connie Willis collection is the only one I’ve read more than once cover-to-cover. The stories are humorous and touching, the characters relatable and familiar. I can’t even attempt to pick a favorite or two out of the eight in the hardcover edition from 1999 that I have. The book has been re-issued with extra stories under the title A Lot Like Christmas. I really should pick the expanded edition up.

9.       The Twenty-Four Days Before Christmas / A Full House by Madeleine L’Engle: If I were to do a Top Ten(ish) Favorite Authors list, L’Engle would be on it. I loved the Wrinkle in Time books, of course, but I loved the Austin Family series just as much. I wanted to be best friends with Vicky Austin and, if we’re being honest, tween and early-teen me absolutely had a crush on her older brother John. While the main Austin books are YA, these two are illustrated Young Reader books. The Twenty-Four Days Before Christmas is narrated by seven-year-old Vicky, who is concerned the holiday will be impacted by the arrival of the newest Austin child, while A Full House is narrated by Mama Austin and centers on a homeless pregnant girl who shows up on their doorstep. Both are moving stories about the power of family, of love, and of community.

10.   The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg: I tried not to put too many picture books on this list (I have … well, a bunch), but besides The Grinch, this is the one I go back to pretty often, largely because of the beautiful artwork by Van Allsburg.

11.   The Book of Christmas (Time-Life Enchanted World series): Over the years, I’ve lost or given away most of the lavish hardcover Time-Life Library books I acquired in high school and shortly thereafter. But there are two volumes from Time-Life’s The Enchanted World series that I’ve never parted with. One is The Fall of Camelot (because hi, Arthurian-obsessed writer here) and the other is this one. The book doesn’t just concentrate on the Birth of Christ and various iterations of Santa Claus, but also includes a look at a number of other Winter holidays, carols, and traditions. In fact, a particular page and illustration in this book inspired my second Christmas novella, which will hopefully be out next year.

12.   A Stranger in the Woods by Carl R. Sams II and Jean Stoick: a beautiful photography book about a group of animals encountering a snowy stranger in the woods. Not so much a Christmas story as a tale about winter and the peaceful co-existence of humans and wildlife, it’s every bit as cute as it sounds.

13.   A Family for Christmas by Jay Northcote: It’s ‘Nathan Burgoine’s fault that I’m reading so much gay Christmas romance this year. I read this novella for the first time last year and am re-reading it now amidst a veritable avalanche of other gay romance. Another “fake relationship” story with endearing main characters and a happy ending. I am not well-red in the romance field (as I mentioned), but on the strength of this one, Northcote joined Burgoine as a go-to as I explore the field more, and A Family For Christmas joins Burgoine’s novellas on the frequent reread list.

14.   DC Super-Star Holiday Special, 1980, by various writers and artists: Yes, it’s a comic book, an anthology title including stories with Batman, Jonah Hex, Sgt. Rock, Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes, and DC’s horror comics hosts of the era. Like the Carol, it’s a book I’ve reread every year since 1980. Still the same copy, with subscription coupons cut out and all. As much as I loved super-hero Christmas stories, you’d think I’d have kept more of them over the years (particularly DC’s tabloid and digest-size Christmas with the Super-Heroes and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer editions, and Marvel’s tabloids as well). I should look into rebuilding that collection. But even if I do, nothing will ever supplant this particular comic in my heart.

Okay, friends: your turn! Hit the comments and tell me what your favorite Christmas/Hannukah/Kwanzaa/Yule/Ramadan/Solstice/etc. books are – but please do so without denigrating what other people love.

Most of the books mentioned in this post.

a better picture of the DC Holiday Special cover. Smiling Batman! Remember those days?

I may have become slightly obsessed with gay holiday romances, guys.

