The Xmas Factor
By: Ann Sanders / Narrated By: Kim Hicks
Length: 10 hrs and 25 mins
Christmas and Chick Lit: Two of my favorite things!
Am I being gender-biased when I say that perhaps women do the majority of Christmas preparations, getting things set up at work, getting things set up at home for their families? I mean, who does the Christmas cards and all that? Hmm, okay, so maybe it happens to be the case with the women closest to me (though full disclosure: I’m no longer a Frantic Franny when it comes to the festivities, have pretty much let everything go. I know, I know. Shame on me and all that).
I’m just thinking that perhaps a lot of the Christmas fiction out there is geared toward women, and The Xmas Factor fits the bill. So for me, a lover of the Season, a lover of nice and light chick lit, the audiobook was fine and satisfying.
It follows three women as they navigate their lives before the season really revs up and then finishes with the holiday itself. Carol is a single mother who is trying to juggle motherhood and her job as an editor of a national magazine. Beth is a woman new to the country town she finds herself in, new to being the second wife, trying to fill the shoes that a dead woman once wore. And Holly? Okay, she’s so snippy that I almost gave up on her. She’s Beth’s stepdaughter and Carol’s employee at the magazine (though she’s been telling her family she works at a better magazine).
Carol is dealing with the magazine’s dismal sales and imminent demise all the while discovering that her heart still works—there just so happens to be a new man, who doesn’t seem to be afraid of getting involved with a woman who has a child. Beth, newly married to that widow I alluded to, has also signed on to make sure the town’s Christmas party goes off well—after all, her husband Jacob’s dead wife used to carry off the impossible each and every Christmas, making sure the party was an “event”.
And Holly? I mentioned she’s snippy so let me cut her some slack here and say that she’s trying to get through the holidays with a stepmother who’s most certainly not her mom—plus, she’s discovered that she’s pregnant.
Each woman is trying to pull off a memorable Christmas (except for Holly trying to ruin it for Beth and not giving a toot about Carol’s), and the book takes its leisurely time, documenting even small scenes in their lives, which could’ve been edited out as they don’t really further the stories. I was okay with them as this is a Christmas book we’re talking about, and it’s all about atmosphere.
Kim Hicks does a very good job with the narration—delivering confusion, exasperation, exhaustion, romance, and the occasional Christmas meltdown (and of COURSE the Season brings meltdowns!). She also does the male voices well, so we the listeners aren’t taken out of the story to wonder what the heck she was trying to do with her voice. It makes the sweetness and light of the romances and relationships flow well.
At 10+ hours, The Xmas Factor is one of the longer Christmas audiobooks I’ve come across, so I suggest listening to it before the Season revs up and you have tons to do. Listen to it whilst things are quite leisurely, and whilst things can be blown off to be dealt with at a later, more fraught, date. I’ll guide you towards Christmas audiobooks for such times!
But for the earlier days, this is a nice audiobook that got me through the Thanksgiving week fine and dandy, that got me through the start of Christmas commercials already hitting the television.
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