Reviewed by Annika
TITLE: Mending Noel
SERIES: North Pole City Tales #1
AUTHOR: Charlie Cochet
NARRATOR: Dave Gillies
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 1 hour, 24 minutes
RELEASE DATE: October 24, 2014
BLURB:
All is not sparkly snowflakes and sweet candy canes in North Pole City. Office workers Tim and Noel do nothing all day but antagonize each other – petty fighting that might be based on hatred… or a heated mutual attraction. It’s up to Jack Frost and his elf-friend Rudy to broach the hostilities and introduce some Christmas kisses, but is the Frost Prince up to the challenge of launching a new romance when someone’s trying to break his holiday spirit?
REVIEW:
This North Pole adventure might have been short, but it was an interesting one. It was filled with elves and magical Christmas creatures – perfect for this time of year. It was a world that I’m very much interested in exploring more of.
In this tale we meet Tim and Noel, their bickering and fighting and scheming to get the other in trouble is legendary around the offices. They do everything they can to antagonize each other, but on once such an occasion the find themselves in more trouble than they bargained for, and ended up united against a common enemy. What followed was an adventure through North Pole City and even meeting a local legend or two.
I felt like there was a bit too much going on for such a short novella. I mean there is a great story to be told, the unique world and characters are interesting and engaging and you want to know more about them. About their history, but also the present. But I felt the story was too short to fully enjoy. We started off in one place, things happened, and we found ourselves being chased somewhere else, some plotting and planning, along with some romantic declarations later we suddenly found ourselves in the middle of a ball exposing a conspiracy. There was so much (interesting) stuff going on that nothing really had the time to shine or to be explored properly. And man did I want to explore, so many, many things. But alas, novellas do tend to end way too early.
I really enjoyed listening to Dave Gillies and not only for his wonderful accent. Listening to books with other accents than American English is a treat for me, so I couln’t be happier about that. He also gave you that holiday spirit we are all looking for this time a year. I can’t wait to see what the rest of the series will bring.
RATING: 
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