Book Review: State v. Claus

TITLE: State v. Claus

AUTHOR: P. Jo Anne Burgh

380 pages, Tuxedo Cat Press, ISBN 9781735715704 (paperback, e-book)

DESCRIPTION: (from the back cover): As a partner in a small Connecticut law firm, Meg Riley assesses her clients’ cases based on logic, reason, and hard evidence. But Meg’s rational approach is tested when she is appointed to represent an attractive man who was arrested Christmas Eve for criminal trespass. His explanation for being in a stranger’s house in the middle of the night? He was delivering presents to a little boy – because he, Ralph Claus, is the son of Santa Claus. Or so he claims. From the courtroom to Santa’s workshop and back again, Meg’s efforts to win Ralph’s case are complicated by a variety of people with competing agendas. The little boy’s mother is determined to see Ralph convicted; a quest supported by a state senator who is running for Governor. Ralph’s mother is more concerned about protecting the secrets of Santa than the niceties of the legal system. Meg’s law partners are becoming concerned about her ability to balance Ralph’s case with her obligations to bigger clients – and they don’t even know about Meg’s romantic feelings for Ralph. After trial, an unexpected bombshell jeopardizes Meg’s career. Faced with the potential loss of both Ralph and her profession, Meg must decide once and for all what she truly believes – and what she is willing to sacrifice for that belief.

MY RATING: 5 stars out of 5

MY THOUGHTS: P. Jo Anne Burgh has woven a truly delightful Christmas romance (with a little bit of physical sizzle as well) out of her own familiarity with the legal system and the question of Santa Claus’ seeming immortality. This is a fun read (that I can easily see as a television movie – Netflix, are you listening?) that I hope will make it onto holiday-romance fans’ radar.

The main characters, Meg and Ralph, are endearing and frustrating in equal measure. I paused several times to say out loud (to the probable consternation of my upstairs neighbors) “NO MEG THAT’S A BAD DECISION” or “OH MY GOD RALPH COULD YOU BE ANY CUTER?” And vice versa; I don’t want to make it sound like Meg isn’t capable of being adorable or that Ralph doesn’t make bad decisions (in fact, it is a major bad decision on Ralph’s part that heightens the stakes of the story and propels the action of the second half). As someone who reads relatively little romance overall, and even less straight romance than gay romance, I count this in the book’s favor. Feeling that involved in the characters’ personalities and choices is a good thing.

I’m also not a big reader of legal fiction. I do know that television and movies often make it seem like the court system moves at a swift pace with cases investigated and resolved in just a few days. I appreciated that Burgh allows the action of the book to play out in what would be appropriate real time with a court case that starts out simple but quickly becomes complicated (and then even more complicated). Even a case involving Santa Claus is not necessarily going to move to the top of the court’s docket without good cause, and the acquisition of evidence and witnesses on top of courtroom scheduling can make even simple cases drag out. Burgh uses the real-life delays and setbacks to heighten the drama of the story and to tease out the romantic tension of the two leads.

The romance is neither delayed nor rushed. While the mutual attraction between Meg and Ralph is evident early on, the romance is a bit of a slow burn, taking a back seat in places to the complexities of Ralph’s case, and of course the Ralph-less trip to Santa’s workshop that Meg and her friend Holly take. The roadblocks in their way to a Happily-Ever-After (or at least a Happily-For-Now) ending are key to both the romantic and legal portions of the tale, and don’t just come from the other end of the courtroom; Ralph’s family and Meg’s co-workers have opinions and create problems as well. I also appreciated that neither Meg nor Ralph is a “give everything up for love” type of character. Not that they don’t consider it. But each truly wants to balance romance and work. For Ralph, it seems like this is the first time romance has threatened to interfere with his role in the family hierarchy, while Meg despite trying hasn’t found the right way to balance or the right guy to balance with. (I don’t know if Burgh is planning a sequel, but I can think of one way that Meg’s work and romantic life can come together peacefully and equally.)

There’s plenty of comedy in the book as well, including some well-delivered teenage snark from Ralph’s younger brother Mitch and an extremely cute case of “unrealized identity” that the reader catches on to long before Meg does. There are also cute animals: Meg’s office cat Lulu and a couple of reindeer.

The main supporting cast is well-developed. There are a few sub-plots I wish had gotten slightly more screen time (more of the friendship between Meg and Michael for instance), and two characters mentioned in the back-cover copy that I thought would be more important (the state senator running for governor and the bigger client Meg doesn’t lavish enough attention on) but who never really dovetail back into the main plot. But there’s only so much one can fit in a book of this length; the scenes we do get between Meg and Michael illustrate a loving friendship, and the state senator and rich jerk fulfill their functions as bumps in the road well enough.

