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Author Biography |
Review |
Author Essay |
Excerpt
Hardcover
Revell ISBN: 9780800718800 A captivating story of love, deception, and secret passions A well-hidden secret has haunted Colleen for twenty years. Her husband made her promise she would never speak of it again, but now he’s gone and life seems so out of control. Will her fragile relationship with her adult son, Jamie, survive the truth she’s hidden for so long? Jamie has a few secrets of his own. But he’s come to realize that dreams don’t always align with reality. With so much going on around him, how will he ever share what’s really on his mind --- and heart? When finally their secrets come between them, Jamie and Colleen decide it’s time to take a trip together --- to Ireland. But will this trip cost them the very relationship they are trying to save? Will the truth they discover change their lives forever? One thing is for sure: This will be a Christmas they will never forget. 
Melody Carlson is the bestselling author of more than 200 books, including The Christmas Bus and My Son, the Savior. She lives with her husband in Sisters, Oregon.
Click here now to buy this book from Amazon.com. 
If you are looking for a virtual holiday trip to the Emerald Isle, then AN IRISH CHRISTMAS by veteran author Melody Carlson may fit the bill. The story, set in the early 1960s, interweaves history, a dark family secret, faith themes and the beautiful settings of Ireland as it promises redemption and forgiveness for those who have failed in some way in the past.
Carlson begins her story in Pasadena, California, in 1963, as the war in Vietnam is underway and Kennedy is the popular president. Colleen Frederick and her husband Hal run the family shoe business, and both expect their only son Jamie to take it over after he graduates with a business degree from college. However, Jamie has other ideas. He longs to be a professional musician and embarks on a series of deceptions that allow him to pursue his chosen craft. When Hal unexpectedly dies, Colleen sells the shoe store and muses over her own dark secret from her past. Upset by Kennedy’s assassination, Jamie threatens to enlist in the Air Force and fight in Vietnam. Frightened for reasons she cannot explain fully to Jamie, Colleen talks him into a two-week holiday trip to Ireland. There, she hopes to unveil her past and help Jamie understand his roots. Ireland is mostly a narrative of sightseeing, shopping, eating and museums drizzled with the customs and accents of the country. Faith themes are scattered throughout the text, as Colleen prays over her fears for Jamie and remembers the quiet faith of her deceased husband. Jamie rather unconvincingly experiences a “dark night of the soul” and finds God to be more important than he previously believed. Carlson alternates first person points of view between Colleen and Jamie. She gradually drops clues about Colleen’s past, so when the reader discovers Colleen’s big secret, it’s no surprise. Through Jamie’s point of view, we discover a selfish young man conflicted about his choices, immature and prone to manipulation. He’s a difficult character to like but engaging in his vulnerable moments of questioning, such as in this passage: “I felt another wave of melancholy as I walked down the business loop, past other familiar shops, restaurants, my favorite bookstore…and although I’d walked this street hundreds of times before, I felt sort of like a stranger today. My family no longer owned the shoe store on the corner, my mother was selling the family home, and most of my old friends had moved on to jobs or had headed back to college to finish their degrees. Where did I fit in here now? Where did I fit in anywhere?” Colleen tends to invite our sympathy. A mistake made in her youth, the substance of so many faith fiction plots, has given her a son she dearly loves. But how can she tell him about his true lineage? Passages like this give us a clue to her inner turmoil: “So many old and new feelings tumbled inside my head; like my old Whirlpool washer when it got stuck on the spin cycle, things just kept spinning round and round. Would I ever be able to sort it all out? And how was I going to explain it all to Jamie?” Like many a popular Christmas tale, readers will need to suspend disbelief many times to reach the happily-ever-after ending. The biggest coincidental meetings occur in an Irish restaurant, “The Anchor Inn,” where Colleen spills her life story to a virtual stranger (which helps readers fill in many of the gaps in her past), and Jamie meets up with an important man who plays a key role in the story. If you are comfortable with these types of plot twists and turns, then AN IRISH CHRISTMAS will be to your taste. Clichés such as “I suddenly realized that we don’t really know what we have until it’s gone” are sprinkled throughout, and the pacing is slowed by wordy prose. Carlson tends to tell rather than show, and some passages are awkward (“Even without makeup and twigs in her hair, she was pretty.”) But these trouble spots won’t keep those who love all things Irish and enjoy a happy conclusion to their holiday tales from finding memorable moments in AN IRISH CHRISTMAS. --- Reviewed by Cindy Crosby. Contact Cindy at phrelanzer@aol.com. 
