Jamieson Wolf
Aurora Award Nominated Author
A Cozy Christmas at Bridge’s Bicycle Bakery by Alex Brown – A Book Review
Bridget is trying to hold it together.
After her husband Ted’s sudden passing, Bridget and her children Oscar, Olly and Freya are trying to cope without Ted in their lives. They have moved back to Mulberry-On-Sea for a change of pace and scenery but also because they really had no choice. Unable to afford their house after Ted’s passing, Bridget has moved everyone and everything they have back to the seaside cottage that used to be their summer getaway. It’s now become their home.
Bridget has fond memories of Mulberry-On-Sea and Carrington’s department store but hopes that the children will make their own memories here. Right now, Bridget is mainly concerned with making sure the children have a wonderful Christmas. It’s been a year since Ted died and their lives changed. She figures giving them kids a Christmas they can remember is one of the best ways to get some normalcy in their lives.
One of the ways that Bridget finds that normalcy is through baking. She finds the mixing of ingredients, the rising of bread, the smells that fill their new home very healing. It’s her way of establishing some sort of balance within her life. Baking always reminds her of home and the smells remind her of childhood. Baking is joy to Bridget.
A chance meeting with Jack, the barman at The Hook, Line & Sinker pub, brings further changes into her life. He is a complication that Bridget doesn’t need. He seems rude at first, but over time something between them starts to grow. Can she let him in to her life and her heart? Or will she be content with the memory of Ted?
Thankfully, this it’s almost Christmas and something magical always happens during the Holidays…
Once again, Alex Brown has written a compelling and heartfelt novel that left me with a feeling of the upmost joy. She has a way of writing characters that go beyond the page. By the end of the book, the people that fill A Cozy Christmas at Bridge’s Bicycle Bakery became friends and people that I know.
It was such a pleasure to see Georgie, Sam and Eddie, favourite characters of mine from the previous Carrington books, make a guest appearance in this book. It felt like a reunion and one that I was happy to be a part of.
Brown has a way of writing a book that goes beyond what I think of as women’s fiction. Despite my brief plot summary, this novel wasn’t just about a woman finding a new love in her life. This was about Bridget’s quest to find herself again in a life that has become unfamiliar without the man that she loved so completely. Throughout the book, Bridget takes steps to start a new life for herself and her children and the novel is all about her journey.
It seems that every time a new book by Alex Brown comes out, there is some part of me that needs some kind of healing. Much like Bridget, I’m trying to find my footing in a life that has become unfamiliar to me. As Bridget found her way towards her new self, something within me healed and as Bridget found joy, I felt that joy within myself begin to grow. Alex Brown writes novels that are so filled with joy that you can’t help but find yourself changed by them in some way.
A brilliant book with wonderful characters, a fabulous and heartfelt story and a little bit of Christmas magic, A Cozy Christmas at Bridge’s Bicycle Bakery is a true joy. I can’t wait to read it all over again.
The Other Side of Oz – Out Now!
In 2013, the world as I knew it changed.
I woke up on new years eve day and I no longer knew my own body. Over time, I would have pieces of myself taken from me: my balance, coordination, the ability to speak, see and type. It took a little while until I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
I had to relearn to do a lot of things that had been commonplace. I had to learn to walk again, speak properly and to find a way forwards with a disease that was not welcome. I think the hardest thing was losing the ability to type and having to relearn how to do so.
Prior to the MS, it was nothing for me to write 20,000 words on the weekend and I always had another book coming out. Writing for me was the way with which I interacted with the world and the way that I expressed myself the best. Losing the ability to write was like losing part of myself. I would look back at all the words I had written and wondered if I would ever write again.
I had to retrain my hands to type on the keyboard. I started with trying my hand at poetry, writing one to five words a day until I could stitch together a poem. It took a long time to learn how to do this, to train my brain and my body to type again, but I did it. It was only one of the mountains that I’ve had to climb.
After some time, I felt comfortable trying to write a novel again. The Other Side of Oz was that novel. It took such a long time to write this book, made even more difficult by the trauma that the book is about and the trauma that I was going through. There was something so therapeutic about writing The Other Side of Oz. It healed me in a lot of ways and though the journey with this novella was a long one, it was a journey that I needed to go on. Though it’s short, this novella took so much from me but it gave me so much, too.
In writing The Other Side of Oz, I was able to find a part of myself within the story. I was able to find my way home.