I highly recommend State v. Claus … and you don’t have to wait until next Christmas to read and enjoy it, since most of the action takes place between holidays!

Guest Post: Connecting A Village by 'Nathan Burgoine

It’s no secret that I love fictional worlds, whether they’re as vast as a space sector or as intimate as an apartment building. Characters who cross over into each others’ stories, whether as main/supporting characters or winking in-passing references, really make my day. It’s fun teasing those “easter eggs” out when authors pay tribute to a favorite writer or character, but it’s even more fun when an author creates, across stories, an interconnected world. ‘Nathan Burgoine does that in his stories of The Village, the most recent of which, Faux Ho Ho, is available now from Bold Strokes Books. Today, ‘Nathan visits us to discuss how to connect a Village….

Connecting a Village by ‘Nathan Burgoine

When it comes to stories centered around the holidays, I often find myself removed. Sometimes, I mean that literally: when was the last time you saw one of those Hallmark-esque movies including a queer person at all, let alone a queer person with a chosen family of queer people surrounding them? Sometimes, I mean it figuratively: even when you do find the occasional story with a queer main character, if there’s any strain from a familial sense, it’s often resolved with a bow, snowflakes, and tinsel before the credits roll or the epilogue concludes. It’s a yearly frustration, and it very much led to my first foray into queer holiday romance, Handmade Holidays.

Handmade Holidays is all about a chosen family, and how they gather, sometimes part, support each other, sometimes unknowingly fail each other, and grow. As it’s a romance, there’s also a core relationship developing throughout the novella, but my main goal was to show these queer people for what they were: as a real a family as any biological one might be, and no less the loving for it.

I honestly thought I was done with holiday stories after that. I tend to write stories with a dash of speculative fiction, but Handmade Holidays didn’t have a speculative element. I had knowingly set it in my fictional Village—a version of Ottawa’s own gay Village, only with that dash of magic and less gentrification—and the Village was definitely a place I wanted to revisit again and again. The Village is, after all, another metaphor for chosen family, and the magic thereof, and takes center stage in my first collection, Of Echoes Born, including what more-or-less sparks off the rebirth of the Village in the included novelette, “A Little Village Magic.”

But another holiday story? No. Unlikely.

Except…

One of the great things about writing romances is the grand love of various tropes. There are shorthand discussion points to the romance genre that grant whole skeletal frameworks to telling a story, and if there’s one I’ve always loved, it’s the fake relationship trope. There’s just something about people only realizing how they feel when they’re pretending to feel it that really makes my little queer heart go pitter-pat, and part of that, I think, is inherent to the queerness: so many of us spend so much time pretending we’re not what we are. A reversal of that, where pretending leads to a truth? It just feels good.

Also? Fake relationship stories are often funny, and I wanted to write something funny to get myself out of a year-long funk. It turned out to be a good idea on that front, and so Faux Ho Ho, contains some moments I hope will tickle the reader: super-awkward dates, some Dungeons & Dragons cartoon cosplay, and maybe a flung jock strap. A pink one, of course.

Faux Ho Ho grew from the notion of wanting to explore a fake relationship trope plot, coupled with wanting to explore chosen family again, but in a slightly different way. I’d seen a queer friend posting a tribute to “those of us who look at the holidays like a chore of endurance” or something similar, about spending time with families that weren’t outright hostile, but weren’t welcoming, either. Or a mixed bag, where there were family members who were great and loving worth withstanding other family members, who weren’t.

Those two thoughts wouldn’t leave me alone, and it occurred to me that having a fake partner to take home for the holidays would be like bringing a small piece of a chosen family home as backup to get through a difficult time. After that, Faux Ho Ho began to fall into place.

Chosen family meant connections, and so I found myself back in the Village, eyeing the characters who’d come before, looking for an entry point. I knew I wanted someone gregarious for the role of fake boyfriend, and the most outgoing character I’d written thus far was Fiona, an outspoken lesbian who—like Handmade Holidays main character Nick—had been disowned and disconnected from her own family when she came out. In Handmade Holidays, Fiona eventually opens up her own gym, Body Positive, where the mandate is to make sure everyone, no matter how they feel about their body, has a place to foster a more positive relationship with their body and their health.

Having a trainer who worked for Fiona be the fake boyfriend became the first piece of the puzzle, and Dino was born.

