The Twelve Days of Christmas in September: Day Six--Kissing under the Mistletoe

Kissing under the Mistletoe

By Bella Andre

Publisher: Harlequin

Release Date: 

September 24, 2013

Jack Sullivan, engineer, entrepreneur, and all-around genius, believes wholeheartedly that there is a market for the electronic pocket planner that he and his two partners, friends since their college days, have developed. Unfortunately, early sales are less than impressive, and retail stores are reluctant to stock it. The CEO of the San Francisco company that is manufacturing and distributing the device is ready to pull the plug. He gives Jack and his team twenty-four hours to come up with a sexy plan that will make the pocket planner the must-have gift of the Christmas season. His partners are skeptical of their success, but Jack is too stubborn to give up.

Thirteen years ago Mary Ferrer was a naïve nineteen-year-old with a dream of seeing the world beyond the tiny Italian village where she was born. She knows she wants more out of life than to follow the path of her childhood friends who are marrying and having babies. When a modeling scout on vacation in Italy sees Mary, he offers to represent her, confident she has a promising career. Mary succeeds beyond all her dreams. She has enjoyed more than a decade of being one of the most famous models in the world, but her success came at a price. Her mother, fearful of the dangers in that larger world forbids Mary to go, and when Mary refuses to obey her, her mother disowns her. Now Mary has decided that it’s time for her to explore new opportunities. She is on her final photo shoot.  

Jack and his partners set out without a lot of hope for a brainstorming session in which they will have to put their engineer’s brains to work trying to play the role of PR reps. Jack sees a vision—the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen. He doesn’t know who she is, but he’s certain she can sell his pocket planner to men, women, and children. He’d also certain that she’s already stolen his heart. Mary is no less taken with the tall, good-looking engineer, and it doesn’t take a lot of persuasion for her to agree to be the face of their product. However, she has been burnt badly in the past, and hers is a cautious heart. It will take some time for Jack to convince her that they are a forever team.

Kissing under the Mistletoe reminded me not of a Christmas song, although it has plenty of Christmas connections, but of my favorite song from an old musical, The King and I. Like “Hello, Young Lovers,” this story is bittersweet, infinitely sad in its irreparable loss and warmly comforting in its cherished memories. It is told retrospectively by the widowed Mary who is in the cabin Jack and his brothers built for Mary and Jack forty years ago. As she waits for her eight children and their families to arrive, she unwraps Christmas ornaments that are traditionally hung on the family tree. They bring back the Christmases of the past, especially the very first one she shared with Jack.

I confess that I’m a sentimentalist, particularly so at Christmas. I haven’t read any of Andre’s Sullivan books, so I’m not up on the stories of the eight Sullivan children, each of whom I understand has his/her (six sons, two daughters) book. This lack of familiarity did not interfere with my following this story.

Some readers may be displeased because, of course, a conventional happy ending is impossible. But that doesn’t mean Jack and Mary’s love story is missing happy scenes, sweet romance, or lots of sizzle. From the little I know of Andre, the last is one of her trademarks. If you are looking for a Christmas read that is a departure from the usual, you may want to try this one—even if you don’t know the eight Sullivans. And they have cousins with stories too, I understand.

What do you think of romance novels that depart from the conventional HEA? Can you be satisfied with bittersweet instead of bow-on-the-top, totally sweet, satisfying ending?

The Twelve Days of Christmas in September: Day Five--Sleigh Bells in the Snow

Sleigh Bells in the Snow

By Sarah Morgan

Publisher: Harlequin HQN

Release Date: 

October 29, 2013

Jackson O’Neil has left his own highly successful business, a chain of European luxury hotels specializing in winter sports, to concentrate on the family business, the Snow Crystal Resort and Spa in Vermont. His father’s death eighteen months ago in an automobile accident left the family reeling and the business that had been in the family for four generations on the edge of disaster. Jackson is astute enough to know that the only way to save the business is to make some changes, but his eighty-year-old grandfather is fighting him every step of the way. He thinks Jackson’s decision to build luxury cabins and to add the spa was foolish, and he is furious when Jackson announces that he has hired a public relations genius from a New York firm to help them sell the attractions of the resort to a larger audience.

