RECENT REVIEWS
Received 2025-04-06
Review of "Short Stories to Enjoy with Wine," VOL. 2 “First, let me admit that I didn’t buy this book. It was a birthday gift from a dear friend and co-worker. At first, I didn’t know what to expect, since I hadn’t heard anything about this book or the first one in the series. No matter, I do love wine (and so does my friend Sophia😊) and have a great appetite for fiction, so I dove in head-first. She gave me a bottle of wine along with the book, which I opened and sipped a bit while I read the first few stories. I love it! Still reading, with 8 stories more to go, but the first ten have me hooked! Each story begins with a few pages of interesting facts about a different type of wine or wine grape, but then transitions cleverly into the story itself. The wine continues to show up unexpectedly in some of the stories, which is fun. But the whole idea of blending a wine tasting with a short story is something I found to be unique and very alluring!! Kristof’s ability to tell stories is front and center. He moves from uplifting, faith-filled stories to disturbing tales starring devious criminals with ease, then does an about-turn to a truly frightening, but, believable dystopian future, and again, slips into a steamy narrative about passionate lovers. I raise my glass to toast this remarkably fun book and its unique concept!” --TheStoryGraph |
Received 2025-02-11
Review of "Short Stories to Enjoy with Wine," VOL. 2 “I thoroughly enjoyed Kristof’s first book in his whimsical wine-and-fiction-based short story series so much that I couldn’t wait for Volume 2 to drop. Now that I’ve read the second one, I’ve got to say I wasn’t at all disappointed - it was well worth the wait! Despite the page constraints of the short story format, Kristof somehow manages to introduce richly developed characters and fascinating plots in a way that’s natural and unforced, and he does it so cleverly that you’ve got these vivid mental pictures without realizing that he painted them. The stories in his first flagship book of this series were so diverse that I wondered if he’d be able to pull it off again? Everything from crime to romance, and even some paranormal and heart-warming supernatural tales, and they were all so different from one another. Well, he did it again! Every new short story in book 2 is unique and engaging. He treats the diverse genres with respect for their conventions, yet maintains refreshing authenticity in his approach.” --Goodreads |