It’s hopefully no surprise to anyone who pops by here how much I adore audiobooks. I listened to books heading to and from work, and I still listen to books while I walk the doggo. Beyond the convenience, the accessibility of audiobooks is important to me, so any chance I can take to put more audiobooks out there into the world is one I want to take.
Which brings me to today’s news—Handmade Holidays is available as an audiobook now! You can find the audiobook on Libro.fm, Kobo, Booktopia, Hoopla, Audiobooks.com, and Audible thus far, and it will be available elsewhere once the various files arrive and are approved. If you’re waiting for another preferred platform, this link will populate as those other platforms go life. It was important to me to go wide with the book on audio, especially since that makes it possible for Handmade Holidays to potentially end up in libraries if people request it.
The narrator for this book, Giancarlo Herrera, was fantastic, and I can’t wait for people to hear him. He did the thing I love to encounter so much when I’m listening to an audiobook: he performed it. Seriously, it felt like listening to a one-man-play, and every time he uploaded a new chapter file I dropped everything to listen. And, like, I already know how the story is going to turn out, given I wrote it, but I was still choking up in places and laughing out loud in places because those trained theatre people? They know how to do timing like nobody’s business, don’t they?
At nineteen, Nick is alone for the holidays and facing reality: this is how it will be from now on. Refusing to give up completely, Nick buys a Christmas tree, and then realizes he has no ornaments. A bare tree and an empty apartment aren’t a great start, but a visit from his friend Haruto is just the ticket to get him through this first, worst, Christmas. A box of candy canes and a hastily folded paper crane might not be the best ornaments, but it’s a place to start.
‘Nathan Burgoine, “Handmade Holidays“
A year later, Nick has realized he’s not the only one with nowhere to go, and he hosts his first “Christmas for the Misfit Toys.” Haruto brings Nick an ornament for Nick’s tree, and a tradition—and a new family—is born.
As years go by, Nick, Haruto, and their friends face love, betrayal, life, and death. Every ornament on Nick’s tree is another year, another story, and another chance at the one thing Nick has wanted since the start: someone who’d share more than the holidays with him.
Of course, Nick might have already missed his shot at the one, and it might be too late. Still, after fifteen Christmases, Nick is ready to risk it all for the best present yet.
'Nathan Burgoine 