The story behind the story...
I visited Western Ireland a few years ago with my 22 year old son Luke, along with my mother, sister, niece and nephew. My son and I were having some “communication” challenges, but I was trying to be understanding... wanting the trip to be a bonding time between us. And I could tell that Luke (a free spirited artist/musician type) was really connecting with Irish culture, which I attributed to his Irish roots from my husband’s side of the family. During this trip, Luke mentioned he wanted to find a piano to “practice” on. I thought this was weird since guitar and bass had always been his instruments of choice and he didn’t even have a piano. Still, wanting to accommodate him, I kept my eyes peeled for some sort of keyboard. Then, one rainy night at the end of our trip, we stopped for dinner in a small town and Luke persisted that we find a piano. So he and I ran ahead of the others, peeking into pub after pub until we finally found one with a piano! The pub’s owner said it was fine for Luke to play and the only patron, an old guy eating his dinner, seemed pleased to have live music. Concerned as to whether my somewhat eccentric son really knew how to play piano or if he was simply going to “practice,” I hurried back out into the rain and found the rest of our group then herded them down the narrow street and into the small pub. As we peeled of our wet coats, Luke began to play the piano. Suddenly, my sister and mother and I all stopped and stared at each other with wide-eyed and shocked expressions. “That sounds just like our dad,” my sister said quietly. I nodded. And my mother’s face grew strangely pale --- as if she’d just seen a ghost. But Luke, oblivious to our reactions, continued to play in a unique stylistic way that sounded eerily like my father. Of course, that wouldn’t have been terribly unusual except that my parents had been divorced for more than forty years and Luke had only met this grandfather twice and then only briefly when he was a toddler. So how did he know to play like that? Furthermore, why was he so like my father—a man he hardly knew? Of course, we know this is all related to genetics and DNA, but even so, it’s slightly unnerving, not to mention mysterious. It was this small incident that inspired my book AN IRISH CHRISTMAS. I knew there was a story in that rainy Irish night and it wasn’t difficult to find the threads and weave them into a novella. I hope this story will encourage you on various levels. Whether you’re a parent struggling to understand a grown child, someone who’s experienced a lost love, or simply a reader in need of a yuletide tale with a wee bit of blarney and a touch of Christmas magic, I hope you find it here and close this little book with a smile on your face. Click here now to buy this book from Amazon.com. 
Colleen May Frederick
Spring of 1963 I felt certain I was losing my son. Or perhaps I’d already lost him and just hadn’t noticed. So many things had slipped my attention this past year, ever since Hal’s death. But lately it seemed I was losing everything. Not just those insignificant items like my car keys, which I eventually found in the deep freeze beneath a carton of Green Giant mixed vegetables, or my favorite pair of calfskin gloves, which I still hadn’t located. But it seemed I was losing important things as well. Or maybe I was just losing my grip. I studied the piles of financial papers that I had neatly arranged across the surface of Hal’s old rolltop desk, the one his grandfather had before him. I straightened my already tidy stacks of unpaid bills, insurance papers, and miscellaneous mishmash, hoping that would help create a sense of order from what felt more like chaos. But I was still overwhelmed. So much I didn’t understand. So much that Hal had handled, always somewhat mysteriously—or mysteriously to me. Oh, I could run a household like clockwork. And I even helped out at the shoe store when needed, as long as it didn’t involve keeping the books or ordering merchandise or anything terribly technical. The truth was, other than helping customers find the right shoes, ringing up sales, smiling, chatting, inquiring about an aging grandmother or a child who’d had a reaction to a vaccination, I was not terribly useful. And more and more I was feeling useless. And overwhelmed. I hadn’t heard from my son Jamie in weeks, even with college graduation right around the corner, not a word. I finally resorted to calling his dorm, but even then only received vague and unhelpful answers from a guy named Gary. I wondered what Hal would do if he were still alive. Of course, I knew what he’d say. He’d tell me not to worry so much. He’d say that I should pray instead. Easier said than done. It had been Hal’s idea that Jamie attend his alma mater, an expensive private business college in the Bay Area. And Jamie had been thrilled at the prospects of living in San Francisco, several hours away from us. He longed for independence and freedom. But after a few semesters, Jamie grew disenchanted with the small college and wanted to switch schools to Berkeley, in