The first Christmas romances I remember reading were
Harlequins. My all-time favorite contemporary Christmas romance, A Carol Christmas (1989) by Muriel
Jensen, is a Harlequin American Romance, part of their first Christmas Is for
Kids promotion. Each year I eagerly check Harlequins Christmas offerings and
almost always find a few to add to my collection of Christmas keepers.
A Gift for All Seasons
By Karen Templeton
Publisher/Imprint:
Harlequin Special Edition
Release Date:
October 16, 2012
This is the second book in Templeton’s Summer Sisters
series, following September’s The Doctor’s
Do-Over.
April Ross, a beautiful, blonde widow with an effervescent
spirit, a healthy purse, and a heart three times her size has had the old
Victorian house where she and her cousins Melanie Duncan and Blythe Broussard
spent their summers with their grandmother renovated and the once-popular
Rinehart Inn is scheduled to reopen in mid-December. Before that opening, she
has three acres that desperately need the attention of a landscaper. Sam Howell
at the garden center recommends Shaughnessy and Sons.
Patrick Shaughnessy, a veteran of the Iraq War, has been
working at St. Mary’s best landscaping company with his father and brothers
since he recovered from his injuries. His large, loving Irish family provided
the stability and security he needed when he came home visibly and invisibly
scarred by his war experience. His wife couldn’t handle the changes in him and
walked out, leaving the couple’s young daughter with her father. Patrick sees
himself as “a cross between Frankenstein’s monster and Dorothy’s Scarecrow,”
pieced together by the best efforts of surgeons, burn specialists, physical therapists,
and psychologists, but four-year-old Lilianna only sees him as Daddy, and his
main purpose in life is to cherish and protect her.
Patrick initially sees April as a beautiful, wealthy ditz.
She may stir his slumbering libido, but he’s convinced there’s little substance
beneath the appealing surface. But he soon discovers that April is filled with
surprises, and she may be just what he needs to bring him fully back to life if
he can let go of his fears.
Templeton, who is one of my favorite category writers, says
in a letter to her readers that the character of Patrick Shaughnessy was
inspired by J. R. Martinez, the former soldier turned actor who was severely burned
during his service in Iraq. Templeton was beginning April’s story as Martinez
was winning Season 13 of ABC’s Dancing
with the Stars, and the idea for her hero was born. Of course, Martinez is
eons ahead of Patrick in self-acceptance and the courage to live life. These
are the lessons Patrick learns over the course of the book, lessons that his
family, Lili, and, most of all, April have to teach him.
April was just a bit too loving and self-sacrificing for me
to believe in fully, but her cousins add spice to her sugar and she becomes more assertive. I was rooting
for her to have her HEA. Lili is adorable, the Shaughnessys are wonderful, and
Patrick is a heart-stealer. A Gift for All Seasons is a sweet Christmas story with lots of family, a
kid who believes in Santa, and a sigh-worthy holiday ending that promises
happily ever after for two deserving characters. I can’t ask for more in a Christmas romance. And
Book 3 in the series, The Marriage
Campaign, Blythe’s story, will be released in February, in plenty of time
for a Valentine read.
Among other things, I like family and children in my Christmas reads. What are the ingredients you require in a good Christmas story?
