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Sunday, December 9, 2018

Book review of Deck the Halles by Stephanie Dagg

French Village Diaries book review Deck the Halles by Stephanie Dagg
Deck the Halles by Stephanie Dagg

Deck the Halles
It’s next Christmas at the little French llama farm. 
Last Christmas infamous Australian author Nick bought the farm, that was meant to be furnished and without llamas. The reverse proved to be the case. Noelle had been sent to pet sit the llamas until his arrival. After a decidedly frosty start, Nick and Noelle’s relationship warmed up rapidly and they’re now happily living together, with an ever growing assortment of animals.
They’re looking forward to a quiet, romantic Christmas together but at the last moment Noelle is called on to find a venue for the annual national llama show. The local agricultural hallesare free so she books them, thinking that’s all she’ll have to do to help. She couldn’t be more wrong! On top of that, various relatives start turning up on her doorstep unexpectedly, as the result of assorted crises. The farmhouse is about to burst at the seams. Add in a few other events, such as playing the part of a pixie at a Christmas fête, organising Nick’s book launch and training a non-cooperative llama for the agility class in the show, and Noelle is pushed ever closer to the end of her tether. Can she hold it together and stay as calm as a llama? Or will she be the next member of her family to make a bolt for pastures new?      
This festive, feel-good and fun novel is the sequel to ‘Fa-La-Llama-La: Christmas at the Little French Llama Farm’ but can be read as a standalone.
  
French Village Diaries book review Deck the Halles by Stephanie Dagg
Deck the Halles blog tour

My Review
Having thoroughly enjoyed Fa-La-Llama-La, you can read my review here, I was delighted to be back with Nick and Noelle and couldn’t wait to see how their relationship was going. Happily for me, (I do love a good romance) they have settled in nicely to rural French living and things between them seem to be going from strength to strength. 
While their first Christmas was chaos, they are looking forward to a quiet one together this year, with just their animals for company. Their plans soon seem to spiral out of control, thanks to a last-minute Llama show to organise and a seemingly never-ending stream of uninvited guests, all of whom come with catastrophes, disasters and excellent appetites. While we are talking of disasters, anything that could go wrong, does so, but at least Noelle has a back-up team she can put to good use and with Nick beside her, anything seems possible, even the impossible.
This book is great fun; full of energy, humour and romance all sprinkled with quirky rural French magic and lots of festive jingle. It's another great read from Stephanie. If you have read any of her previous novels, you will recognise her writing style and enjoy being back within her pages, if you haven’t yet read any of her books – what are you waiting for!
  
Author Bio – 
French Village Diaries book review Deck the Halles by Stephanie Dagg
Stephanie Dagg
I'm an English expat living in France, having moved here with my family in 2006 after fourteen years as an expat in Ireland. I now consider myself a European rather than 'belonging' to any particular country. The last ten years have been interesting, to put it mildly. Taking on seventy-five acres with three lakes, two hovels and one cathedral-sized barn, not to mention an ever increasing menagerie, makes for exciting times. The current array of animals includes alpacas, llamas, huarizos (alpaca-llama crossbreds, unintended in our case and all of them thanks to one very determined alpaca male), sheep, goats, pigs, ducks, geese, chickens and turkeys, not forgetting our pets of dogs, cats, zebra finches, budgies , canaries, lovebirds and Chinese quail. Before we came to France all we had was a dog and two chickens, so it's been a steep learning curve. I recount these experiences in my book Heads Above Water: Staying Afloat in France and the sequel to that, Total Immersion:Ten Years in France. I also blog regularly at www.bloginfrance.com.
I'm married to Chris and we have three bilingual TCKs (third culture kids) who are resilient and resourceful and generally wonderful.     
I'm a traditionally-published author of many children's books, and am now self-publishing too. I have worked part-time as a freelance editor for thirty years after starting out as a desk editor for Hodder & Stoughton. Find me at www.editing.zone. The rest of the time I'm running carp fishing lakes with Chris and inevitably cleaning up some or other animal's poop.   

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French Village Diaries book review Deck the Halles by Stephanie Dagg
Deck the Halles blog tour


universal purchase link: getbook.at/DTH

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