Why You Should Get This Wonderful Book Today

I can’t even remember why I put it on my Kindle shelf. Love, Laughter, and Luminarias. One thing I do know is that I had to read something else to make room for it. While I’m confessing, I should add that I distinctly recall wondering why I was going to all that effort for a book I didn’t know anything about.

The author? Jaycee Weaver.

Never read a thing by her.

What an idiot.

No, seriously. You know like that moment when someone’s been trying to convince you to try some bizarre food like… oh… chocolate… but you were so sure that brown melty stuff would be très gross? But then you take a bite just to shut her up and realize how delicious being wrong can be?

Yah. That moment.

Note: links may be affiliate links that provide me with a small commission at no extra expense to you.  Read the book with Kindle Unlimited.  Then I bought it.

Why You Should Get This Wonderful Book Today

Yeah, it’s a “Christmas” book.  It takes place at Christmas time, has elements of Christmas as important pieces of the plot.  So what?  (For my opinion on Christmas fiction, go HERE.)

Let’s start with the plot of Love, Laughter, and Luminarias, shall we?

Best friends since junior high. Old hat, right? Nope. Not. Fresh, delightful—like cilantro in the best taco you’ve ever crunched into. Like pico de gallo. Like… okay. You get it. Seriously, I felt like I’d never read that trope before.

And that, my friends, is what authors should do with tropes. They should take them and remodel them into something amazing.

Characters? I loved ‘em both. I loved their journey, their quirks, their faults, their highs and lows.

Nina made me want to bundle her up, bring her home, and say, “Here. We’re not the family you lost, but we’re still your family.” And Ms. Weaver did that without once making me feel like Nina was stereotypical, weak, or flat. Too often you get that with broken people.

Not with hers.

And Garrett? He was perfectly imperfectly perfect. I loved how he was clueless. Again, the clueless guy—trope. But not written in that oh-so-predictable tropeishness. Nope, there was a reason for it, and Ms. Weaver took that reason and ran with it. She turned it into an action movie before my eyes…

Complete with a snowball fight in a craft store.

Seriously, if nothing else would have made me love the book, that might have done it all by itself. I mean, my friend Cathe and I kind of went nuts in Michael’s once… we know for craft-aisle shenanigans. Ms. Weaver wrote it well.

Yep, Weaver knows how to weave a tale of perfection and delight—complete with similes and metaphors to make you chuckle all the way through. Don’t believe me? How’s this one?

…like a kid with a rogue Sharpie.”

It doesn’t stop there.

There’s a scene I want so much to describe… to share with you, but I won’t. You need to read the book yourself. I’ll just tell you this. Garret goes for a walk and sees the most beautiful example of my idea of real romance. And get this. He gets it. Seriously, I swooned.

Folks, I don’t swoon.

And if that wasn’t enough, just as I thought she couldn’t make the book any cooler, she brought in Doctor Who as if it’s just what every good book contains. She’s right, you know.

Look, I have no idea if Jaycee Weaver can write another book that I will love as much as Love, Laughter, and Luminarias, but I do know one thing.

I’m sure as shootin’ gonna find out. Soon. Like maybe today. Yeah… today.