The Twelve Days of Christmas in September: Day Three--Starry Night

Starry Night

By Debbie Macomber

Publisher: Ballantine

Release Date: 

October 8, 2013

Carrie Slayton was elated when she started her career at the Chicago Sun-Times, but now she feels that she’s missing out on her chance to be a “real journalist.” Despite her managing editor’s promise that she would have her chance at interviews and human interest stories, for two years she has been covering only society weddings, parties, and fundraisers. Carrie has had enough. She is prepared to turn in her two-week notice and look for a job in the Pacific Northwest, nearer her family, but she can’t resist when her boss offers her a deal. If Carrie can secure an interview with elusive survivalist author Finn Dalton, whose book Alone, an account of life in the Arctic tundra, has spent seven months on bestseller lists, she can have the assignments she wants.

Finn Dalton grew up in Alaska and developed a love for its untamed wilderness from an early age. His distrust of women developed early too, starting with his mother’s leaving when he was ten and reinforced when another woman betrayed him. He never expected his book to earn him the level of attention it has, and he has no interest in satisfying the public’s hunger for personal information about him. Despite his reputation, Finn is no recluse, but he is determined to protect his solitary life from becoming fodder for media representatives who refuse to recognize boundaries. It helps that he spends much of his time in an isolated cabin in the Alaskan wilderness and that the few people who know his location are loyal and close-mouthed.

No one believed really believed that Carrie could track down the author whom far more experienced journalists had vainly pursued, but thanks to her tenacity, a sympathetic connection she establishes with Finn’s mother, and a friend of Finn’s who decides more human contact is in Finn’s best interest, she finds him. When Finn’s friend Sawyer flies her into the wilderness and points her in the right direction, Carrie expects to get her interview and return to civilization as soon as Sawyer returns for her. She is unprepared for Alaska’s brutal weather, for the wolf-like creature who appears ready to attack her, or for the large, graceful, silent man who reluctantly comes to her rescue.  When a winter storm forces Carrie and Finn to spend forty-eight hours together in his small cabin, games of cribbage, shared laughter, and a mutual attraction neither is ready to name shatter their preconceptions about one another. But Carrie has her interview. Are her new feelings for Finn important enough for her to grant his request to kill the interview and the career aspirations she has cherished for years? Are Finn’s new feelings for Carrie strong enough to overcome his entrenched distrust of women? Can the effervescent, people-loving Carrie and the taciturn, solitude-craving really Finn find happiness together?

A holiday book from Debbie Macomber is almost as established a tradition for her fans as singing “Silent Night” and leaving milk and cookies for Santa. Starry Night may not be as conventionally Christmassy as Macomber’s angel books or her Mrs. Miracle duo, but it is filled with the sweetness, tenderness, warmth, and other feel-good emotions (along with a touch of the poignant) that Macomber’s readers expect from her books. It reminded me of her older romances, the ones with a clear focus on a single couple who fall in love, encounter obstacles, and still find their way to a happily-ever-after. If these are the qualities you are looking for in a Christmas romance, Macomber delivers with a full quotient of coziness and comfort.

If you are looking for layers of complexity, however, you will need to look elsewhere. Finn’s trust issues are resolved easily, Carrie’s patience is seemingly limitless, and—as Macomber herself observes in an author’s intro—this is “romance, plain and simple.”  A warning to those for whom the title may evoke associations with Van Gogh’s famous painting and/or  Don MacLean’s 1972 hit “Vincent”:  you will find no tension between peace and hope, on one hand, and anguish and isolation on the other in Macomber’s Starry Night. Trust the cover. It’s a more accurate reflection of the contents. I refuse to be bothered by what this book isn’t. Instead, I’ll celebrate what it is: a perfect book to read curled in a chair by the Christmas tree, with a cup of peppermint tea and a frosted angel cookie at hand, a book that will leave me in just the right frame of mind to fall asleep and dream of sugar plums and happy endings.

I have a dozen or more Debbie Macomber Christmas books among my Christmas keepers plus last year’s Angels at the Table on my Kindle. Do you know Starry Night is the second Macomber Christmas book set in Alaska? The first was The Snow Bride a decade ago. The Trouble with Angels is my favorite Macomber Christmas book? Are you a Macomber fan? Do you have a favorite?

