Title: Lucy, at Christmastime
Author: Simon R. Green
Series: Nightside #8.4
In: Wolfsbane and Mistletoe (Charlaine Harris & Toni L.P. Kelner)
Rating Out of 5: 5 (I will read this again and again and again)
My Bookshelves: Dark fantasy, Paranormal fantasy
Dates read: 18th November 2019
Pace: Fast
Format: Short story
Publisher: Gollancz
Year: 2008
5th sentence, 74th page: She never does.
There’s the Ghost of Christmas Past and then there’s the Ghost of your First Time… after reading this, you tell me which is worse.
At the beginning of this story, I thought it would be quite a sweet, easy little read. It begins talking about the fact that you never forget your first. Which, of course, we don’t. What I didn’t quite realise was that the narrator really wasn’t talking about the first I was imagining. Or at least, that was not all that he was talking about. It turned out to be quite a tragic tale, and one that almost had me in tears.
Alright, this story is still about first loves, but, being that it is a werewolf story, there is a much darker twist on the glory of a first love. Something that I really wasn’t expecting, and was only revealed at the very end. Yet, there is also a bittersweetness to the story – he is able to constantly love and communicate with the spectre of the past, one that eerily reminds me of the ghosts in A Christmas Carol.
Most people dream of true love. And, in its dark, twisted way… this is a beautiful tale of that kind of love. That everlasting feeling that you’ll never get over, and always remember… kind of a nice Christmas tale, but not one that left me with all the warm fuzzies that I normally would like.
Title: How Do You Feel?
Earth and Skye 