We will review the Dreamspinner Press advent calendar one review a day. At the end of the month THREE winners will be picked to receive some great prizes!
First prize is 10 books from your Dreamspinner wishlist .
Second prize is 5 books from your Dreamspinner wishlist.
Third prize is 3 books from your Dreamspinner wishlist.
December 11th
Reviewed by Chris
TITLE: Anyplace Else 
SERIES: 2016 Dreamspinner Advent Calendar – Bah Humbug
AUTHOR: Kim Fielding
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 33 pages
RELEASE DATE: December 1, 2016
BLURB:
Grant Beaudoin should be thrilled to escape Minneapolis at Christmastime and grateful to lounge on a Hawaiian beach. Instead he is mired in self-pity and drowning in too much tequila. His twin is marrying the perfect man, while Grant is stuck in middle management with no love life in sight. A walk into the rain forest leads to a meeting with a doomed man who has a story about a holiday that predates Christmas. Grant comes to realize that difficult endings can lead to new beginnings—and perhaps a brighter future.
REVIEW:
Being in Hawaii for Christmas should be great, especially when he could be back in Minneapolis under a mountain of snow. But for all that he is glad that his brother has found the love of his life and is marrying him on a picturesque beach, Grant Beaudoin is not feeling much holiday cheer. Drowning his life’s disappointments in expensive beach-side cocktails probably won’t make it better, but he is willing to give it a go. And it even seems to work…until he has one fancy drink too many and finds himself confronted with gods, magic, and a whole world he never dreamed possible.
I really liked the folklore in this one. Sometimes Christmas stories can blend into one-another but this one really stood out. Not knowing anything about these gods or these myths made the story all the more interesting to me. I do wish that there had been more time to explore the characters and gods in this story. The short page-length really didn’t give us much time to get to know them, and it would have been cool to see more about this mythology.
It was a bit more dark than I was expecting, though. And I think that kinda effected the rating. I don’t know, something about having a death scene in a Christmas short just seemed a bit odd to me. I get the whole death/rebirth folklore aspect, it just kinda killed the whole Christmas-y atmosphere of the book. I don’t think it was bad, just not what I was expecting. And we hardly get any real page time with the doomed-god, so it is a bit hard to understand the connection between him and Grant. It came out feeling a bit rushed.
RATING: 
BUY LINKS:
Thank you for the review, Chris. I love Kim’s books, so I’ll give this a chance even if it is a bit darker than expected
Thanks for the review. I love visiting Hawaii, so this one is definitely intriguing to me. I’ve never been there around Christmas time though.
I love Kim Fielding’s books so this one was already on my tbr list. Thank you for the review.
Thank you for the review. i love Kim’s books.
Kim’s books are great, though this one sounds intense…
Thank you for the review; didn’t like this one as much though 🙁
The book sounds unusual but I’ve enjoyed Kim’s so I’m looking forward to reading it.
Thanks for the review. Added a bit of what to expect in the novella.
An interesting read, merging myth and reality. Well done, not a sweetly happy story but Grant got his happy-ish ending
I love how this story sounds. Thanks for the review
Thank you for the review. I don’t get to read as much folklore or myth these days so I’m looking forward to giving this one a read.
Thank you for the review. I love reading about different folklore/myths, but I can see how a death in the story would affect the holiday cheer.
I’d like to give a chance to this book, I like the premise.