Tuesday Review: Rose Harbor in Bloom

Rose Harbor in Bloom

By Debbie Macomber

Publisher: Random House/Ballantine

Release: August 13, 2013

Debbie Macomber carries readers back to Rose Harbor Inn for the second book that combines new characters, including the inn’s owner, Jo Marie Rose, with a familiar setting, Cedar Cove, and occasional appearances by beloved characters from the original Cedar Cove series. The widowed Jo Marie, although still grieving for her husband Paul, who was killed in Afghanistan, is finding peace and a new sense of purpose in welcoming guests to her inn. She feels a real sense of satisfaction in setting in place the just-finished sign that announces the inn’s new name and Jo Marie as proprietor.

She is less satisfied with the state of her rose garden, which she had hoped to have ready by the time she held an open house to introduce Rose Harbor Inn to the Cedar Cove community, but she has learned that curmudgeonly handyman Mark Taylor moves at his own pace, even though it is considerably slower than Jo Marie likes. With all the inn’s rooms booked for guests who will soon be arriving and the open house scheduled for Sunday, Jo Marie doesn’t have much time to worry when Mark quits when they have an argument.

The first of her guests to arrive is Mary Smith, a businesswoman from New York, whose clear exhaustion and the scarf covering her hair loss identify her as a cancer patient. Mary left the Seattle area nineteen years ago, and without her brush with mortality, she might never have returned. She made the trip against the advice of her oncologist, but she feels a compelling need to reconnect with her past, a part of that past is in Cedar Cove and a part of it is still in Seattle.

Most of Jo Marie’s guests are in Cedar Cove to celebrate the fiftieth wedding anniversary of Julie and Kent Shivers. The Shivers’s granddaughter, party planner Annie Newton, is the family member charged with managing the details of the celebration. Annie, who is recovering from a broken engagement to a man who proved to be self-absorbed and unfaithful, finds it comforting to plan this celebration for her grandparents who have been in love for half a century. But the couple who has always seemed the essence of marital happiness to Annie seems more interested in bickering and sniping at each other than in celebrating their five decades of marriage. As if that were not disturbing enough, there is also the presence of Oliver Sutton, her grandparents’ neighbor, the bane of her existence when they were growing up. Oliver is eager for a cease fire to their hostilities, but Annie can’t forget the past.

The necessity of coming to terms with one’s past is the theme that connects all the stories in this novel. Mary must forgive herself and accept the things that cannot be changed and own the courage to embrace the joy that life still offers. Annie must forgive youthful folly and see Oliver with new eyes, recognizing that he is not the tormenter of her young years or the fiancé who betrayed her. Even Jo Marie proves to have issues with the past and with her acceptance of Paul’s death.

As always Debbie Macomber gives her readers characters who stumble and make mistakes but who learn to forgive, to love, and eventually to acquire the grace to accept life’s bounty with open hands and grateful hearts. Macomber’s readers can trust her to bring more such characters to Rose Harbor Inn to heal and to grow. Jo Marie’s story will continue to develop, the mysteries of Mark Taylor will slowly unravel, and Cedar Cove will continue to offer readers a place where peace is possible and even strangers find it feels like home.

If you require high-pressure adventure, sizzling sexy scenes, or intellectual puzzles in all you read, Debbie Macomber is not the author for you. On the other hand, if you enjoy a heartwarming, comfortable world where community is real, where people actively care for one another, and where kisses supply all the sexual passion, Debbie Macomber is among the best at creating such a world. I read all thirteen Cedar Cove books, and I, for one, am glad the Rose Harbor series allows me to return to the Cedar Cove world. I look forward to the next book in the Rose Harbor series. In the meantime, I’ll be watching Hallmark’s Cedar Cove TV series, and I almost never watch TV.

Are you a Debbie Macomber fan? What’s your favorite Macomber book? Have you watched the Cedar Cove TV series?

Review: The Inn at Rose Harbor

The Inn at Rose Harbor
By Debbie Macomber
Publisher: Ballantine
Release Date: August 14, 2012

Debbie Macomber makes her debut with a new publisher and returns her readers to familiar territory in the first book of a new series.

