The Bells of Christmas II

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"Roll up, roll up, folks! Hear ye, read ye ... these eight-yes eight-stupefying stories we have for you upon this year's yuletide. Come one, come all for tidings of Christmas hope! Savor these dainty dramas and delight in delicious darkness fantastical, with all sure to enchant readers aplenty this holiday season!

"Come, good gentlefolk, as we alight gently on December 24th, the last sleep before Christmas! In Bradley Harper's The Bells of Christmas the midnight carols have echoed off into the night as Julius slumbers beneath his bleak blanket, nestled in the bowels of the homeless shelter. A visitor will arrive to make his Christmas wish come true in a most unexpected way ...

"Beware, have a care! For Derek McFadden is back among the ghosts in The Last Christmas Gift, in which Travis is on the edge of despair while on a most unexpected boat ride. Look yonder, good gentlefolk, for there, just boarding ... surely not Pops, his beloved grandfather departed these twenty years hence ...?

"Now, light ye all A Winter Candle as we partake of Bradley Harper's telling of Ben, newly retired from the military. What is an old soldier to do when he feels his family is lost to him? Why, folks, become a Santa Claus, of course! But who is it that detects the faintest flicker of hope in his heart? I tell you, someone up North is watching ...

"But lo! Not all these gifts within are fiction. Oh, no, good folks! For within, there sit true-life encounters too. Hear Bradley Harper recount fact stranger than fiction! Hear ye what he's learned in What Santa Has Taught Me, an essay of experiences as a real-life Santa Claus.

"Good people, come close ... let me whisper this to ye ... 'Who among us didn't love Christmases when we were all but wee wildlings?' Ah, then relive the magic of your childhood in Maria O'Rourke's Calling Us Home as she lovingly recalls the magic of Irish Christmases of yore, where enchantment and excitement were magic unto themselves!

"Will Knight's The Bear's Last Word on the Matter fairly hales at the heartstrings in this final pull of Christmas crackers for one lad's special childhood friend at the "Bears Cares Home." With one last Christmas together, are their adventures truly concluded?

"And now, I ask you all, fair folk: dare you encounter the bitter-sweetness of The Sugar Plum Redux? Lilla Glass gifts us a fantastical fae, a tenebrous telling of The Nutcracker from a very different point of view ...

"Ah, but all good things ... Yet still one last journey, fair folk, where we must ask ourselves if Gus is not the hero in his own story, then who can it be? Andy, the 'real' and righteous writer? Or perhaps Daphne, the nonconformist neighbor? Before we reach journey's end, Erol Engin will show us how...