Fa-La-Llama-La: Christmas at the Little French Llama Farm
by Stephanie Dagg
Amazon US / UK / AU / CA
So Noelle is off to France to mind a dozen South American mammals. She arrives amidst a blizzard and quickly discovers that something is definitely wrong at the farm. The animals are there all right, but pretty much nothing else – no power, no furniture and, disastrously, no fee. Add to that a short-tempered intruder in the middle of the night, a premature delivery, long-lost relatives and participation in a living crèche, and this is shaping up to be a noel that Noelle will never forget.
Fa-La-Llama-La is a feel-good, festive and fun rom-com with a resourceful heroine, a hero who’s a bit of a handful and some right woolly charmers.
My Rating:
Favorite Quotes:
I took my mind off my annoyance with Nick and the physical effort of the journey by singing Christmas carols to myself, changing the words of some of them to make them more apt. The chorus of ‘Deck The Halls’ became “Fa-la-llama-la, la-llama-la,” and the first verse of ‘We Three Kings’ became “We three Kings of Les Veragnes are / Taking your furniture off in our car / Leaving you llamas and plenty of dramas / We’ll be spending your cash in a bar.” I was quite proud of those but opted not to share with my humourless companion…
A dozen or so children in various disguises bustled in and sat down in the front two pews. They took turns to come up and perform their role. We had Joseph and Mary meeting and getting engaged within two minutes. Mary towered over her beloved but I could see why they’d been paired up. Little Joseph had a voice like a foghorn that rattled the windows, perfect for this largely elderly and probably deaf audience. And Mary was a model in the making. She was willowy and delicate-looking, but she had steely eyes. This was definitely a woman who could give birth in a stable with only a dithering husband to help.
Where you get animals, and especially ruminants, you get pee and poop, and lots of it. Holly wasn’t the first to disgrace herself, but she was by far the most flamboyant… Who knew a llama’s bladder and bowels could be that big? … The floodgates were open. Mary and Joseph collapsed into fits of giggles and the audience erupted. And still Holly peed.
My Review:
I adored this delightfully amusing and cleverly written book from start to finish. I smirked gleefully as I devoured this witty author’s deftly written llama charming escapade in rural France. This breezy tale would tickle the funny bone of the most hardened of Grinches. I am eager to dive into the next in the series with Deck the Halles. And, I scored a treasure trove of additions for my Brit and Aussie word lists with streuth – which Mr. Google and the Urban Dictionary indicated was Aussie slang with various spellings, a mild oath that can be a noun or adjective used for emphasis or express surprise; firkle – to rummage or search; yomp – to march or trek laboriously; and spend a penny – a euphemism meaning to use a toilet.
Author Bio –
I’m an English expat living in France, having moved here with my family in 2006 after fourteen years as an expat in Ireland. I now consider myself a European rather than ‘belonging’ to any particular country. The last ten years have been interesting, to put it mildly. Taking on seventy-five acres with three lakes, two hovels and one cathedral-sized barn, not to mention an ever-increasing menagerie, makes for exciting times. The current array of animals includes alpacas, llamas, huarizos (alpaca-llama crossbreds, unintended in our case and all of them thanks to one very determined alpaca male), sheep, goats, pigs, ducks, geese, chickens and turkeys, not forgetting our pets of dogs, cats, zebra finches, budgies , canaries, lovebirds and Chinese quail. Before we came to France all we had was a dog and two chickens, so it’s been a steep learning curve. I recount these experiences in my book Heads Above Water: Staying Afloat in France and the sequel to that, Total Immersion: Ten Years in France. I also blog regularly at www.bloginfrance.com.
I’m married to Chris and we have three bilingual TCKs (third culture kids) who are resilient and resourceful and generally wonderful.
I’m a traditionally-published author of many children’s books and am now self-publishing too. I have worked part-time as a freelance editor for thirty years after starting out as a desk editor for Hodder & Stoughton. Find me at www.editing.zone. The rest of the time I’m running carp fishing lakes with Chris and inevitably cleaning up some or other animal’s poop.
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