Just after New Year’s Day, Jo Marie Rose bought a bed-and-breakfast in Cedar Cove. Still grieving for her husband Paul Rose, a soldier killed in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan in late April of the previous year, she has come to Cedar Cove against the wishes of her family, who want her to stay in Seattle. She and Paul had all too brief a time together, but she believes that she will never love again with the joy and intensity they knew. However, the inn gives her a sense of peace that persuades her Cedar Cove is where she needs to start to build a new life. Since she buys the inn in turnkey condition from a couple who restored the 19^th-century home, she is open for business almost immediately. The only significant change she makes is to rename the inn in her husband’s memory.

Her first guests have returned to Cedar Cove reluctantly. Joshua Weaver left twelve years ago when he joined the army shortly after he graduated from high school. His relationship with his stepfather was never cordial, and it grew worse after his mother’s death. When his stepfather accused Josh of stealing from him and kicked him out of the house shortly before graduation, their estrangement was complete. Josh came back just long enough to attend his stepbrother’s funeral five years ago, not even staying overnight. Now the project manager for a construction company, he is in Cedar Cove only because Michelle Nelson, a neighbor and social worker, has contacted him with the news that his stepfather is terminally ill and needs help. It is only a sense of duty that brings Josh home, and he is eager to take care of business and leave as soon as possible.

It is also duty that brings Abby Kinkaid to Cedar Cove. Her older brother is getting married, and his bride is from Cedar Cove. The family, who moved from Cedar Cove a decade earlier, is gathering for the wedding, and Abby knows she has to join them. She has always believed that it was the accident that changed her life irrevocably that forced her parents to move to Arizona. Abby grew up in Cedar Cove, a happy, outgoing girl who shared all the typical activities with her best friend, Angela White. But during Christmas vacation when the two were college freshmen, they were involved in an automobile accident. Angela was killed. Abby was driving, and she felt guilty for her friend’s death, a feeling exacerbated by Angela’s family’s anger and bitterness toward her. Abby believes the whole town holds her responsible for the accident, and so she cut off all contact with friends in Cedar Cove. The guilt she carries has shaped her life, turning her into a very different person from the joyful girl she once was. Even now, ten years after the fact, she refuses to stay at the hotel where the other wedding guests are. Her only idea is get through the wedding, drawing as little attention to herself as possible, and then return as quickly as she can to her home in Florida, about as far from Cedar Cove, Washington, as one can get.  

The themes that link the stories of Josh and Abby are obvious. They are both in need to forgive and to heal in order to move beyond their pasts. In Abby’s case, it is self-forgiveness, but that can be the most difficult of all. They both find far more than they expected in Cedar Cove. The strength and warmth Josh finds in Michelle helps him to forgive his stepfather and begin a new life with Michelle. Abby finds friends who celebrate her return, eventual absolution from Angela’s family, and reconnection with a man from her past. The inn at Rose Harbor promises to be a place of healing and new beginnings not only for Jo Marie but also for all who visit.

Fans who have loved Macomber’s Cedar Cove books will be happy to see that the new series has all the warmth and sense of community that made the original Cedar Cove series so beloved. Old friends such as Grace Harding, Olivia Griffin, and Peggy Belden make brief appearances. I suspect others will show up in subsequent books. If this first book sets the pattern, this series will be the same hybrid of women’s fiction and romance that characterized the other Cedar Cove books. There is even a curmudgeonly, ex-military handyman, Mark Taylor, who promises to add interest and perhaps unanticipated romance to Jo Marie’s new life. Nobody is better than Debbie Macomber at writing books that show hope and love triumphant over the staggering blows life throws at people. There is little new about this new series other than the publisher, but Macomber’s sales suggest more of the same is exactly what her fans want.

Are you a Debbie Macomber fan? What do you think accounts for her huge popularity?

Tuesday Review: 1225 Christmas Tree Lane

Happy Christmas Reads Week!

I know the calendar says Halloween is still two weeks away and Thanksgiving comes before Christmas. But my TBR shelf is nonetheless rapidly filling with Christmas books. I’ve already reviewed An O’Brien FamilyChristmas by Sherryl Woods and BringMe Home for Christmas by Robyn Carr. This week I’m going to review five other Christmas books I’ve read. If you love Christmas books as much as I do, check back each day for the rest of the week for a new Christmas book review. And don’t worry, there are still many left to share with you in December. Who better to begin this special week than Debbie Macomber who takes us home to Cedar Cove for Christmas.

