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lsnack's review
5.0
Put the past behind
Anna feels a connection to the girl that comes into her shop. Cate also feels like she is drawn to Anna. Past events join the two and they need to let it go to move forward. A touch of magic never hurts.
Anna feels a connection to the girl that comes into her shop. Cate also feels like she is drawn to Anna. Past events join the two and they need to let it go to move forward. A touch of magic never hurts.
llrose's review
5.0
Magical holiday vibes abound!
After reading A Match Made at Christmas last year, I've been waiting for Jane’s next holiday short, and The Snow Locket did not disappoint!
Anna works at a café with her brother and spends most of her time bantering with him, lamenting her poor flirting skills, and worrying about her upcoming holiday gig as an elf at Santa’s Workshop, all while harbouring years-old guilt and resentment towards her relationship with her grandmother. Enter Cate, a badass nerd and the glad beneficiary of Anna’s flimsy flirting. Shortly after another exchange in the café, Anna finds a locket outside her work—an impossible locket, one she recognizes from years before, which dredges up her family resentments anew.
But it’s not all bad, while Anna works to figure out how the locket made it outside of the café, she begins work at Santa’s Workshop, where—ta da!—Cate has also picked up a gig for the hols. Soon the two are bantering, flirting, hanging out, and having feelings, but as weirdness picks up surrounding the locket, Anna can’t help but wonder whether Cate’s new presence in her life is somehow related.
The magical realism in this story is perfectly pitched. It’s not just a gimmick. Instead, Jane uses the locket, as well as a mysterious ache in Anna’s chest and a couple of intense physic readings, to explore some seriously complex human emotions: desire, longing, and confusion, resentment and guilt, nostalgia and forgiveness. The author’s ability to deal with complex characters, emotions, and situations while keeping a cosy overall tone and engaging plot is praiseworthy. And this deft and subtle handing of human relationships and the messy feelings they engender is what keeps me reading Jane’s stories
After reading A Match Made at Christmas last year, I've been waiting for Jane’s next holiday short, and The Snow Locket did not disappoint!
Anna works at a café with her brother and spends most of her time bantering with him, lamenting her poor flirting skills, and worrying about her upcoming holiday gig as an elf at Santa’s Workshop, all while harbouring years-old guilt and resentment towards her relationship with her grandmother. Enter Cate, a badass nerd and the glad beneficiary of Anna’s flimsy flirting. Shortly after another exchange in the café, Anna finds a locket outside her work—an impossible locket, one she recognizes from years before, which dredges up her family resentments anew.
But it’s not all bad, while Anna works to figure out how the locket made it outside of the café, she begins work at Santa’s Workshop, where—ta da!—Cate has also picked up a gig for the hols. Soon the two are bantering, flirting, hanging out, and having feelings, but as weirdness picks up surrounding the locket, Anna can’t help but wonder whether Cate’s new presence in her life is somehow related.
The magical realism in this story is perfectly pitched. It’s not just a gimmick. Instead, Jane uses the locket, as well as a mysterious ache in Anna’s chest and a couple of intense physic readings, to explore some seriously complex human emotions: desire, longing, and confusion, resentment and guilt, nostalgia and forgiveness. The author’s ability to deal with complex characters, emotions, and situations while keeping a cosy overall tone and engaging plot is praiseworthy. And this deft and subtle handing of human relationships and the messy feelings they engender is what keeps me reading Jane’s stories
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