It seemed so right that I found myself within the land of Oz. As a child, I read and re-read the Oz books and the world seemed so alive to me. When I was recovering from the first wave of the MS, Oz again provided that comfort to me and I lost myself within its pages.
It’s sat in my hard drive ever since then. It’s sat in my hard drive for eight years and I always wondered what I would do with it yet content to let it hide there in the dark forever if need be. Why then am I releasing it now? I think it’s because my MS has changed, I’ve had relapses and the MS has worsened. It seemed the right time to release it. As I go on this new journey with my MS, I was reminded of Justin’s journey in The Other Side of Oz.
I hope you enjoy Justin’s journey and the truth he learns about himself.
You can get your copy here:
Welcome back to Oz and the wonders that it holds. May you find a part of yourself there. Put on the rub slippers and see where they will take you.
Beyond the Stone – First Review!
I’m beyond excited!
My novel Beyond the Stone got its first review! It’s so gratifying that this reader enjoyed the book so much. It’s so different from anything I’ve tried to write before.
My novels are normally character driven with little focus on the setting or where the novel takes place. Some of my books aren’t even set anywhere and all the focus is on the characters. Beyond the Stone and the rest of the series are set in a world where everything has broken apart and magic has come out in the open.
This is my take on dystopia, a genre that has always interested me. What would happen it a cataclysmic event happened? How would the characters survive? That has always fascinated me and I wondered what my characters would do if put in such a situation. I knew that if I was going to write a dystopian novel, the setting and the world building would have to be like a character in the novel.
I’m so glad that came through for the reviewer. I had such a fabulous time writing Beyond the Stone and I’ve started writing the second book Within the Flame where the story takes us to even darker places within the world I’ve created.
You can find the book here:
If you read it, I’d appreciate a review so much!
The Minotaur – First Draft DONE!!!
Oh, my goodness. I wrote 2,565 words today and the first draft of my novel The Minotaur is finished. The novel took me eight months to write.
It all started with the first line that popped into my head and wouldn’t leave me alone: “We were friendly with the dark.” As the story took shape in my head, I knew that the novel would be set in a labyrinth and that it would be an allegory on Covid in some way, in that everyone in the labyrinth was together but isolated, under constant threat from the minotaur. I knew that my protagonist was a young girl but other than that, I knew nothing.
I thought the novel would be a novella, that it would be a short little story that would be quick to write so that I could move on to the next story; there is always another story waiting to be written. Yet, somehow, my mind stayed with this story and with Roanne’s journey. I actually took time to plot out this book which is something I don’t normally do. I had to create and visualize the world of the labyrinth. I had to think of the secrets that this labyrinth held and what I wanted to do.
And yet, the ending of the novel came to me early on. As I continued to write, I wondered if I would be able to get there, if I could make the ending work. I’m thrilled to say that after 81,763 words, I arrived at the ending I envisioned so many months ago.
Time to take a breather, step away from the computer and read something wonderful. I will be having a glass of wine in celebration tonight.
Miracle – A Poem
A memory:
She is surrounded
by all the kids in my class.
She looks like some kind of
prophet, her dark hair and
pale skin like a beacon
to all of us.
“I can tell you if you are fat or thin,”
she says, her eyes seeming
to contain wisdom.
“All I need to do is put a hand on your stomach.”
That she has such powers
is amazing and all of us
queue up to her,
desperate to have her lay
her hand upon us as if
she is performing some kind
of miraculous miracle.
As I approach her,
she looks not at my stomach,
but at the way
that I walk towards her.
It is not a look of wisdom
that I see in her eyes,
but one of revulsion.
I want to turn away,
but the crowd of children
pushes me forwards.
She lays a hand on my stomach,
gives me a smile
that lacks any kind of warmth.
“You’re fat,”
She says.
“So incredibly fat.”
I back away from her as if
struck, falling into other children
in my haste to get away.
That evening,
I look at myself in the mirror
at home and I wonder why I
never saw how disgusting I was.
Was that thought waiting
for someone to rip off
the blinders so that
I could see myself as I really was?
Now,
As I look back at that memory,
at the moment which shaped
much of how I view myself,
I can finally let it go
which is a miracle
all its own.
Buy Little Yellow Magnet from Amazon and Kobo!
Jamieson Wolf has written a compelling story about navigating multiple sclerosis and cerebral palsy. His story will touch your heart, make you cry, then laugh, and inspire you. A touching memoir with a bit of magic…and tarot! ~ Theresa Reed, author of The Tarot Coloring Book