1225 Christmas Tree Lane

By Debbie Macomber

Publisher: Mira

Release Date: September 27, 2011

4.5 Stars (from a sentimental series fans)

3 Stars (from an objective reviewer with an eye toward the new-to-series reader)

Debbie Macomber began her Cedar Cove series a decade ago with 16 Lighthouse Road in which readers met Judge Olivia Lockhart as the pivotal character, In that first book Judge Lockhart denied a divorce to Cecilia and Ian Randall, added  a love interest to her own life, and worried about her daughter Justine making a bad choice, the stubbornness of Charlotte, her aging mother, and her friend Grace’s desperation over a missing husband. Twelve books later (plus a novella and an “extra” Christmas novel) Macomber ends the series with 1225 Christmas Tree Lane. Olivia and company make appearances in the final book as do most of the other characters from the long-running series.

The focus of the twelfth book is Beth Morehouse for whom Christmas is unusually hectic given the success of her Christmas tree farm, the anticipated arrival of her two daughters, and the responsibility for ten lab mix puppies that need homes.  As if life were not chaotic enough, her college-aged daughters, scheming to reunite their divorced parents, have manipulated both parents into agreeing that dad will spend the holidays with the family. His arrival with a beautiful “very good friend” was not part of their plan. Neither was Beth’s warm friendship with the local vet.

It is fitting that a series which has devoted so much attention to marriage in all its stages should end with the focus on Beth and her ex Kent whose divorce was free of drama and recriminations. This marriage could be labeled “Canceled due to lack of interest.” Reading about how they lost one another and drifted apart reminded me of the closing lines from Edna St. Vincent Millay’s poem “The Spring and the Fall”: “’Tis not love’s going hurts my days, / But that it went in little ways.” The question is whether two people who let love go can recapture the feelings they once shared.

While Beth and Kent’s story is central, finding homes for the puppies and the gatherings that are part of a Cedar Cove Christmas allow for the appearance of characters from earlier books. I didn’t check off names, but all of the characters I remembered show up in a credible fashion. Readers have an opportunity to be updated on the changes in the lives of their favorites, all of whom we feel certain will continue to live happily.

The novel closes with a one-sentence paragraph: “It was the kind of town anyone would love to call home.” That’s a fitting tribute for the town that brought Macomber’s career to a new level and gave her hometown a festival that attracted national and international visitors. It’s a town that readers have taken to their hearts, and surely there could be no better ending than Christmas when family and friends gather, happy to be home for the holiday.

You will note that I gave the book two grades. I loved the book. Even though some of the inclusions of earlier characters seemed contrived, I was so delighted to see the characters that I barely blinked as the numbers rolled on. I expect most fans of the series will react in a similar manner. But this is not a book for a reader new to the series. I can only imagine that such a reader would be confused and irritated by the more than sixty characters. New readers will do better to start with the first book and enjoy the full journey.   

How do you feel about Christmas books? Have you read any of the 2011 releases?

On the Road Again

Road romances have been around as long as I’ve been reading romance--and that's a l-o-n-g time. AAR lists more than 180 in various subgenres. But I’ve never thought of road books as a particular favorite trope until recently when I realized that I had read and enjoyed three in the first quarter of 2011.

After thinking about the trope, I realized that the road book keeps the focus on relationships, and that’s a plus for me. In real life, I've found there’s just something about people alone in a vehicle that fosters a sense of intimacy. Some of the most honest conversations I’ve ever had have taken place on road trips, and I’ve heard many parents say that they have their most revealing exchanges with their kids, particularly teens, as they are driving with them. Even the silences can be meaningful. These real life qualities are part of road romances too.


My most recent road book read was Debbie Macomber’s A Turn in the Road (Mira, April 26), Book 8 in the Blossom Street series. Three women, each confronting a turn in her life’s road, drive across the country together. The occasion for the road trip is the 50th high-school reunion of Ruth Hamlin. Ruth, who has been widowed for many years, has never forgotten her first love, and the reunion offers the possibility of seeing him again.

