Just in time for the holidays!
Oh by the way, most of these authors have upcoming books. This is the second holiday
anthology I’ve read this month and much to my surprise I enjoyed almost all the short stories in this book. I will do a very, very, very short run through of all of them. There are 287 pages, seven authors, excerpts from upcoming books and author bios – so you do the math on how long each story is.http://www.jenniferashley.com/
First is Jennifer Ashley’s A First Footer for Lady Jane. Get ready to enjoy the Scottish tradition of Hogmanay. Lady Jane is the heroine who is sort of engaged to a take-for-granted guy by the name of John. John is bringing his dark-haired friend, Captain Spencer to the festivities. Read the story and find out the importance of dark hair. Cute Story. Other than being placed in Scotland, this story doesn’t seem to be connected to any of Ms. Ashley’s MacKenzie stories. Oh by the way, The Devilish Lord Will, part of the MacKenzie series, will be out in November. A First Footer for Lady Jane is 41 pages long.
https://graceburrowes.com/
Second is Grace Burrowes, A Knight Before Christmas. While this one feels like the season, I couldn’t get interested in it. There were toooooo many characters being introduced. This one has Aiden Ferris, Chloe, a beloved bookstore, and a bank. It also has a lot of name dropping from what I’m assuming are other books. It mentions Aiden’s background, also assuming that's in another book, and it introduces Quinn Wentworth who has his own book, My One and Only Duke. My One and Only Duke is the new Rogues to Riches series. There were way too many names dropped in this story for me to enjoy it. A Knight Before Christmas has 40 pages.
http://christicaldwell.com/
Third is Home for the Holidays, by Christi Caldwell. This is sort of an epilogue to The Rogue Who Rescued Her, which is part of the Brethren series. We get to revisit Martha and Graham, aka Sheldon, to see how their happy ending is working out. For the most part it’s working out, except there are some loose ends which needed to be tied. Graham has a problem with his parents, who seemed to have attempted to break Martha and Graham's relationship apart in their full-length book. So, that is the plot of this little gem – to fix all of those nagging family issues. By the end, all is forgiven. There is a brother, Heath. Heath appears to be hero material, but I don’t know if there are any plans being made for this. This was a nice story and had 42 pages.
http://www.louisacornell.com/
Fourth is Stealing Christmas, by Louisa Cornell. Ms. Cornell is a new author for me, but she appears to have been around for a while – at least there seem to be a lot of books in her back-list. This story also appears to be another epilogue in which we get to see how characters are doing with their HEA. When the story begins, it appears that their HEA isn’t going so well, since the heroine isn’t speaking to her husband and has just slammed a door in his face. The main characters are Sebastian and his I’m-mad-at-you-because-I-invited-your-hated-brother-for-Christmas wife, Minerva. Evidently their full length story was in a book called Stealing Minerva. There seems to be a number of crazy animals, conniving servants, bosom buddies – can you say future heroes, and of course the hated brother. This was a decent tale and it is sure to arouse your interest in future stories. This story is 30 pages long.
https://twitter.com/evadevonauthor?lang=en
Fifth is Joy to the Duke, by Eva Devon. Another author I’m not familiar with, but I am interested in maybe checking her out her future books. I’m not really sure what this story is about, except there seem to be a lot of characters who are friends and they are all getting together for a Christmas party. Can you say group hug? We start with Robert Deverall, Duke of Blackstone who is returning home to his depressing home called –wait for it – Blackstone. Along for the ride is his wife Harriet, aka Harry. Evidently Robert had a horrible father, so he has to face his demons and throw a party at the same time. This itsy-bitsy story is jammed packed with people. I shall try to list them, but excuse me if I leave some out. There’s Mary (Robert’s sister). Mary has been in love with Richard Heath. Richard seems to be from the underworld. There is the Duke of Drake. Yes, my little Petunia’s the Duke of Drake – Damian, the Duke of Drake. That’s three Ds in a name. Aaaakkkkk. There is also Royland and Ravernton. I guess they are Robert’s friends. Don’t forget the Duke of Harley – yes Harley. There’s Eglantine – a woman not a bird. Marianne, Edith, and some mothers with no names show up. There are lots of lots of people. A sort of secondary romance which doesn’t go anywhere – probably a future book. This is 34 pages of people saying, “Hi, how ya’ doin’?”
Sixth is The Earl’s Christmas, by Janna MacGregor. It’s part of the Cavendish series. Another group hug!!!???? We have Cameron (our hero), Julia (our heroine), March (a sister), Lara (a sister), Bennett, Dr. Mark, Faith, McCalpin, Maximus (a cat), Ewan (dead husband), Kinnon, Tavis, Dougan, another Ewan, and another Cam. It’s a story of second changes and it’s all crammed into 37 pages. But even with all of those people crowded together it wasn’t a bad story and it was a great set-up to other books in the series.
The seventh book in the series is Silent Night, by Jess Michaels. It is part of her 1797 Club series and it also seems to be an epilogue to a novel about Charlotte and her husband Ewan, The Silent Duke. We revisit them two children and five years into their marriage. Miss Michaels manages to pack humor, great characters and poignancy into just 17 pages. Not only that but she has a pretty hot climanism-orgasamax scene between Charlotte and Ewan. By the way, Ewan is deaf and that adds even more to this very, very short story. Even at 17 pages this is my favorite story in the book.
Overall, I really enjoyed most of these stories and if you like novella/short stories you probably should give this one a try
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