Connecting Dino to Handmade Holidays and the Village in general meant I could ground the hero of Faux Ho Ho in the close-knit community I’d already crafted, which as a writer felt akin to putting on a warm sweater I already knew would fit. Silas, a geeky computer programmer type, wasn’t going to be a person who was naturally outgoing, so I eyed my stable of characters and almost immediately decided he’d be connected to Ru, the love interest of Handmade Holidays, who is blunt, outgoing, and doesn’t stand for letting a friend stay on the sidelines when they deserve to be front and center.

During Handmade Holidays, Ru leaves Ottawa to look after his father for a few years, and then returns. When he returns, it’s a quick decision, and he has nowhere to stay immediately, though it’s intimated he couch-surfs with the rest of the characters for a while. At that point, it struck me I had a great way to introduce Silas, and to create the very reason for Silas and Dino to know each other: Silas would be Ru’s roommate, and given the concluding events of Handmade Holidays, Silas would at some point be looking for a new roommate, once Ru moved out.

That became my starting point. Silas and Dino, have been living together as roommates for nine months at the start of Faux Ho Ho, and when Silas is faced with going home for a Thanksgiving event he really, really doesn’t want to attend, Dino jumps in and pretends to be his boyfriend, citing a prior commitment to his own family, and Silas has a graceful out. Neither thinks much of it after that, except when an invitation shows up later for Silas’s sister’s Christmas wedding.

Which is when the whole “fake boyfriend” thing really takes off. Like, in a plane, all the way back to Alberta where Silas’s family lives.

In a similar way to how Handmade Holidays moves through time, a year or two between each chapter, Faux Ho Ho alternates between the present in Alberta and the past nine months that Silas and Dino have spent together as roommates. So much of their time together involves the chosen family of the Village, not just Fiona and Ru, but also Nick, and Phoebe (a trans woman first introduced in Handmade Holidays, who owns and operates a consignment fashion shop we’ve seen before in Saving the Date), Fiona’s wife Jenn and their two kids, Reed and Melody, as well as a few new faces, most importantly Felix and Owen, who make up a quartet alongside Ru and Silas of friends who hang out at Bittersweets (the Village coffee shop) on a weekly basis to catch each other up on their lives.

They also play D&D and board games, because if I’m going to write queer stories, I’m going to include queer nerds out of solidarity for my people. Silas also plays the cleric, which, for my fellow D&D nerds, was a conscious choice that says a lot about who he is.

The chapters where Silas is at home, surrounded by his Village friends and living the life he’s chosen for himself are full of connections. The chapters where Silas is back in Alberta, with his family (but with Dino for backup) are an opportunity to show what those connections have done for him, and how he’s changed in his time in the Village. That was the facet of Chosen Family I really wanted to focus on this time with Faux Ho Ho: how much we grow when we finally get to be the person we are, when we finally find back-up and support.

And although Faux Ho Ho can absolutely be read as a standalone, I don’t think it’s a story I could have written without all the other stories that came before. The short fictions in Of Echoes Born, and the novellas Handmade Holidays and Saving the Date, gave me the confidence to write a character completely bolstered by the support of a good, loving, accepting community because I could picture all of them so clearly. I had a Village, so to speak.

Like Handmade Holidays, I made the choice to stick to something completely contemporary, though the fellas do hang out in Bittersweets and they do mention going to Avery’s chocolate shop from “Vanilla” (another short story set in the Village, where the proprietor has a habit of adding a mystical oomph to anything he crafts by hand, including his chocolates). Faux Ho Ho doesn’t have a speculative element, but that’s not to say there’s no magic. It’s just this time the magic is the kind found in the strength of support and community, pride, and a really well-timed kickboxing lesson or two.

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’Nathan Burgoine grew up a reader and studied literature in university while making a living as a bookseller. His first published short story was “Heart” in the collection Fool for Love: New Gay Fiction. Since then, he’s had dozens of shorter fictions published, including releasing his first collection Of Echoes Born. He does sometimes write longer things, including novellas (In Memoriam, Handmade Holidays, and Saving the Date) and has crossed the line into novel-writing, too. His debut novel, Light, was a Lambda Literary Award finalist, and since then he’s released two urban paranormal novels, Triad Blood and Triad Soul, and a contemporary speculative YA novel, Exit Plans for Teenage Freaks. He lives in Ottawa, Canada with his husband and their rescued husky. You can find him online at NathanBurgoine.com.

