As another busy and exciting year in storytelling and publishing draws to a close, we’re delighted to see SP author Kari Kilgore‘s collection A Tapestry of Holiday Tales: Winter Adventures from the Odds and Endings Bookstore included as part of the Holiday Collections StoryBundle! Don’t miss your chance to pick up 72 holiday-themed stories for your reading friends and family, and yourself, all for just $15.
In fact, we want to add to the amazing bounty of wonderful holiday short stories with a brand new anthology from Kari and Jason A. Adams. You can get Uncommon Holidays: A Different Side of the Season for free with purchase of the StoryBundle!
We’ll let Kari tell you more, and Happy Holidays from everyone at Spiral Publishing!
You still have time for a fantastic last-minute gift of reading with the Holiday Collection StoryBundle! For only $15, you’ll get 72 holiday-themed short stories from some of the best writers working today, and across all kinds of genres.
And if you’re ready for a nice escape from holiday madness yourself, that’s all kinds of wonderful reading breaks for one at a time, a day curled up with your favorite holiday treats, or anytime you need a bit of the holiday spirit all year long.
In that same holiday spirit, my husband Jason A. Adams and I are about to publish a brand new holiday anthology of our own. And we’re offering it for free to folks who purchase the Holiday Collection StoryBundle! Read on for more, and pick up your copy today!
As long as I can remember being able to pick my own reading material, I’ve loved to read across different genres. Sure, like most folks who grew up free-range in the 1970s and 80s, part of that meant getting away from whoever was supposed to be watching me, but it certainly led to a wide-ranging literary palate.
Some of my earliest memories linked to the pages of a book include The Call of the Wild, Brave New World, The Dragonriders of Pern, Dune, and of course, Are You There God, It’s Me, Margaret. All of these found their way to my hands before I turned thirteen, sometimes in a used bookstore or when the librarian in our tiny little town wasn’t quite paying attention.
In one case, I took my choice to the children’s librarian, who informed me I wasn’t old enough to read that book. I simply nodded, walked downstairs, and the regular librarian checked it out for me without a second glance. I really wish I could remember what book that was! But I’m quite sure I enjoyed it.
Later on I added in things like humorous science fiction like The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, lovely literary fantasy like Winter’s Tale by Mark Helprin, and loads of Stephen King, who writes quite a bit of cross-genre himself. And my non-fiction reading has gone from biographies to biology to baseball, with stops for history and sociology and essays about everything under the sun along the way.
The thing is I never limited what I was reading by what shelf it was on in the bookstore or library. Same with movies, television, and certainly music. My tastes then and now are wide-ranging and eclectic, to say the least.
So it truly isn’t surprising that my writing ends up all over the map as well. That’s especially true when it comes to writing about winter holidays. Certainly when you consider my taste in holiday movies and television.
As the year draws to a close, you’ll find me settling down to enjoy everything from Hallmark Christmas movies to Elf to A Christmas Story, and Die Hard, Gremlins, and Krampus, all with a smile on my face and joy in my heart.
I took that same approach for my collection A Tapestry of Holiday Tales: Winter Adventures from the Odds and Endings Bookstore, available right now as part of the Holiday Collections StoryBundle for a great low price. Aside from anything set at Odds and endings having a solid touch of fantasy, I wanted give myself a range of genres to play with.
I didn’t quite range into horror just yet. But I’m sure that’s only a matter of time.
Those stories cover pure holiday romance of the meet-cute variety, to a developing relationship with a touch of ghosts, to an established couple in a near-future setting that later heads toward an apocalypse. Then there’s Victorian holiday fantasy and alternate world epic fantasy to round out the snowy journey.
Add in a romantic tale that ties all the stories together, set during a fabulous storytelling festival in the enchanted Odds and Endings Bookstore, and that covers quite a bit of the range of my writing.
But not all of it. Because one of my favorite holiday genres to read and write is mystery, and another is contemporary fiction, where speculative elements are either slight or not there at all.
For those and more, you can turn to the brand new anthology my husband Jason A. Adams and I will be publishing this week, Uncommon Holidays: A Different Side of the Season.
Which you can get free with your purchase of the Holiday Collection StoryBundle!
Uncommon Holidays includes my story Finding Sanctuary, a tale of recovery, healing, and new beginnings, alongside Virginia’s Last Old Christmas Eve, which ventures into lost love, family, and a different path to paradise.
As far as crime, my tale Pungent Justice visits a family on the edge, on the day when a heartless crime give them a shove they can ill afford. I’ll let the title give you a hint of what’s in store.
If you enjoy holiday crime tales as much as I do, you’ll want to bump up to the $15 level of the StoryBundle for sure. Pungent Justice is also part of the Holiday Spectacular volume Mysterious Christmas, but that one overlap won’t make a difference when you get to enjoy ten other fantastic holiday crime stories!
And last but not least is another venture into holiday romance, The Magic Cat of the Hidden Springs Inn and Spa. That one is set in one of my imaginary Appalachian towns, like much of my fiction. It stars two lonely young men alone on Christmas Eve, caught in a blizzard after a challenging year. And one extremely confident, sassy tabby cat who truly does know best.
You’ll get those stories plus four of Jason’s wonderful holiday tales. His range from crime-fighting felines, to a man facing a sober Christmas for the first time, to the joys of found family, to the unexpected ways people find to take care of each other. That’s eight more stories to add to your reading bounty!
So if you love holiday short stories across all kinds of genres, make sure and grab the Holiday Collection StoryBundle before time runs out. Then drop me an email at kari(at)karikilgore(dot)com with your proof of purchase, and I’ll be happy to send out Uncommon Holidays to say thank you!
Of course if you grab the StoryBundle for the readers in your life, I’ll include them as well. This is a great chance for those last-minute gifts without all the shopping hassle.
While you’re there, consider adding in support for AbleGamers, a wonderful charity that helps build connection for folks who truly need it.
And Happy Holidays and Happy Reading to you and yours!