When Ruth’s children express concern about her driving from Seattle to Florida alone, her former daughter-in-law, Bethanne, agrees to accompany Ruth. Bethanne was devastated six years earlier when her husband confessed to an affair and asked for a divorce, but in the six years since the divorce, she has rebuilt her life, enjoying great success in the party business she started and close, loving relationships with her son and daughter. Grant, her ex, has shed wife #2 and is trying to persuade Bethanne that he deserves a second chance. She’s not so sure their reunion is a good idea. Annie Hamlin, a young grad student who works in her mother’s Parties business, thinks her boyfriend is about to propose. Instead he informs her that he’s off for a year in Europe, and she’s not invited. Angry and hurt, Annie decides to join her mother and grandmother on their trip.

The trip that includes stops in Las Vegas, Branson, MO, and New Orleans, is filled with adventures, laughter, arguments, and changes for these three women. Car trouble brings another complication into Bethanne’s life—Max, a hero on a Harley who is more than he appears to be. The end of the journey offers Ruth more than she dared dream, and Annie discovers how much fun life can be when one is free to explore all the possibilities.


I liked the interweaving of the stories of women in three different stages of life, each of them vital and growing. I found Annie the least sympathetic character.  She sometimes seems immature and more than a little selfish, but ther times, she comes across as young and endearing. I loved Ruth story, especially the prom redo, and I delighted in the twist in Bethanne’s story. Debbie Macomber fans and readers who like their women's fiction served with a generous helping of romance are going to love this one.


Reading A Turn in the Road led me to consider other road books I’ve enjoyed. If you know me, you know I’m a compulsive list maker. So it should come as no surprise that thinking about road books led to a list of my top 20. Here they are in chronological order.

1. Sylvester: or The Wicked Uncle (1957) by Georgette Heyer

A Regency romp by the much imitated but rarely surpassed Heyer, this road book has Miss Phoebe Marlow fleeing and, of course, falling for the arrogant Sylvester, Duke of Salford amid scandal, kidnapping, and assorted revelations.

2. "Miracle on I-40" (Silhouette Christmas Stories, 1988) by Curtiss Ann Matlock

A Christmas story I reread every year, this road book features a bundle of Christmas clichés—family reunion, adorable kids, cute animals, a visit from Santa himself—and it also offers an unusual heroine and hero (a waitress and a truck driver) who travel in a truck with lights on the grille spelling out “Bah! Humbug!” and the kind of transformation the spirit of Christmas should bring.

3. Silk and Secrets (1992) by Mary Jo Putney

This is a book that merits more attention. It’s not only a superlative road book but also one of the most memorable reunion romance I’ve ever read, with a flawed heroine, a hero who is the stuff of legends, an exotic setting (Middle East), and an emotional conclusion that packs a knockout punch.

4. My Lady Notorious (1993) by Jo Beverley

The first book in Beverley's beloved Malloren series, this Georgian romance boasts a cross-dressing heroine, a sexy food scene, true treachery and evil, and the introduction of a secondary character who stole the hearts of readers who spent years “waiting for Rothgar.”

5. Crooked Hearts (1994) by Patricia Gaffney

An American historical set in 1880s San Francisco, this tale of two con artists begins with the heroine as a Catholic nun and the hero as a blind Spanish aristocrat, and the trip from that point on is sexy and fun.

6. One Perfect Rose (1997) by Mary Jo Putney

Connected to MJP’s Fallen Angels series (The hero, Stephen Kenyon, Duke of Ashburton, is the brother of Michael Kenyon), this book has a duke in disguise, a foundling brought up in a family of actors, and a journey that includes a visit to heaven.

7. I Do, I Do, I Do (2000) by Maggie Osborne

Three very different women join forces to hunt the man who married all three of them. A  trek that takes them to Alaska and Canada leads them to self-knowledge and, along the way, to their soul mates.

8. First Lady (2000) by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Take a widowed First Lady who has gone AWOL, a curmudgeonly journalist who is allergic to commitment, and two of the best kid characters in romance fiction; mix them up in a rattletrap motor home and end up with a terrific blend of SEP’s usual laughter, love, and irresistible story.