Kayla Green is the public relations whiz. A British import, she is winning accolades from her clients and her boss for her innovative, commercially appealing work. She’s delighted when she learns that she is being given a new account to work on—first, because she’s a workaholic who is always happy to have more work and second, because anything that helps her avoid the excess of seasonal cheer that seems to be everywhere is good. She’s also very curious about Jackson’s reasons for leaving his internationally known business in other hands to focus on some Vermont ski resort few people ever heard of. When he makes clear that he expects her to spend a week at the resort, Kayla is horrified at the idea of taking a full week out of her busy schedule, but then she recalls his mention of secluded cabins and decides that since she can’t make Christmas disappear, the next best thing is spending it in seclusion in Vermont where no one will drape her in tinsel or demand that she visit Santa Claus. What she gets is a messy, marvelous family who makes her a part of them, a sigh-worthy hero who has her reassembling her dreams, and enough love to stretch her heart more sizes than the Grinch’s.

I’ve been hearing good things about RITA-winner Sarah Morgan for a while now, so when I saw an HQN  Christmas book with her name attached, I jumped at the chance to review it. I’m so glad I did because Sleigh Bells in the Snow is a smart, sexy story with a surprising amount of sweetness and a generous helping of humor that has a contemporary sharpness without the snark. Kayla is a sleekly polished career woman with a façade so firmly in place that no one who knows her can see the vulnerable, lonely person who still bears the wounds of the unwanted adolescent she was. She has grown strong, but her strength doesn’t mean that the broken places don’t remain weak. Jackson is a dream of a hero—intelligent, good-looking, and accomplished, with a deep love of family and home. An alpha who is accustomed to being in charge and having everything and everyone fall in with his plans, he finds life far more complicated with his family and with Kayla because his heart is on the line.

I loved these characters—not just Kayla and Jackson but also every member of his “infuriating exasperating, interfering, lovable family”: his grandparents, sweet Alice and curmudgeonly Walter; his mother Elizabeth, trying to find her place as she adjusts to being a widow rather than a wife; short-tempered, soft-hearted brother Tyler and his appealing daughter Jess; and even the poodle puppy, Maple. Each one is real and engaging. The other O’Neil brother Sean plays a more limited role, but he is promising. Morgan gives readers a real sense of place with the beauty of the Vermont setting and the thrill of winter sports. Finally, this author includes enough sizzle to please readers who require some steam, but she also includes enough tender, heart-touching moments for this novel to be a truly romantic story as well as a sexy one. And it has the Christmas lights and gingerbread and gifts and snow that one expects in a Christmas book.

This is the first book in a trilogy. I’m definitely signing up for Tyler’s book and for Sean’s. I’m betting that once you’ve read Sleigh Bells in the Snow (and you should read it), you’ll join me.

Sarah Morgan is a new-to-me author, and I loved this first book. Who is your most recent new-to-you author who gave you a book you loved?

The Twelve Days of Christmas in September: Day Four--Christmas in Snowflake Canyon

Christmas in Snowflake Canyon

By RaeAnne Thayne

Publisher: Harlequin HQN

Release Date: 

October 29, 2013

Genevieve Beaumont, Hope’s Crossing’s spoiled princess and former Bridezilla, and Dylan Caine, war hero who left a few missing parts in Afghanistan, have only two things in common. They both ended up at drinking at the Speckled Lizard on the Friday after Thanksgiving and they both really dislike the Christmas carols some patron with lousy taste in music keeps playing on the digital jukebox. When Genevieve decides to make her objections to the music known, she ends up in an altercation with a redhead with a fondness for Christmas carols and a job as assistant district attorney. The altercation turns physical, and when the redhead’s obnoxious male companion gets involved, Dylan can’t sit there and watch him manhandle Genevieve, even if she is a spoiled brat. By evening’s end, they have something else in common: they are handcuffed together in a squad car on their way to the police station.

Genevieve is in Hope’s Crossing only under duress. She’s spent the last two years in Paris spending money and enjoying time with people who know nothing of her family or the humiliation of the perfect wedding that never was. Her parents sent her a ticket to fly home. Genevieve thinks she’s home for the holidays, but once she’s in Hope’s Crossing, she learns that her indulgent daddy has had enough of his extravagant princess spending money as if there is no tomorrow. Genevieve’s tomorrows for the foreseeable future will be spent in Hope’s Crossing. Her father has canceled her credit cards and blocked access to her trust fund. All Genevieve has is the ugly house at the mouth of Snowflake Canyon that she inherited from her grandmother. She has hopes of selling it, but it will take some work first. And work is a new experience for Genevieve. It’s enough to cause a girl to drink.

