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A ’12 Days of Christmas’ Holiday Book Tag!

What better way to celebrate the season than with a book tag for one of the most annoying Christmas songs ever?

I know some people actually like this song.. but the repetition is just too much for me.
(That and the only version of it I have ever had the displeasure of remembering all the words to was ‘The Twelve Redneck Days of Christmas.’)
Thank you Jeff Foxworthy.

Anyway!

I’m still trying to claw my way into a merry kind of mood, maybe find some good cheer, and this is pretty much what I’ve come up with for now so.. If you’re looking for a tag that can easily be fit into a busy holiday schedule? You’re in the right place.

Rules:

(Don’t worry.. There aren’t many.)

  • Link back to the original creator, Sheri @ ReadBetwixtWords
  • Answer each question with any book of your choosing (TBR’s are welcome!)
  • Tag at least one person who might enjoy this.
  • And have some fun with it!

Now.. to the books!


(Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. Any purchases made through my links may earn me a small commission at no additional cost to you.)

12 Drummers Drumming
A story you found repetitive:

Where It All Lands by Jennie Wexler

Young adult, Romance
Standalone

Stevie Rosenstein has never made a true friend. Never fallen in love. Moved from city to city by her father’s unrelenting job, it’s too hard to care for someone. Trust in anything. The pain of leaving always hurts too much. But she’ll soon learn to trust, to love.

Twice.

Drew and Shane have been best friends through everything. The painful death of Shane’s dad. The bitter separation of Drew’s parents. Through sleepaway camps and family heartache, basketball games and immeasurable loss, they’ve always been there for each other.

When Stevie meets Drew and Shane, life should go on as normal.

But a simple coin toss alters the course of their year in profound and unexpected ways.

Told in dual timelines, debut author Jennie Wexler’s Where It All Lands delivers a heartbreaking and hopeful novel about missed opportunities, second chances, and all the paths that lead us to where we are.


11 Pipers Piping
A character/book that’s all about music:

Fall From Grace by Christine Zolendz

Paranormal Romance
Book 1 of 3: Mad World

I’m finally home after struggling through my brother’s illness and death. But, home is definitely a bit different. My best friend (the only person alive now that knows my secret) has a new boyfriend; and he has a friend.

Shane Maxton: bad boy, tattooed rock god, eye candy extraordinaire. He is also New York City’s most arrogant, self-serving, son of a, well, a definite one-night stand kind of a guy.

But, it doesn’t matter to me because I’ve spent my existence looking for the love of my life, my angel. And, there is nothing that Shane Maxton can do to change that.


10 Lords a Leaping
A male character who is/becomes royalty

The Burning Sky by Sherry Thomas

Fantasy
Book 1 of 3: The Elemental Trilogy

Iolanthe Seabourne is the greatest elemental mage of her generation—or so she’s been told. The one prophesied for years to be the savior of the Realm. It is her duty and destiny to face and defeat the Bane, the most powerful tyrant and mage the world has ever known. This would be a suicide task for anyone, let alone a reluctant sixteen-year-old girl with no training.

Guided by his mother’s visions and committed to avenging his family, Prince Titus has sworn to protect Iolanthe even as he prepares her for their battle with the Bane. But he makes the terrifying mistake of falling in love with the girl who should have been only a means to an end. Now, with the servants of the tyrant closing in, Titus must choose between his mission—and her life.


9 Ladies Dancing
A book that told beautiful story:

House of Salt and Sorrows by Erin. A Craig

Young adult, Fairy tale
Standalone

In a manor by the sea, twelve sisters are cursed.

Annaleigh lives a sheltered life at Highmoor with her sisters and their father and stepmother. Once there were twelve, but loneliness fills the grand halls now that four of the girls’ lives have been cut short. Each death was more tragic than the last–the plague, a plummeting fall, a drowning, a slippery plunge–and there are whispers throughout the surrounding villages that the family is cursed by the gods.
 
Disturbed by a series of ghostly visions, Annaleigh becomes increasingly suspicious that her sister’s deaths were no accidents. The girls have been sneaking out every night to attend glittering balls, dancing until dawn in silk gowns and shimmering slippers, and Annaleigh isn’t sure whether to try to stop them or to join their forbidden trysts. Because who–or what–are they really dancing with?
 
When Annaleigh’s involvement with a mysterious stranger who has secrets of his own intensifies, it’s a race to unravel the darkness that has fallen over her family–before it claims her next. House of Salt and Sorrows is a spellbinding novel filled with magic and the rustle of gossamer skirts down long, dark hallways. Be careful who you dance with…


8 Maids a Milking
A book that you struggled to get through:

Home Before Dark by Riley Sager

Horror
Standalone

What was it like? Living in that house.

Maggie Holt is used to such questions. Twenty-five years ago, she and her parents, Ewan and Jess, moved into Baneberry Hall, a rambling Victorian estate in the Vermont woods. They spent three weeks there before fleeing in the dead of night, an ordeal Ewan later recounted in a nonfiction book called House of Horrors. His tale of ghostly happenings and encounters with malevolent spirits became a worldwide phenomenon, rivaling The Amityville Horror in popularity—and skepticism.

