A Royal Christmas Wish

I treated myself to the Christmas  themed Once Upon A Book Club box. One of the nice things about the Christmas box is that I knew in advance that the selection would be A Royal Christmas Wish.  The premise of the book is that Jenny gets a wish granted to her of being married to a prince. The plot was very predictable and sappy. The experience of reading the book itself was reminiscent of watching the Netflix movie A Christmas Prince with a dose of magic.  I found myself enjoying this book quite a bit.

I have been challenging myself to try to read more than just horror novels these days to keep my perspective fresh.  And there is something about Christmas themed romances that somehow appeal to me more than romances at other times of the year. Maybe its the fact that they put me in good cheer. Yet I often get this image in my head that somehow I am supposed to be into making Christmas crafts, baking Christmas cookies and decorating my apartment with Christmas themed stuff. Christmas is the one time of the year that being a full time housewife sounds rather appealing...but when I am honest I probably don't really want to be a housewife again, its more that I want to be a housewife in one of those Hallmark Christmas movies that I love to make fun of. Somehow its not just the story that I am indulging in but the act of reading a romance novel makes me feel like a different type of woman...especially as I tend to gravitate towards darker fiction these days.

This book stood out to me because it has a lot of the kinds of components I have often preferred in romance novels. The meet cute was in a more urban setting and one of my favorite tropes in romance is celebrity themed romances where the celebrity just wants to be loved as a normal person. And the whole concept of wish fulfillment on Christmas just seems magical. While it is easy to anticipate all of the plot points in the book I felt very cozy and Christmas-y reading this book while drinking a cup of tea in one of my new Christmas themed mugs.

As for the experience with the Once Upon a Book Club box I thought it was really fun that I got a bracelet with a snowflake on it when a similar bracelet played an important role in the story. However when I wore the bracelet the next day the bracelet fell apart. I knew that it was more costume type jewelry and that it was meant more as a prop in the story however I would have liked it if it lasted longer. It was really neat that when the fairy godmother type figure went away and gave off a peppermint scent that I opened a peppermint candle. 

I know that this is not the first time that I have experienced the Once Upon A Book Club Box and I have done a few of their other boxes this year. I have to admit that I like that they revealed what the book was in their Christmas box so I knew what to expect. I have to admit that this is a really fun service. However I could not do their box on a regular basis because the selection that Night Worms has is up my alley more. But I would definitely do one of these boxes again if the selection looked like something that I was more passionate about year round. But there is something to doing things just a little differently for Christmas!