Dylan Caine lost an eye and an arm in Afghanistan. He almost lost his life. The youngest of Dermot Caine’s six sons, Dylan knows his father, his five older brothers, and his sister Charlotte, the baby of the family, are thankful that he survived and eager to see him integrated back into the close family life of the growing Caine clan and into the Hope’s Crossing community. They are troubled and worried by Dylan’s drinking and the seclusion he clings to in his isolated cabin deep in Snowflake Canyon with only his dog Tucker for companionship. Dylan hates to hurt them, but there’s no way he can make them understand that he just wants to be left alone to face what his life is going to be with a shattered body and a shattered soul.

That one night at the Lizard changed the lives of Genevieve and Dylan. Thanks to a little interference from Dermot and Henry Lange, the only man in Hope’s Crossing richer and more powerful than Genevieve’s father, Mayor William Beaumont, Dylan’s lawyer brother Andrew arranges to have their “crime” wiped off their records if, before New Year’s, they serve one hundred hours of community service at the Warrior’s Hope, the new recreational therapy facility for wounded veterans that is the brain child of former baseball star Smoke Gregory and his beloved, Charlotte Caine (Willowleaf Lane). Dylan thinks their dream of helping traumatized vets with recreation is foolish and has already refused to have anything to do with it. Now he has little choice about spending time at The Warrior’s Hope or with Genevieve, who proves to be more human and far more tempting that Dylan expected. Dylan and the Warrior’s Hope are both new experiences for Genevieve, and they are making her believe she can be different—and better—than she ever dreamed. Reason says two such different people are all wrong for each other, but the heart is no organ of reason. And Christmas is the season for proving love offers greater gifts than the mind can conceive.

Christmas in Snowflake Canyon is the sixth book in RaeAnne Thayne’s Hope’s Crossing series, which has been one of my favorite contemporary series since I read the first book, Blackberry Summer, in the spring of 2011. Each book has offered a rich emotional experience that evoked laughter and tears and earned a spot among my keepers. This one is one of the best, as emotionally wrenching in a different way as Maura McKnight’s healing from her grievous loss and first steps into a new life in Sweet Laurel Falls (2012).

It is all the more remarkable because Genevieve and Dylan are not likeable characters. Dylan, of course, is a hero, and he sacrificed enormously in service of his country. It is impossible not to feel sympathy for him, but it’s also difficult to really like him when he is all wounded animal who snarls and tears at his loving family who are brokenhearted over his losses but whose gratitude that Dylan’s life has been spared is even greater. However, with Dylan, readers familiar with the series recognize from the opening scene that his psychological healing has begun, albeit in infinitesimal increments. The Dylan of earlier books would never have agreed to meet his brother Jamie at the Lizard.

No mitigating factors exist for Genevieve. She was a snob, and still is, though less of a one than readers might have supposed. She did behave horribly to some of Hope’s Crossing’s most noble characters. About the only thing she has going for her at the beginning is that readers of the earlier books can appreciate that she had the good sense to dump her rich, cheating, no-good political heir boyfriend. But Thayne shows her readers the family forces that have molded Genevieve into the pampered, petulant beauty she appears to be; she shows us that there is something worthwhile in Genevieve. She may be ill-equipped for transformation, but from the moment she has an epiphany that allows her to see herself as “small, selfish, and stupid,” she begins a journey that will bring her, the hope’s Crossing community, and readers to the understanding that can be great-hearted, giving, and smart in all the ways that matter most. This may be the best contemporary heroine redemption story since Susan Elizabeth Phillips gave the world Sugar Beth.

Dylan’s journey to health and wholeness is more complicated and more fraught, fittingly so, and he fights it with weapons honed in a hard school. But love works its miracle within him, love in so many facets—not just the love he and Genevieve share and finally confess, although that is central, but also his family’s love for him and his for them, the love he sees in the lives of other wounded veterans who have come to the Warrior’s Hope, and his community’s love for the many who need healing, helping touches. This is a Christmas book, and it has a plenitude of Christmas trappings: decorations, lights, gifts, and music. But it is most deeply Christmas at its heart, and I loved everything about it.

Thayne has said that there will be one more Hope’s Crossing series, the story of another Caine brother, Brendan, in the spring of 2014. I hate to see this series end, but I know I it will be one of those series that I revisit again and again. I highly recommend Christmas in Snowflake Canyon. You can read it as a standalone, although Genevieve’s redemption will not be as meaningful as it will be for readers who have seen her in her rich bitch incarnation.

  

Are there series that you are sad to see end? Or do you belong to the company who thinks series should be limited to trilogies and quartets?

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?

