Saturday Review: Short Takes (More Christmas Books)

A Fool’s Gold Christmas

By Susan Mallery

Publisher: Harlequin HQN

Release Date: October 29, 2013

A Fool’s Gold Christmas was released as a hardback in September 2012; it is being released as a mass market paperback and in digital format this month. It is the tenth book in the Fool’s Gold series, and it combines the two genres, romance and women’s fiction, in which Mallery has deservedly earned scores of fans.

The story centers on the romance between Evie Stryker, half-sister of Rafe (Summer Days), Shane (Summer Nights), and Clay (All Summer Long) and Dante Jefferson, Rafe’s business partner. Both Evie and Dante are in Fool’s Gold reluctantly: Evie because her brothers, guilty about the emotional distance between Evie and her family, insist on her recovering from an injury where they can see that she receives the care she needs; and Dante because when Rafe fell in love, he insisted on moving his business headquarters to Fool’s Gold. Both carry scars from their pasts. Individually, they are appealing characters, and together they are wonderful! I particularly enjoyed watching their relationship develop from strangers to friends to lovers.

Also important to the story is Evie’s estrangement from her mother. Romance fiction has good mothers and bad mothers in impressive numbers, but this may be the only good mother to three sons who is a very bad mother to her only daughter. May Stryker has her reasons, but my sympathy was all with Evie.

I wrote a full review of this book for the Romance Dish last year. You can access it here. I’ll just add that if you are a Fool’s Gold fan and missed this book last year, you will definitely want to read it this time. If you are just in the mood for a lovely Christmas read with seasonal themes and a sweet and sexy romance, I recommend A Fool’s Gold Christmas.

A Family for Christmas

By Winnie Griggs

Publisher: Harlequin (Love Inspired Historical)

Release Date: October 1, 2013

In 1895, Eve Hendricks, with little enthusiasm, is on her way to a job as a milliner’s assistant when she befriends Leo, a young boy traveling alone. When the train conductor, a man who lacks the milk of human kindness, finds that Leo is a stowaway, he ejects him from the train and leaves him at the train depot in Turnabout, Texas. Eve cannot bear to see Leo left with no one to care for him, so she leaves the train too. A Turnabout resident, Chance Dawson, observes the incident and is filled with admiration for Eve. He offers Eve and Leo refuge in his home, suitably chaperoned by an older friend, Dotty Epps.

As the name suggests, Turnabout is a place for new beginnings. All three primary characters have things in their past that cause others to see them as lacking worthiness, but Turnabout is a town of hardworking, neighborly people who are filled with the quality sadly lacking in the train conductor. Chance has already found a home in Turnabout, and he makes it possible for Eve and Leo to do so as well. With a little growth on all their parts, they find a family as well.

This is not a perfect book. The symbolism lacks subtlety, and the prose is sometimes pedestrian. But, framed by two holidays, Thanksgiving and Christmas, and filled with faith, hope, and love and charming characters in a charming town, it is a sweet and heartwarming tale. Readers should be aware that A Family for Christmas is an Inspirational romance, and the characters are people for whom their faith and its disciplines of prayer and service are integral parts of their lives. It is also the third book in a series, but I have not read the earlier books and had no difficulty following the story. 

A Kiss Under the Mistletoe

By Jennifer Basye Sander

Publisher: Harlequin Nonfiction

Release Date: October 29, 2013

This is not a novel but rather a compilation of twenty-six true stories collected by Sander. The stories range from the sweetly romantic to the bittersweet to the heartbreaking, but each has something to share about Christmas and about love. There are all the things we associate with Christmas—Christmas gifts, Christmas trees, Christmas cards, Christmas songs, Christmas ornaments, Christmas stockings, Christmas food, Christmas kisses, and Christmas miracles. There are babies and blind dates and grinches and grace. There are white Christmases and green Christmases and Christmas with surprises like Frisbees and enchiladas.

Some of the stories are of idyllic Christmas moments, and others are of moments that would never inspire a Hallmark movie. Some stories will make you laugh, and others will make you cry. There are first Christmases and last Christmases commemorated in these stories. And the wonder is greater because these are all true stories woven from the memories of real people.

The very first story “Two to Tango” by Love Inspired author Teri Wilson is my favorite. It is a story to delight any romance lover’s heart, and the final story, “Love Never Dies” by Norma Jean Thornton, required nearly a full box of Kleenex to soak up all my tears. From first dates to final goodbyes, all the stages of love and romance are covered in these stories, and they all carry a Christmas seal.

This is not a book for everyone, but if you like your Christmas reading rich in sentiment, rooted in the real, and mindful that the holiday is about the heart and the soul, I can promise you will find stories you’ll love within these pages.

