Holiday book with multiple storylines.
Be the best person you can, you don’t know why they act the way they do. ( )

This book is one long INTENSE blackpill. If someone told me Sheila Roberts doesn't exist and incels secretly wrote this, I would not be surprised. But hey, now that I know the guys from .co are responsible for r/femaledatingstrategy I think incels are behind everything.

Okay! Let's dig into it. Poor freaking Arnie. Muriel has no interest in Arnie until Dot pretends to have an interest in him. There's the first blackpill. Women practice hypergamy and are only interested in men who have a higher SMV (sexual marketplace value) than they do. The fact that this trick works is treated is whimsical and funny. NO! This is sad! I get so annoyed when I see evidence of this SMV hypergamy in romance novels. Fellow women! You embarrassing me in front of the inkells out here! All of those rogue/rake/player books prove this hypergamy. The other woman who shows up to give the MC some competition (like the exes and the older woman in 50 Shades). Do women actually get off to dread? Now we proving the Red Pill right too. But I'm off on a whole thing. Dot's supposed attraction to Arnie proves to Muriel that he is a worthy mate because another female is interested in him. And hey, a guy can't be attractive unless you can smell all that other pussy wafting off him. Am I right? /s

I hated everything about that trick. Being attracted to men based on whether or not OTHER women find them attractive should not be normalized or treated as cute. All the dudes on r/asktheredpill telling each other build dread in their "plates" and LTRs, yeah when women's fantasies look like this it isn't hard to see why. But I don't believe this is an issue of "woman's true nature" and all that jazz. I don't think this is a biological thing. I believe in the power of media, the power of stories to both reflect and shape our realities. If fiction would stop treating dread and hypergamy as normal/cute/romantic etc, well then maybe we would see far less of it in the real world.

And oh GOD, the backstory from pages 88-89. After Muriel's first husband dies and Arnie makes a tentative romantic gesture, Muriel tells him that no man will ever replace Stephen.
"And she'd truly felt that way...until Waldo came along....'I'd be happy to pay for the lady's drink. Put it on my tab,' a deep voice behind Muriel said.
She turned to see a TALL MAN WITH BROAD SHOULDERS and an equally broad smile and she felt the same fluttering in her chest as what she'd felt the first time she'd seen Stephen."

Gee. I wonder why.

So, Muriel is all set on men until Chad Waldo shows up to pay for her coffee and be tall at her.

Muriel's idiocy is pointed out to her in a flashback scene, and I'd be remiss if I didn't point this out. The narrative does attempt to salvage a bit of integrity with the high school flashback scene pages 211-218. YES. Arnie has been waiting on the sidelines for Muriel since high school and she is a freaking grandmother now. All while poor Arnie has never been married once.
Here is a good example of the narrative attempting to show us that Muriel is wrong for the way she treats Arnie (to be clear, I'm not saying she owes him a romantic relationship BUT she uses him for emotional/financial support in a way that is totally one-sided. She hardly thinks of Arnie as a person. She admits this to herself at one point, but the book falls short of REALLY sticking the landing and I'll explain why in a minute.)
From page 217: "And so it had been all through high school-Muriel always dating the best-looking, most testosterone-loaded boys; and Arnie, the one who'd been the perfect match all along,looking on. He'd continued to look on as she'd fallen for and married two other men.
Funny, now who was looking on? It served her right."

Um...yep. And that would have been a GREAT moral for us readers to walk away with, but alas, oh....poor Arnie. Here is some more cringe for you.

This is a nice fat 80/20 blackpill for you. From page 211. "Suddenly, it was the fall of her sophomore year in high school again. A new boy had moved to town and EVERY GIRL HAD BEEN EYEING HIM. Bill Bernard was a junior, AN OLDER MAN. He was a football player and he had the husky build to prove it. He was rugged and sexy, and with his blue eyes and blonde hair, Muriel and her best friend, Pat, had dubbed him the Viking. Half the girls in school had crushes on him, including Muriel."

Yep. It makes perfect sense to only want a dude because other women want him. That's how you build a long-lasting and emotionally-healthy relationship /s

I say the book tries but doesn't stick the landing, because Muriel and Arnie do end up together. Oh Arnie, you poor beta f***. And the narrative treats this like some huge win for Arnie.

At the end of the book Christmas party on page 288. "Happy New Year, everyone. And congratulations," she said to Arnie, who was looking like a man who'd won the lottery."

Really? He spent decades alone, watching the woman he loved choose Chads over him. He will NEVER have children. He will NEVER have a family of his own. His youth and hers are gone. Muriel probably only picked him because she didn't want to die alone.....freaking A. Poor, poor Arnie! This is the best a man who isn't conventionally-attractive can hope for? That a twice-widowed eldery grandmother will eventually decide that he's good enough to run out the clock with?