The Twelve Days of Christmas in September: Day Two--A Seaside Christmas

A Seaside Christmas

By Sherryl Woods

Publisher: Harlequin Mira

Release Date: 

September 24, 2013

Songwriter Jenny Collins is coming home for Christmas for the first time in several years. She has avoided Chesapeake Shores for the most part since her mother’s marriage to Thomas O’Brien left Jenny feeling like an outsider. This feeling was exacerbated when Connie and Thomas announced Connie’s pregnancy during the O’Brien family trip to Ireland (An O’Brien Family Christmas, Book 8, 2011). 

Jenny ran away from that news, and the distance between her and her family has continued to grow since then. She is little more than a stranger to her four-year-old half-brother, Sean Michael. Jenny knows her jealousy and resentment are childish, and she misses the closeness she and her mother had always enjoyed. But she can’t seem to control the complex swirl of emotions that keep her from accepting that she has a place in her mother’s new family. Even now, she is in Chesapeake Shores at the urging of Bree O’Brien Collins, wife of Jenny’s Uncle Jake (Flowers on Main, Book 2, 2009), who has persuaded Jenny to write songs for the Christmas play Bree has written to be performed at her theater in December. Jenny loves Bree and Jake, but if she’s honest with herself, she knows that her reluctance to spend another Christmas alone in Nashville reliving her breakup with country music superstar Caleb Green is also a factor in her decision to return to Chesapeake Shores.

Two years ago Caleb Green self-destructed. His alcohol abuse and the drunken revels that made tabloid headlines of his infidelity destroyed his career as front man for one of country music’s hottest bands and ended his professional and personal collaboration with Jenny Collins, one of the industry’s most successful songwriters and the only woman to win Caleb’s heart. After a stint in rehab, Caleb is sober and determined to remain so, and he’s ready and eager to reclaim his place on country charts and in Jenny’s life. When he hears a young singer perform a song that Caleb knows will be perfect to jumpstart his career as a solo artist, a heartbreak song that is unmistakably Jenny’s work, he makes plans to head for Chesapeake Shores, hoping to persuade Jenny to give him her song and a second chance.

Forgiveness and reconciliation are the themes of this tenth book and third Christmas tale in Sherryl Woods’s popular Chesapeake Shores series. They are themes that Woods has used effectively throughout this series as the vividly drawn, vital O’Briens and their various connections laugh and love and live out their often tangled, complicated lives, and they seem particularly appropriate in a Christmas story.

Jenny and Caleb are richly human, imperfect characters, and their very real flaws may loom unforgivably large for some readers. Jenny’s reaction to her mother’s marriage and to Sean Michael makes her seem selfish and self-absorbed, but there are mitigating factors. She is still quite young when Connie and Thomas marry and only a bit older when Sean Michael is born, and self-absorption is a credible characteristic in the young. Also, her father’s absence from her life has left her with insecurities, and she has grown up as the focus of her mother’s love. Once Jenny distances herself from her family, accepting the role of the prodigal requires a humility and self-knowledge that are difficult to achieve. Her choices are not always admirable, but they are consistent with her character, credible with her circumstances, and convincing means to demonstrate growth.

Caleb too may seem rather too self-interested in his eagerness to gain the rights to record Jenny’s song, but in his case too, this is a flaw consistent with who he is. Given his profession, it makes sense that he has an economy-sized ego. Given his history, it makes sense that he has deep-seated insecurities. His fall from grace was profound and public; thus, he has a great deal personally and professionally riding on a successful comeback. His success with Jenny’s songs has already been established, and his emotional investment in this particular song is significant. And once he sees Jenny again, the song is no longer his top priority.

I loved seeing Jenny and Caleb’s story play out against the backdrop of an O’Brien holiday gathering. I loved seeing Jenny’s reconciliation with all of her family; I loved the family ties, the bonds of friendship, and the new generation of O’Briens growing up. Bree is one of my favorite characters in the series, and so I was particularly pleased to see her writing dream come true. I’ve been a Sherryl Woods reader for a long time, but I’ve found some of her recent novels disappointing. But A Seaside Christmas left me with a sigh of satisfaction, a Christmassy heart, and a wish to spend another Christmas with the O’Briens. If you are a fan of Woods’s O’Briens, you don’t want to miss this one. If you have a soft spot for a Christmas romance filled with family, friends, and forgiveness as well as lovers, add this one to your list.

One of the things that keep me reading romance fiction is that redemption and reconciliation are common themes in the genre. I believe in second chances. What theme in romance resonates most with you?

