Love Always, Christmas

By: Karen Schaler

Narrated by: Shelley Phillips

From Karen Schaler, the three-time Emmy Award-winning writer of Netflix sensation A Christmas Prince and Hallmark's Christmas Camp, the movie and novel, comes a sparkling new Christmas romance filled with humor, heart, and hope.

Libby is planning to spend the holidays alone until a mysterious Christmas card takes her on a life-changing journey where she discovers a family she didn't know she had and a love she was never expecting to find....

Libby Larson's Christmas wish is to get the holidays over as fast as possible. After losing her mom, her only family, she's bah-humbugging Christmas while desperately trying to save her childhood Seattle home.

But when Libby finds a 20-year-old unopened Christmas card addressed to her mom, what she discovers inside takes her to the snowy mountain town of Holly Peak.

As family secrets start to unravel, Libby must rely on Holly Peak's handsome town manager, Adam Thompson, to help her find answers while reluctantly participating in the town's quirky Christmas traditions.

In the midst of merrymaking and mistletoe, Libby's life is forever changed when this Christmas brings her the gift of a family and true love.

©2022 Karen Schaler (P)2022 Audible, Inc.

Hashtag#FeelGood/Hallmark/HolidayRomp

I was not familiar with Karen Schaler's work but one thing's for sure - she's got Christmas down. If you want to get into the Christmas Spirit and stay there, this will keep you bathed in candy canes, sad family memories, priceless holiday decorations, and folksy camaraderie that offer the "Can-Do" spirit when things go awry. The narrator, Shelley Phillips, has a lovely, warm, and bright quality to her voice and has the challenging task of moving this story along which she does with ease. She's a pleasure to listen to and does her best to infuse some of Karen Schaler's main characters with humor and heart (and she has a lovely singing voice to boot!)

A couple of the author's supporting characters ('CC' and 'Tammy') are deliberately written "over the top" with people-pleasing, co-dependent enthusiasm which is a bit perky for my own personal taste. If you weren't convinced before about the power of social media, you will become a convert. Social Media saves the day, the town, and the budding relationship – the way that Santa's elves and his reindeer worked overtime to bring toys and bikes to those who have been good during the year. In the end, love actually prevails and the power of family saves the day. #TheEnd.

Horrible narration

I'm not close to the end of this book... seven hours remain... assuming I'm able to finish it. The story is still developing so I'll reserve judgement on that part until I finish, but I couldn't listen to another word until I reviewed the narration.
For some reason I find it more personally painful to say negative things about a narrator than I do about a writer.
I've read... listened to... other books from this writer and I like them. And I liked the narration. I'm sorry to whoever the narrator is in this book but she is just awful. It's bad enough that several of her characters' voices are sickeningly over acted and annoyingly badly acted, but throughout the book the acting of the narrator doesn't appear to match the content of the writing.
So, yeah, such bad narration that I'm not positive I'll be able to finish. If I can slog through I'll update this review to include the actual story.

Cute story

Sweet and fun Christmas Story but awful narration. This is one that would be better read than listened to.

Cute story TERRIBLE narration!! 😩

Great Christmas story but the narrator was terrible. She wasn’t very interactive and was just reading the words on the page.

A feel good kind of book to get you in the Christmas spirit

A feel good kind of book to get you in the Christmas spirit. Not crazy on the reader but wasn’t a deal breaker.