By my count, I have now reviewed seventeen Christmas books this year, and I still have a couple to go. I think it’s clear that I love Christmas stories. How about you? Do you have a long list of favorite Christmas books, or do all these Christmas books elicit only a “Bah! Humbug!”?

Tuesday Review: A Handful of Christmas Stars to a Reread and a New Read

Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor
By Lisa Kleypas
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Release Date: October 26, 2010

Mark Nolan’s strongest commitment is to his coffee business, not withstanding his long-term girlfriend. That changes when his sister Victoria is killed in an automobile accident and Mark finds that she has named him as guardian of her six-year-old daughter, Holly. Her happiness becomes Mark’s primary concern: “For the first time in his life he knew what it felt like to have his heart broken… not broken in a sad or romantic sense, but broken open. He had never known this before, the desire to surround another human being with perfect happiness.” But Holly, grieving for her mother, has stopped speaking, and Mark feels helpless to end her silence.

Maggie Collins is no stranger to grief. A widow, she has opened a toy store, the Magic Mirror, in Friday Harbor as one more step in building a new life. Even a mute child loves a toy store, and so it’s hardly surprising that Mark and Holly visit the Magic Mirror. Holly is enchanted by a fairy house that Maggie has made, and the two are clearly kindred spirits in their love for the imaginary world of fairy lore and other magic. Mark’s not happy about this departure from reality, but he tolerates it since, with Maggie’s encouragement, Holly begins to speak.

Both Maggie and Mark are quickly aware of their attraction to one another, but neither is ready to act on it. Mark feels a certain loyalty to his girlfriend, Shelby, and Maggie, two years after her husband’s death from cancer, is leery of opening herself to the possibility of more loss. So the two settle for friendship. They enjoy one another; they talk to one another, sharing the best kind of conversation: “As they continued to talk, it somehow slipped into the bonelessly comfortable, unstructured conversation of longtime friends, both of them letting it go where it would.”

But the attraction doesn’t disappear, and Holly’s letter to Santa adds a layer of complication. But Maggie has to be willing to take a risk and Mark has to learn to believe in magic before a little girl’s Christmas wish can come true.

More novella than novel, Kleypas’s first Friday Harbor book has less sizzle than her usual fiction, but it has the memorable characters the mix of sigh-worthy romance and real-life issues that characterized her Travis family contemporaries. Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor is several love stories—the love of a child, the love of family (even dysfunctional ones), and the love between a man and a woman—all tied up in a Christmas bow.               

Reading it, or rereading it, is also great preparation for the next Friday Harbor book, Rainshadow Road, which will be released in February. I’m excited about reading a Lisa Kleypas book, especially after no new books from her in 2011. Rainshadow Road Sam Nolan’s story, and I’m already a little bit in love with Sam. You can read an excerpt here.

Note: I am one of "Lisa's Divas" - a group of select fans who share info and content related to Lisa's novels and get sneak peeks and swag in return.  

Once Upon a Winter’s Eve

By Tessa Dare
Publisher: Samhain

Release Date: November 15, 2011

Spindle Cove’s Christmas ball is in progress, and Violet Winterbottom, an experienced wallflower, has claimed a corner from which to watch the dancing when a stranger, wet and bloody, staggers into the room and falls unconscious at her feet.  The language he speaks is a strange one to the citizens of Spindle Cove; only Violet can understand him. She identifies his language as Breton, the language of Brittany-- “As in Brittany, France,” as Bram Rycliff (hero of A Night to Surrender) says. Bram and the other members of the militia are suspicious of the stranger.  He may be a spy or the scout for an invasion force.

Violet isn’t sure she trusts him either, nor is she sure she trusts herself. The last time she gave her trust to a man, she ended up with a broken heart and indelible memories of The Disappointment.  Should she listen to her excellent mind that tells her this man is a mystery and a stranger, and an enemy stranger at that, or dare she listen once again to her heart?

Broken heads and broken hearts, language games and a truncated letter, pistols and promises—Dare weaves them all into a story with humor and heat and heart-capturing characters. You can read an excerpt here.

I knew I’d love this book from the moment I read the tagline: “Some wallflowers bloom at night...” and I did.  I loved Violet’s intelligence, vulnerability, and courage. I loved her stranger in the night. And I loved seeing Bram and Susanna’s happiness continuing to grow. Spindle Cove has become one of my favorite fictional settings. My second visit there was a rare treat, and I look forward to returning with A Week to Be Wicked (March 27, 2012).

I want to share the love by giving away two ecopies of Once Upon a Winter’s Eve--one in honor of a terrific author and one in honor of an equally terrific editor. Winners will be chosen randomly from among those who comment. With apologies to international visitors, the contest is open only to visitors within the  U. S.

What’s your favorite Christmas novella? To what 2012 books are you most looking forward?