2016 Advent Calendar Review ~ Popcorn Garlands by Ariel Tachna
Title: Popcorn Garlands
Author: Ariel Tachna
Category: Holiday, Contemporary
Pages: 26
Carlos Mendez spends all year working hard at his Houston-based landscaping business, and he sends every spare penny he earns back to his family in Mexico. By the time the holidays roll around, he doesn’t have much patience for the unadulterated greed and consumerism paraded past him. But a chance meeting with his neighbor, Ned Williams, and Ned’s cancer-stricken daughter, might help to remind him of the real meaning of the season—something beyond the gaudy lights and extravagant displays—something he wants to be a part of.
3 Stars!
Just a Christmas tale of goodwill and human decency. Not a romance.
This is a short tale of a Mexican guy who owns a business and plays Santa on 23rd December to his employees and their kids, and goes a step further and plays Santa to his new neighbour and the guy's little girl who's undergoing chemotherapy.
It's short and it could have been a feelgood tale had it been longer, but it fell flat because...well, nothing other than what I've mentioned above happens. It felt a bit like the plot of a tale that got turned into a short read, but which could have been so much more. I read it in 11 minutes, with a pause to answer the door.
ARC courtesy of Dreamspinner Press and Bayou Book Junkie, for my reading pleasure.
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