Sunday, April 22, 2018

*Review* A Very Mer-Merry Holiday by Ginna Moran


Genre: YA/Holiday
Published: December 5, 2017
Pages: 


All Ava Adair wants for Christmas is an uneventful holiday season with her merman mate, Carter Stevens. But when her family plans a tropical Christmas vacation to the Whitsunday Islands in Australia, Ava must break mermaid tradition and relocate all the merpeople in the sea down under to celebrate Summer Solstice instead of the much anticipated Winter Solstice.

Luckily for the new mermaid queen, merpeople can adapt. Instead of snow angels and hot chocolate by the fire, Ava gets a deserted island full of brazenly transformed merpeople who refuse to stay submerged in the ocean, forcing her to call upon the sea for protection. After Ava’s ocean magic causes a boat to sink offshore, she must figure out how to save an unsuspecting human family from a fatal fate while hosting the best solstice she can. It doesn’t help that her human family wants her to remain on land. Uniting the traditions of land and sea proves harder than Ava anticipates, and she must step up as the mermaid the ocean chose her to be—or be deemed the destroyer of all holiday cheer.


I was hired to proofread this book. In addition to that, I helped Ms. Moran with some plot brainstorming in the early stages, so my review may be a bit biased (because I LOVE what she did with my ideas). 

This is a story that, with a slightly different focus I could see being made into a Hallmark Christmas movie. I say this because Hallmark movies really require a budding romance, and Ava and Carter are pretty solidly coupled for the whole story. That's absolutely authentic for the series and I would have been quite upset if there was trouble in that paradise, but it wouldn't make for a good Hallmark movie. Otherwise, it has pretty much all of the things I expect from a Hallmark movie, so if you're looking for something a little bit cheesy and heartwarming, this definitely suits.

I have been with Carter and Ava since the beginning of their relationship, so I was already emotionally invested in this story. This made it really easy for me to get into the story and kept me flipping the pages. I was excited to see how Ava would handle the combined holiday celebrations, and I was not disappointed.

While you don't have to read the other books in this series to enjoy this story, I think you'd probably find it infinitely more enjoyable if you do. Overall I give A Very Mer-Merry Holiday 5.000000012 stars. - Katie 



Ginna Moran is the author of an array of both paranormal and contemporary young adult novels including the Demon Within, Falling into Fame, and Spark of Life series. 

She started writing poetry as a teenager in a spiral notebook that she still has tucked away on her desk today. Her love of writing grew after she graduated high school and she completed her first unpublished manuscript at age eighteen.

When she realized her love of writing was her life’s passion, she studied literature at Mira Costa College in Northern San Diego. Besides writing young adult novels, she was senior editor, content manager, and image coordinator for Crescent House Publishing Inc. for four years.

Aside from Ginna’s professional life, she enjoys binge watching television shows, playing pretend with her daughter, and cuddling with her dogs. Some of her favorite things include chocolate, anything that glitters, cheesy jokes, and organizing her bookshelf.

Ginna is currently hard at work on her next novel.
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