Review of 'Nathan Burgoine's HANDMADE HOLIDAYS

HANDMADE HOLIDAYS, ISBN 9781947904354, 82 pgs, $2.99 (Kindle, no print edition)

‘Nathan Burgoine, NineStar Press

PREMISE: (From Goodreads.com)

At nineteen, Nick is alone for the holidays and facing reality: this is how it will be from now on. Refusing to give up completely, Nick buys a Christmas tree, and then realizes he has no ornaments. A bare tree and an empty apartment aren’t a great start, but a visit from his friend Haruto is just the ticket to get him through this first, worst, Christmas. A box of candy canes and a hastily folded paper crane might not be the best ornaments, but it’s a place to start.

A year later, Nick has realized he’s not the only one with nowhere to go, and he hosts his first “Christmas for the Misfit Toys.” Haruto brings Nick an ornament for Nick’s tree, and a tradition—and a new family—is born.

As years go by, Nick, Haruto, and their friends face love, betrayal, life, and death. Every ornament on Nick’s tree is another year, another story, and another chance at the one thing Nick has wanted since the start: someone who’d share more than the holidays with him.

Of course, Nick might have already missed his shot at the one, and it might be too late.

Still, after fifteen Christmases, Nick is ready to risk it all for the best present yet.

MY RATING:  Five stars out of five

MY THOUGHTS:   ‘Nathan Burgoine’s new holiday-themed novella is a beautifully-crafted story of chosen family, kindred spirits and the old edict that “timing is everything.”

It’s almost a trope now that we LGBTQ+ folk love to build our own families. Even those of us whose birth-families accepted and encouraged us still build families of the heart to supplement our family of the blood. But for still too many LGBTQ+ people, the chosen family is the only family they have, built up through common experience and shared hobbies when their birth-families have abandoned and disowned them. This is where Burgoine picks up Nick Wilson’s story. We know just enough about Nick’s birth-family to know they exist and that they have thrown him aside because he’s gay. In some other hands, this story would be about a happy holiday reconciliation with the family that abandoned him. But Burgoine is not afraid to start with the hard truth that for some in our community that reconciliation never comes, and let the story develop from there.

Nick’s family-of-the-heart doesn’t appear miraculously on winter’s breath with traditions full-blown. The first Christmas, with only Haruto and candy-cane ornaments, is full of uncertainty and anxiety. It’s also imbued with just a touch of bravado and a healthy camaraderie that let us know right away: while there may be drama and heartbreak ahead, this is not a sad story. It carries the hope that “it gets better” from the first paragraph. Over the first few chapters, and thus the first few years’ worth of developing holiday traditions, we get to see Nick become comfortable with who he is and the family he’s building around himself. Matt, Fiona and Perry bring out different sides of Nick, from the protective to the argumentative. We get to know them as Nick gets to know them, and they are all engaging and interesting. Even the supporting characters who are on stage for far less time (and some of who are far from likeable) are at the least interesting. 

Of course, there wouldn’t be much of a book without complications, distancing, and misunderstandings, and all five of these core characters experience their share. Burgoine heightens that drama by occasionally letting more than one year go by between chapters, allowing for lots to have changed within the group dynamic without having to show us every incremental step in those changes. This time-hopping (but never flash-backing) technique keeps the reader engaged, keeps us wondering what new changes will become apparent with each new chapter, much as we might wonder what news the latest “Christmas Letter” is going to bring from old friends we only hear from once a year.

The novella spans fifteen years in the life of Nick and his friends, experiencing losses and gains. It reads fast and easy, another reason I love ‘Nathan Burgoine’s work: he gives us deep characterization and emotional stakes without dragging the story out any longer than it needs to be. If there’s a personal or sensory detail missing, it didn’t need to be there to begin with. The end of the book comes too fast (because we’ve come to love these characters and don’t want to say goodbye) but also not too fast (because the story has reached a natural, happy, end-point without being forced).  I can’t recommend Handmade Holidays highly enough, and it is definitely going on my annual re-read list.