9. Tallie's Knight (2001) by Anne Gracie

The hero is an earl known as “the Icicle” whose cold heart is melted by a toddler who fires him with an ambition to be a father; the heroine is a poor relation whose innocence is equaled by her wise and loving heart; traveling from Dover to Paris to Italy gives them time find the proverbial journey’s end--true lovers’ meeting.

10. The Wedding Journey (2002) by Carla Kelly

Another of Carla Kelly’s stories of transcendent love amid the horrors of war, this novel gives readers a shy captain and surgeon in Wellington’s army who rescues his secret love from a sadistic bully and turns a military retreat into a honeymoon.

11. The Runaway Duke (2004) by Julie Anne Long

JAL’s first book features a head groom who turns out to be a duke, an almost bride who runs away from what she knows will be a loveless marriage, a pair of villains who are a mix of moral flaws and sympathy-evoking vulnerabilities, and a journey that offers humor and pathos. JAL was added to my autobuy list with this one.

12. Lord Perfect (2006) by Loretta Chase

The third book in Chase’s popular Carsington series, this is the story of the controlled and lordly Benedict Carsington, the Viscount Rathbourne, the scandalous Bathsheba Wingate, and their two spirited charges, her irrepressible daughter Olivia and his logical nephew Peregrine—one of those thisclose to perfect tales that seem to be a habit with Loretta Chase.

13. The Perfect Stranger (2006) by Anne Gracie

In the third book of Gracie’s Merridew Sisters quartet, Faith is on the run from her great love who turned out to be a bigamist, from a trio of would-be rapists; she runs into the arms of an ex-soldier who saves her, marries her, and falls in love with her—in that order.

14. A Rather Curious Engagement (2008) by C.A. Belmond

Another light-hearted romance that follows Penny Nichols and her not-really-a-cousin boyfriend Jeremy on a second adventure, ARCE takes the pair to the French Riviera, Lake Como, and Corsica, most of the journey in pursuit of Jeremy’s stolen vintage yacht. Sheer fun that feels like a 1940s romantic comedy even though it is contemporary!

15. The Spymaster's Lady (2008) by Joanna Bourne


This is the book that persuaded me I could love a book about spies, gave me a hero and heroine who are richly layered characters individually and even more intriguing together, held me breathless through their journeys—literal and metaphoric, and added a title to my all-time top romances.

16. The Perils of Pleasure (2008) by Julie Anne Long

JAL introduces the Everseas and the Redmonds, the two families who will supply the characters and conflicts for her Pennyroyal Green series. This first book begins with Colin Eversea’s rescue from the gallows by a woman hired for the task. Their journey to discover a common but unknown enemy becomes a journey toward trust and unexpected love. This was my favorite of the series until it was recently displaced by What I Did for a Duke.

17. Surrender of a Siren (2009) by Tessa Dare

Book 2 in Tessa Dare’s debut series pairs a runaway heiress with a rogue determined to reform, a goal made nearly impossible by the presence of said heiress on his ship. I loved this book—and Gray is a hero to be treasured through rereading after rereading.

18. Not Quite a Husband (2009) by Sherry Thomas

The heroine of this book is an overly serious doctor who practices medine in Germany and America before setting up practice in India; the hero is a mathematician and writer who charms everyone; the primary setting is late Victorian India. The only predictable things about this book are Thomas’s lyrical prose and richly developed characters.

19. Softly and Tenderly (2011) by Sara Evans and Rachel Hauck

An inspirational that proves readers who dismiss the subgenre merely as “preaching books” are selling the subgenre short, this novel is the tale of Jade Fitzgerald Benson, her mother Beryl, and her mother-in-law June, whose road trip in a 1966 Fleetwood Eldorado convertible (pale pink) is filled with tensions among the women and with bonding and humor as each woman must come to terms with the upheavals in her life.

20. My One and Only (2011) by Kristan Higgins

Another book that combines road trip and reunion motifs, this one gives readers a cynical divorce attorney and the husband she divorced twelve years ago on a cross-country trip following the wedding of her step-sister to his half-brother. That description is enough to know that the book is filled with Higgins’s trademark humor. There were many moments that made me laugh, a few that left me teary-eyed, and a dog that seemed so real I could almost pat her head (Coco, a Jack Russell-Chihuahua mix with a split personality).

How do you feel about road romances? How many of my favorites have you read? What would you add to the list?