Today, Maggie is a restorer of old homes and too young to remember any of the events mentioned in her father’s book. But she also doesn’t believe a word of it. Ghosts, after all, don’t exist. When Maggie inherits Baneberry Hall after her father’s death, she returns to renovate the place to prepare it for sale. But her homecoming is anything but warm. People from the past, chronicled in House of Horrors, lurk in the shadows. And locals aren’t thrilled that their small town has been made infamous thanks to Maggie’s father. Even more unnerving is Baneberry Hall itself—a place filled with relics from another era that hint at a history of dark deeds. As Maggie experiences strange occurrences straight out of her father’s book, she starts to believe that what he wrote was more fact than fiction.


7 Swans a Swimming
You’re favorite animal/creature sidekick:

Mogget and The Disreputable Dog in..
Lirael by Garth Nix

Young adult, Fantasy
Book 2 of 6: Old Kingdom

Who is Lirael? And what is her destiny?

Lirael has never felt like a true daughter of the Clayr. Abandoned by her mother, ignorant of her father’s identity, Lirael resembles no one else in her large extended family living in the Clayr’s Glacier. She doesn’t even have the Sight — the ability to see into the present and possible futures — that is the very birthright of the Clayr.

Nonetheless, it is Lirael in whose hands the fate of the Old Kingdom lies. She must undertake a desperate mission under the growing shadow of an ancient evil — one that opposes the Royal Family, blocks the Sight of the Clay; and threatens to break the very boundary between Life and Death itself.

With only her faithful companion, the Disreputable Dog, to help her, Lirael must find the courage to seek her own hidden destiny.


6 Geese a Laying
A book/series that you keep coming back to:

The Song of the Lioness by Tamora Pierce
The Chronicles of Ixia by Maria V. Snyder
Fever Series by Karen Marie Moning
Cassandra Palmer by Karen Chance
Colbana Files by J. C. Daniels

Chronicles of Elantra by Michelle Sagara


5 Golden Rings
A five star read:

The Noise: A Thriller by James Patterson & J. D. Barker

Thriller, Suspense
Standalone

If you hear it, it’s too late. 

In the shadow of Mount Hood, sixteen-year-old Tennant is checking rabbit traps with her eight-year-old sister Sophie when the girls are suddenly overcome by a strange vibration rising out of the forest, building in intensity until it sounds like a deafening crescendo of screams. From out of nowhere, their father sweeps them up and drops them through a trapdoor into a storm cellar. But the sound only gets worse . . .


4 Calling Birds
A book you are determined to get to eventually:

The Diviners by Libba Bray
Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo


3 French Hens
A book with multiple POV’s:

In My Dreams I Hold a Knife by Ashley Winstead

Mystery, Suspense
Standalone

Six friends.
One college reunion.
One unsolved murder.

Ten years after graduation, Jessica Miller has planned her triumphant return to her southern, elite Duquette University, down to the envious whispers that are sure to follow in her wake. Everyone is going to see the girl she wants them to see—confident, beautiful, indifferent. Not the girl she was when she left campus, back when Heather Shelby’s murder fractured everything, including the tight bond linking the six friends she’d been closest to since freshman year.

But not everyone is ready to move on. Not everyone left Duquette ten years ago, and not everyone can let Heather’s murder go unsolved. Someone is determined to trap the real killer, to make the guilty pay. When the six friends are reunited, they will be forced to confront what happened that night—and the years’ worth of secrets each of them would do anything to keep hidden.


2 Turtle Doves
A character that stuck with you:

Ashley
Be Not Far From Me by Mindy McGinnis

Young adult, Survival
Standalone

The world is not tame. Ashley knows this truth deep in her bones, more at home with trees overhead than a roof.

So when she goes hiking in the Smokies with her friends for a night of partying, the falling dark and creaking trees are second nature to her. But people are not tame either. And when Ashley catches her boyfriend with another girl, drunken rage sends her running into the night, stopped only by a nasty fall into a ravine.

Morning brings the realization that she’s alone—and far off trail. Lost in undisturbed forest and with nothing but the clothes on her back, Ashley must figure out how to survive with the red streak of infection creeping up her leg.


1 Partridge in a Pear Tree
A book you’re looking forward to:

Such a Pretty Smile by Kristi DeMeester
Exstasia by Claire Legrand
Beneath the Stairs by Jennifer Fawcett


Well, that’s my 12 Days of Christmas Tag..
I hope it amused you and brought some great new reads to your attention!

Stay safe, keep warm, and many prayers that your holidays be bright!

On a more somber note:
Please keep in mind that Covid, the economy, life if general, and other more natural disasters have had a deeply negative impact on countless families these past few years. Far too many will not be able to celebrate the holidays and are struggling through day to day.
Whether it be through kindness, prayers, or happy thoughts.. Carry them in your hearts this Christmas/Hanukkah/Solstice/Holiday.

Thank you!

Have you read any of these books?

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This Post Has 2 Comments

  1. sandysbookaday

    Fifty plus years ago Sheri, I worked in Woolworths department store after school and Friday nights (pre-Saturday trading). I am sure that they played Bing Bing Crosby’s White Christmas on an endless loop. It still sends me running screaming from the room!

    1. Sheri Dye

      Lol! Goodness, that’s not supposed to be funny.. I’m so sorry to hear that. My husband and I were just discussing how it is that department store employees are able stay sane during the holidays with the Christmas music.. I don’t think I could do it. 😳😅

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