Twelve Days of Christmas in September: Day One--Christmas on 4th Street

Today is the first day of Twelve Days of Christmas in September, celebrating some great holiday-themed books that will be released over the next several weeks. I started reading 2013 Christmas books in July, so I’ve been ready to start wrapping gifts and listening to favorite carols for three months now. I hope you’ll join me for the next twelve days to get a head start on the season and on the new winter holiday romance fiction that you’ll want to include among your September through December reading this year. At the end of the twelve days, the Randomizer will select one commenter to receive a gift certificate. 

Christmas on 4th Street

By Susan Mallery

Publisher: Harlequin HQN

Release Date: September 24, 2013

Noelle Perkins may be a newcomer to Fool’s Gold, but she’s already in love with her life in the California town. She has loyal friends, a successful business, and a deep appreciation of all the little things that give her reason to rejoice every day. Her past has taught her never to take life’s bounty for granted, and it is a lesson she never allows herself to forget. In fact, the only things that are keeping her life from being pretty close to perfect are her lack of skill in dealing with frozen precipitation (for which her childhood in Florida and her years working in L. A. failed to prepare her), her college student employees who take off for the ski slopes without warning, and the absence of a man in her life who will give her the look of a woman well loved that is unmistakable in the expressions of her three best friends, Patience McGraw (Just One Kiss), Felicia Swift (Two of a Kind) and Isabel Carlisle (Three Little Words).

A hand injury that left Gabriel Boylan unable to continue his usual practice of volunteering to work through the holidays has sent the trauma surgeon to Fool’s Gold to spend Christmas with his fraternal twin, Gideon, Gideon’s fiancé and recently discovered son, and the Boylan parents. It’s the first Christmas Gabe has spent with all of his family in more than fifteen years, and he’s not looking forward to it. His bond with his brother is deep if rarely expressed, but lifelong tensions with his drill sergeant father who never understood Gabe’s preference for books over ballgames or his refusal to follow the family tradition of becoming a soldier have not been resolved by time and distance.

Noelle and Gabe meet when she shows up at Gideon and Felicia’s home to take care of their puppy Webster. “Heavily armed” with an umbrella, she is ready to defend her friends’ home from an invader when she realizes the hunk wearing nothing but jeans looks vaguely familiar. Then she sees the nasty-looking wound to his left hand, and the only thing she’s battling is her inclination to faint at the sight of blood. As for Gideon, he thinks his brother has connected with a kook. He’s not about to admit he’s pleased to find out that the tall blonde with the perpetual-motion mouth is not Felicia after all.

The initial attraction between Noelle and Gabe intensifies as they spend more and more time together. Gabe, who is not the sort to enjoy inactivity, even ends up working in Noelle’s shop, The Christmas Attic, the last place one would expect to find this hero who is more a bah-humbug sort than he is a holiday joy spreader. But regardless of their deepening feelings, Gabe has no intention of staying in Fool’s Gold and no plans to make a lifetime commitment, and Noelle knows she deserves someone who is brave enough to risk celebrating what they have rather than fearing what they could lose.

Ever Mallery book I read just strengthens my conviction that this writer is one of the most gifted creators of characters in contemporary romance fiction. Noelle is a joy. I adored her only a few degrees less than I adores Felicia. Her courage, her optimism, and her contagious joy make her the perfect heroine for a Christmas romance. The sensitive, intellectual Gabe is something of an anomaly among the recent batch of Fool’s Gold heroes. I loved the difference, and I loved that Mallery showed the cost war exacts on those whose battle role is different from that of the typical warrior. Given Gabe’s relationship with his father over long years and all the rest that he has endured, I could even be patient with his slowness to recognize what he and Noelle had.

One of my favorite moments in the novel came when Noelle, thinking Gabriel is gone, recognizes that his leaving does not negate all that he has given her, and that she will prevail even if she has to continue without him. For me, that moment made the HEA all the sweeter.

I loved seeing the other Fool’s Gold characters. I especially loved that Felicia, Gideon, and Carter were such integral parts of the story. One of the things that make me a series addict is seeing the HEA of characters from earlier books in progress, and it’s especially rewarding when the characters are a favorite couple, as was the case with Felicia and Gideon.