particular to their school of music. Jamie honestly believed that he could make it as a musician. Naturally, this seemed perfectly ridiculous to both Hal and me. So Hal encouraged our dreamer son to stick it out and get his business degree first. Hal told Jamie that music was perfectly fine—for fun and recreation—but it would never pay the rent or put food on the table. I had to agree. The plan was for Jamie to take over the family business eventually. Frederick’s Fine Footwear was a successful and established business in our hometown of Pasadena. It was well respected and had been in Hal’s family for more than sixty years. We felt that Jamie should be honored that he was next in line for the shoe throne. As it turned out, he didn’t feel quite the same. Oh, I wasn’t privy to all of those “father-son” discussions that year, but it seemed they had reached an agreement of sorts, and Jamie had given up the idea of Berkeley and returned to the business college. Then, about a year ago, it came to a head once again. At the beginning of last summer, Jamie announced that he never planned to go into the shoe business at all—period—end of discussion. Well, I know this broke Hal’s heart, and I secretly believe that it contributed to the heart attack that killed him in July. Of course, I never told Jamie my suspicion. Although I know that he felt guilty enough. The poor boy blamed himself for most of the summer, even giving up a summer trip to work in the shoe store to make up for things, although I know he hated being there. Still, I reassured my son that Hal’s faulty heart had nothing to do with Jamie and that his Grandfather Frederick had suffered the same ailment at about the same age. At summer’s end, I had encouraged Jamie to return to college for his senior year. The most important thing seemed to be that he would complete his education and get his business degree. What he did after that would be up to him. My son had a definite stubborn streak, and I knew that no one could force him into the shoe business. Especially not me! And so on that warm day in May, less than a year since my husband’s death, I reached for the sales contract that dominated the piles of paperwork on his neatly cluttered desk. I had decided the time had come to sell the shoe store, and under these circumstances, I felt Hal would agree. Still, it was terribly hard to sign the papers. My fountain pen weighed ten pounds as I scratched my name across those lines. I wished there were another way—or that I was made of stronger stuff. But I felt so terribly overwhelmed . . . as if I were losing everything. Maybe that’s why I decided that since I was losing the shoe store, I might as well sell my house too. It was far too large for me, and expensive to maintain, what with the pool and the grounds and everything. Besides, if Jamie wasn’t going to be part of my life, what would be the point? Especially when it seemed that Jamie had always been the reason for everything. I picked up the family photo that Hal faithfully kept on top of his desk—the three of us, our happy little family. Jamie was about eleven at the time, still the little boy on the brink of adolescence. Still willing to hold my hand as we walked through town together—unless he spotted a schoolmate, then he’d let go. His dark brown hair curled around his high forehead and those brilliant blue eyes just gleamed with mischief and adventure. I studied my face next to his, the high cheekbones and pixie nose framed in dark hair. I was surprised at how young I looked back then, although it was less than ten years ago, but then again I was barely thirty. That seemed so very young now. I pulled the picture in for a closer look. Although I had been smiling, there was sadness in my eyes. Had that always been there? Did anyone else ever notice it? Hal wore his usual cheerful grin. He had just started to bald back then, and his paunch was perfect for playing Santa, which he loved to do at the shoe store during the holidays. Setting the frame back down on the desk, I looked at the image now blurred as tears welled up in my eyes. There we all stood, smiling midgets beneath our enormous Christmas tree, oblivious to the fact that life would be vastly different ten years later. Jamie had always insisted that the gilded star on the treetop must touch the ceiling, but our home had vaulted ceilings that stretched more than fifteen feet tall. Hal never once complained about how much trouble it had been to unearth a tree that size down here in Southern California, although one year he drove six hours to get just the right tree. Consequently Jamie had never been disappointed. Spoiled a bit, perhaps, but then he’d been our only child and such a good boy. He always made us happy to be his parents, always made us proud. Until recently anyway. And, in all fairness, just because a grown son hadn’t bothered to call his mother in several weeks, well, I supposed that didn’t make him a bad boy. Just neglectful. After all, he had his own life. Click here now to buy this book from Amazon.com. |
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