Look, here's what should have happened: the narrative should have punished Muriel for her choices. Every choice FOR something is a choice against something else. When she chose the tall masculine men over Arnie, she shouldn't ALSO get to have sweet and kind Arnie in her old age. She shouldn't get both.
This is disrespectful as hell to all men who are not conventionally masculine.
The narrative effectively says, "If you're not a macho man, you might spend decades alone, and never have children (because of course we gotta end those beta genes), but if you're a real good boy, you might get to sleep next to an elderly widow for four of five years before you croak. And if this happens, YOU JUST WON THE LOTTERY.'

I hated it. I hated everything about it. I was so angry when Arnie and Muriel ended up together. I was rooting for Arnie and Dot the whole way. This is the most misandrist thing I've ever read in a novelized Hallmark movie.

Now, on to my other issue:

The whole Christmas Carol retelling aspect. This was SUCH a loose retelling, and that's fine, or it would be if the author wasn't pounding it into me constantly 'THIS IS A LOOSE CHRISTMAS CAROL RETELLING.'

For real, maybe I needed a few more hints. It was too subtle :/

But why are the names all mixed up? Firstly, using actual names from the Christmas Carol was too heavy-handed. I saw the name 'Cratchet' and was like 'Wait...is this a Christmas Carol retelling?'
It would have been more fun to figure it out myself. Especially with the stand-in for Tiny Tim (Leo) having a learning disability (a poorly-research learning disability at that) instead of a physical one, this actually had the potential to be clever.
But no. We have a character named freaking BOB CRATCHET. Except he is the stand-in for Scrooge. Why are the names mixed up? It's so pointless and I think the author just did it because she thinks he readers are idiots who couldn't figure the retelling part out for themselves.
Cratchet's nephew is named Tim too.....gawd.

Then we get two 'Bah Humbugs' and The Christmas Carol is name-dropped twice.

But aside from there being a Scrooge, a disabled kid, and the fact that Cratchet's fiance left him because he loved money (ripped off actual Scrooge's backstory entirely, huh?-that backstory didn't even make sense for Tim to mention because Cratchet and the woman DID eventually get married. It was such a weird thing to bring up and no actual human would do that). Aside form all that, the retelling wasn't evn there. Yes, there's the theme of appreciating people and having a merry Christmas. But for how ham-fisted these "hints' were, I should have got some freaking ghosts. Or at least a stand-in for the ghosts, something serving the same narrative functions as the ghosts.

Then with the Olivia and Meadow story thread, "My Fair Lady" was name-dropped, so I guess that thread was supposed to be a My Fair Lady loose (VERY LOOSE) retelling?

I'll end this rant by saying what I liked about the book. The pacing was good, the writing style charming. It was fun to read (when I wasn't infuriated).

( )

Christmas in Icicle Falls is the final book in Icicle Falls series. Did not finish because I didn't follow this series and there are many characters that you will probably bond with if you read previous books.

Christmas in Icicle Falls is the first Sheila Roberts book I’ve read. It’s the last in the Icicle Falls series, which is just one of many series penned by the author, so I’m not sure how I’ve missed reading her novels so far. But it’s a very enjoyable standalone book, so a good introduction to the author’s characters, style and stories. Plus it’s a Christmas story, perfect for the season. It involves an ugly artificial tree, made beautiful with wise decoration. And it involves very real, messed-up human lives, made equally beautiful.

Single mom Sienna Moreno just wants a safe environment for her developmentally challenged son. Local author Muriel Sterling wants lots of people to find Christmas joy in her book. Friend Arthur wants Muriel to go on vacation with him. And the grouchy old man just wants… to be a grouch perhaps.

As the story continues, backstories add just enough depth to each character, creating believable quirks and compelling explanations, decorating human imperfection with touches of delight, and leading to happy conclusions. Simple acts of kindness add up. Simple misunderstandings retreat. And messed-up relationships give way to trust. It’s a sweet novel, with just enough tart for laughter, heartache and hope. It stands alone easily if, like me, you've not read the rest of the series, and it ends with sweet recipes too.

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this book and voluntarily chose to review it. ( )

I really liked the multi-generational aspect of this story as well as the return to Icicle Falls. The three main storylines meld very well and I didn't feel it jumped around between viewpoints too much. Muriel Sterling, matriarch of the Sweet Dreams Chocolate Company family and local author, deals with the loneliness and jealousies that can arise at holiday time. Newcomer and single mother Sienna Moreno, along with son Leo, look for kindness among their neighbors and new friends. And the return visit to the family running a local german themed inn was heartwarming as well, with Olivia learning how to open her heart to another new daughter-in-law. There is truly something for everyone in this solid holiday read. ( )