Finally, I loved that this really is a Christmas book, not just a book set in December that could as easily have been set in March or August. The seasonal rituals of the town, the genuine sentiment that the holidays evoke among families and friends, and the joy and love that are the very definition of the season are all part of what makes this book special. Some readers may find it kitschy, but I even liked the Christmas associations of the protagonists’ names. In fact, except for the ’nother-verse, same-as-the-first feel of Gabe’s flight, I liked everything about this book. “Heartwarming” is a word I find overused and too readily applied to every book with sentimental appeal, but I think Christmas on 4th Street truly deserves to be termed “heartwarming” because it is indeed emotionally uplifting, sustaining, heartening, and encouraging. It’s also sexy, and it offers the gift of a wonderfully satisfying, sigh-evoking ending. If you like Christmas romances, you definitely should include this one on your list of must-reads for 2013.

This is Book 13 in Mallery’s Fool’s Gold series. I’ve read every one of them. How many have you read? Do you have a favorite?

Saturday Review: Summer Is for Lovers

Summer Is for Lovers

By Jennifer McQuiston

Publisher: Avon

Release Date: 

September 24, 2013

Caroline Tolbertson is not yet in her teens when, on a deserted Brighton beach, she first encounters David Cameron, a troubled young army officer who changes his mind about suicide almost too late. Thanks to her late father’s unconventional approach to rearing daughters, Caroline is an experienced swimmer who is able to guide the young soldier to safety. Keeping silent about the rescue is in both their best interests, and so they part with no one else knowing about the incident. But David, second son of a Scots baron, retains a vivid memory of his plain but passionate young savior, and for Caroline, David becomes the “verray, parfit, gentil knight” of her dreams.

More than a decade later, the tall, gawky Caroline and her older sister, Penelope, a generally proper, bookish miss with a stammer, are on the verge of spinsterhood, both of them poor material for the stuff of their widowed mother’s dream of seeing her daughters married ladies. Caroline is all too aware of her physical and social deficiencies, and she is troubled by them since she knows a good marriage is the only way she can fulfill her promise to her father and take care of her mother, and her sister. Prompt action is vital if they are not to descend from genteel poverty into outright penury.

Caroline and David meet the second time when David accompanies his mother to Brighton for a two-week stay while she recuperates from a lingering illness.  The sea air at Brighton works its restorative powers quickly because within for days, David’s mother is engaged in matchmaking schemes to see her younger son paired with an eligible bride. Both Caroline and David are reluctant guests at a social gathering at the summer home of an English viscount whose daughter is the match David’s mother has selected for him.

David, a caretaker by nature, and Caroline’s innocence intensifies the guilt he feels about an incident in his past. He is indignant when he realizes that she is the target of the cruelty of a group of shallow, immature aristocrats, and he determines that he will do his best to open their eyes to her intelligence and unique appeal and push them into seeing her as a worthy candidate for marriage. It doesn’t take long for Davis to realize that the friendship and desire he feels for Caroline insure that there is only one man he can see as her husband, David himself.

I enjoyed McQuiston’s debut novel, but I found Summer Is for Lovers, the second book in the series, to be even better. Caroline is a delightful heroine—strong physically and emotionally, intelligent, and vulnerable. Her aptitude for swimming makes her unconventional in an original fashion, and yet she is very much a woman of her time with limited choices.  David is a decent, honorable man who made a mistake for which he cannot forgive himself. I think for most people in real life, their strengths and weaknesses are entangled, often like the opposite sides of a single coin, and so I found David a credible and appealing hero. I applaud the skill with which McQuiston shows the development of the relationship between David and Caroline. I especially appreciated the scene where David sees Caroline in her natural element, the sea, and becomes aware that she is the very opposite of the graceless, plain young woman he thought her to be.

I also liked the fact that David is the second son of a Scots baron, the lowest-ranking title in the United Kingdom and that Caroline’s father was a newspaper owner. The Brighton setting also added freshness and interest to the novel. I even approve the “villains” of the piece who are not incredibly evil but rather weak and self-absorbed and incapable of seeing the “other” with sympathy and understanding.

This book is loosely connected to What Happens in Scotland, but it is not necessary to have read that book to follow the events of Summer is for Lovers. If you haven’t yet tried Jennifer McQuiston’s books, I recommend you do so. She’s high on my list of up and comers to watch.

McQuiston said in an interview with Tracy Brogan that Dierks Bentley served as the inspiration for David Cameron and Kip Moore as the hero of her third Avon novel, Moonlight on My Mind, a March 25, 2014 release.  An author who has a proper appreciation for country music hunks is clearly a woman of insight and discriminating taste.  What country music star inspires you to imagine him—or her—as the protagonist of a romance novel?