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Celebration Lit Tours: “Starla’s Christmas Conundrum” By Carol E. Keen Book Review/Giveaway

By Ruth on July 7, 2019 in blog tour, book, giveaway
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About the Book

Book: Starla’s Christmas Conundrum

Author: Carol E. Keen

Genre: Holiday Romance

Release date: July 5, 2018

In the greatest conflict of her life, can she figure out who to trust?

Starla Devaroux is at the peak of her music career. Life as a popular Christian music artist is good. This Christmas she finds herself at the crossroads of several life-altering choices. It’s quite a conundrum; the path she takes this time will not only define her future but alter the lives of others as well.

Click here to purchase your copy.

About the Author

Carol E. Keen enjoys fresh coffee, hot tea, and a good book. She was published for several years in FAMA magazine (Freshwater And Marine Aquarium) as a contributing editor. She published her first book on CD, called Simply Seahorses.
She is the author of The Beauty Series and The Corandira Station, to name a few of her works. She currently resides in the South with her husband and family and spends her time writing, reading, working in photography, and being with her much loved critters.

More from Carol

This book started off in an anthology and now is its own ebook. Christmas and romance go well together, and so I set forth to create a book that could meet that challenge. When I started thinking about writing this, it made me want to use one of my favorite locations as the main setting for this book. When you read it, I hope you will feel like you had a mini-trip to that area. (It’s beautiful there!) I also wanted to include writing about things that I’m very involved in or know a great deal about. Music is one of those things. I hope you enjoy Starla and Mason’s story and the things that God brought about in their lives in this book.

Starla's Christmas ConundrumStarla’s Christmas Conundrum by Carol E. Keen
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I was sent a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. I was not financially compensated, and all opinions are 100 percent mine.

First of all, this is a book with a Christian perspective that contains nothing offensive in it whatsoever. This is a novella that you can literally sit down and read in one afternoon and come away with a smile on your face. For that, the author is to be praised. And it’s a Christmas story to boot!

The characters within this tale are typical but likable. The story has a couple twists and turns that even I didn’t see coming. And who doesn’t love a story where a “celebrity” hides out and attempts to have a personal love life of her own in virtual anonymity. Since I interview actors for a living, I can understand and relate a little to what Starla experiences in the story.

As much as I wanted to love this book in every way possible, I struggled to embrace every ounce of the story for a couple of reasons.

The first is that this book was so short that I felt there was not ample time to develop the characters appropriately. The author gave a valiant effort, and to be honest, she deserves much credit for being able to make the character likable and even a bit relatable. But this story needed to be developed even more than it was, and everything resolved way too quickly.

Secondly, I would have loved to have seen more Christian references. The perspective was there, but I struggled to see Christ as central to the charcters’ lives. I would say much of that was due to the fact that the story (again) was way too short.

In conclusion, I applaud the author for giving us sweet and swift story. There is no doubt that this author has a gift of storytelling and developing interesting characters, but I felt that she was a bit stifled in writing merely a novella. If this book were able to be expanded and developed, I would have enjoyed it oh so much more!

View all my reviews

Blog Stops

My Devotional Thoughts, July 6

Artistic Nobody, July 6 (spotlight)

Truth and Grace Homeschool Academy, July 7

Godly Book Reviews, July 8

Retrospective Spines, July 9

Splashes of Joy , July 10

Simple Harvest Reads, July 10 (spotlight)

Debbie’s Dusty Deliberations, July 11

Happily Managing a Household of Boys, July 12

Texas Book-aholic, July 13

janicesbookreviews, July 14

Through the Fire Blogs, July 15

A Reader’s Brain, July 16

For Him and My Family, July 17

Inklings and notions, July 18

Stephanie’s Life of Determination, July 19

Power of Words, July 19 (Spotlight)

Giveaway

To celebrate her tour, Carol is giving away a grand prize of a $10 Amazon gift card!!

Be sure to comment on the blog stops for nine extra entries into the giveaway! Click the link below to enter. https://promosimple.com/ps/e53f/starla-s-christmas-conundrum-celebration-tour-giveaway

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About the Author

RuthView all posts by Ruth
“Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.” — Franz Kafka Ruth is an inspirational entertainment journalist who instinctively sees the best in all and seeks to share universal beauty, love and positivity. She is an artist who leads with her heart and gives readers a glimpse of the best of this world through the masterful use of the written word. Ruth was born in Tacoma, Washington but now calls Yelm, Washington her home. She lives on five acres with her parents, a dog, two miniature goats, cats and a teenage daughter who is a dynamic visual artist herself. Ruth interviews fellow artists both inside and outside of the film/television industry. At the core of all she does is the strength of her faith.

4 Comments

  1. Caryl Kane July 11, 2019 Reply

    Thank you for your honest review!

  2. Anita Yancey July 8, 2019 Reply

    I love Christmas romances, and this one sounds really good, and it has a great cover.

  3. Julie Waldron July 8, 2019 Reply

    Thanks for the honest review.

  4. Dianna July 7, 2019 Reply

    It’s like Christmas in July! This is a new author for me.

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