FAVORITE CHRISTMAS BOOKS - Anthony R Cardno

As the author of a book that retells some classic Santa Claus-related legends (THE FIRFLAKE, which you can find purchasing links to right here on this website), and with another book that takes place at Christmas (CHRISTMAS GHOSTS) hopefully to be picked up by a publisher in the coming year, I guess it’s natural for people to assume that I love most of what’s connected to the Christmas holiday. And that assumption would be correct. As most people, I have my  downs during the holiday season: missing loved ones who are no longer with us, getting caught up in the more commercial side of the holiday and feeling all of that shopping pressure and tension. But there are more “ups” for me than “downs,” and one of those “ups” is the plethora of Christmas-connected fiction that is out there.

Here, in no particular order, are my favorite Christmas books and a brief comment about why they rank amongst my favorites:

1.  A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Okay, this really is #1 for me, although the rest are in no particular order. This is the one Christmas book I am guaranteed to reread every year. I should note that overall I am not a Charles Dickens fan, but there is something about the narrator’s voice in this book that I just love, apart from the story itself. I tend to read large portions of this out-loud to myself. Is anyone not familiar with the tale of Ebenezer Scrooge, Jabob Marley, Tiny Tim and the Three Ghosts?

2. Red Ranger Came Calling, by Berkeley Breathed. Breathed is better known for his “Bloom County” and “Opus” newspaper comic strips. He based this story on an event from his father’s childhood, retelling it in his own inimitable style. “Red” Breathed is sent to visit with an aunt at Christmas time, and meets a hermit named Saunder Clos, who may or may not be the real Santa Claus. It’s a great adventure story with fantastic illustrations.

3.  The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg, another picture-book classic lavishly illustrated by the author. Late on Christmas Eve, a boy who no longer believes in Santa is beckoned to board a train bound for the North Pole, and the adventure changes his life. I wonder how many people watch the movie without ever opening up the original book?

4. How The Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Suess. The question I asked about the Polar Express could be asked about this book as well. We are all so familiar with the Boris Karloff-narrated, Thurl Ravenscroft-sung television special that I think people forget the book came first. I love to read this to my niece and nephew on Christmas Eve, along with The Polar Express and the next book on my list…

5. Twas The Night Before Christmas by Clement C. Moore. The version I have is illustrated in a highly realistic style by Bruce Whatley. There are so many published versions that there has to be a style for everyone by now. When they were younger, the kids loved the reindeer’s facial expressions in this version.

6. A Christmas Story by Jean Shepherd is actually a compilation of his essays from various other books which includes all of the stories used in the movie version. Reading these stories, you can hear the author’s voice as clearly as you hear it narrating the movie. There are some subtle differences between the two formats, but I love Shepherd’s down-home storytelling style.

7. A Wish Upon the Wind by Joseph Pittman is a story of celebrating Christmas in the aftermath of a great loss. Brian Duncan and his young ward Janey Sullivan are trying to find their way after the death of Janey’s mother. Their small town friends and neighbors end up helping them remember what Christmas is all about, and how we can use our grief to grow. A wonderful short novel.

8.  Miracle and Other Christmas Stories by Connie Willis is a collection of short stories that take place during the holiday season. I usually pick one or two to reread each year since I bought the collection back in 1999. There are eight stories in here, and surely something for everyone.

9. The Autobiography of Santa Claus, as told to Jeff Guinn. I put off reading this one for years, knowing that it might touch on some of the same territory I was covering in my own book. And then one year I realized — doesn’t every story about how Santa became Santa touch on the same basic concepts? Why avoid reading what everyone says is a wonderful book? I’m glad I did. It’s a bit heftier than most of the usual Christmas-season fare in terms of page-count, and I have yet to tackle either of the two sequels, but Guinn captures a wonderful voice for Santa and makes some unique story choices to explain how Santa does what he does.

Honorable Mentions: “A War of Gifts” which takes place in Orson Scott Card’s Ender Wiggins universe; “The Book of Christmas” by Time-Life Books (which inspired my second Christmas book).

Books I hate to admit I haven’t read yet: I have never read L. Frank Baum’s “The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus,” or Orson Scott Card’s “Zanna’s Gift.” Perhaps this year!