Today is Colombian Indepdence Day, known simply as the veinte de Julio (twentieth of July). That means that my debut romance My Christmas Number One has been out for more than ten months now! What, you might ask, do the two things have in common?
My Christmas Number One is a different sort of book to most lovely, cosy, snow-covered Christmas stories. It’s a cross-cultural clash of Christmases (see what I did with the C’s there??)
On one side, we have the British heroine Cara and her Christmas traditions: mulled wine and ice skating, choirs singing Christmas carols. And on the other side, we have Javi’s Colombian festive season, starting with the Dia de las Velitas at the beginning of December, where his family gathers to light candles and eat together – the eating is important.
As I was editing My Christmas Number One for publication, I did start imagining what Cara and Javi would be doing for Colombian Independence Day the year after their wild Christmas together. And now that time has come! It’s the following summer and they’ve been together for seven months (I don’t think it’s a spoiler to tell you that they get together by the end of My Christmas Number One LOL).
And now it’s time for them to return to Javi’s hometown of Barranquilla on the Caribbean coast of Colombia to spend the holiday with his family. Of course, he’s dragged his daughter Beatriz along and, in a show of solidarity, Cara’s grumpy father Gordon has also come over from the UK.
There will be a parade, a huge party in a park, empanadas and carimañolas, lots of music and maybe a special surprise. If you’d like to read more, sign up to my mailing list to receive the SECRET EPILOGUE to My Christmas Number One (I KNOW ISN’T IT EXCITING???)
It’s also up on the Boldwood Blog for the moment, so you can check it out straight away if you can’t wait for the mailing list mail.
Leonie Mack 
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