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Christmas Reading Challenge

Holiday Reading Challenge Summary

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Happy New Years everyone!  For New Years Day, I thought I would do a summary post for my Christmas Reading challenge.  I read a variety of books this past December, so let’s see what I ended up with.

I started the challenge reading Naughty and Nice by  Lauren Dane, Shannon Stacey,  Jaci Burton, & Megan Hart.  This book was a great start to the reading challenge!  Naughty and Nice is a collection of 4 short stories with a Christmas theme and as the title suggests, two are sweet romances and 2 are more spicy. This book got a 4 out of 5.  If you’ve finished holiday reading for now, pick it up next year!

The second book I picked up to read was Twas the Night by a Sandra Hill, Kate Holmes and Trish Jensen.  This Christmas themed book was about 3 childhood friends trying to get home for the Christmas Eve wedding of their mentor.  As weather worsened, their only choice was the Santa Bus – a group of seniors from their hometown travelling around bringing cheer to those less fortunate.  This book was a sweet Christmas story.  The men going home pick up their future wives on the trip and the seniors add a whole bunch of comedy to the story.  This book got a 3 out of 5 rating.

The third book I read for the challenges was Together by Christmas by Nicola Cornick, Catherine George and Louise Allen.  I picked up this book as I had just finished a book by Nicola Cornick and was completely blown away by this new-to-me author!  Although I felt that all the stories had merit, the publishers put two Regency romances together with a contemporary (but set in England) story.  I didn’t feel that that combination flowed well.  I gave this book a 4 out of 5 for the individual stories, but if I had to judge the book on the whole I’d give it maybe a 2 out of 5 because it didn’t really work together.

The fourth book I read for the challenges was What She Really Wants for Christmas by Debbie Rawlins.  As you can see from the picture, this is a Harlequin Blaze.  I’ve had it on my TBR pile for quite some time.  This is the last book in a series that was put out by Blaze in 2007 about a woman who walks away from her dream job and then tries to claim a lottery prize that her former coworkers win after she leaves.  I enjoyed the series when I read it, but worked up such an animosity for Liza – the woman that walked away that I’ve been avoiding this book.  Seems that I had good reason to avoid this book.  At 2 out of 5 it was probably the worst book I read as part of this challenge 🙁

The fifth book I read for the challenges dropped on my doorstep as part of my Blaze subscription for the month of December.  I can’t resist a cover with a mostly naked man on it!!

A Man for all Seasons by Heather MacAllister was a wonderfully cute Christmas story!  This book is about two childhood friends who end up sharing a house. Marlie was dumped by her fiancee just as they were about to take possession of a house they had built, and Tyler moves in to help Marlie make her mortgage.  Since Marlie keeps interfering with his love life, he wins a series of Christmas dates for her (to get her out of the house!)  This story is funny and very cute!  A good quick read for my challenge.  It rated a 4 out of 5.

A Highlander for Christmas by Sandy Blair was the last book I managed to read in the time period.  I loved this time travel Christmas themed book.  Sandy Blair was a new author to me and I thoroughly enjoyed this book!  In this book Claire brings Sir Cameron to the 21st century by opening a puzzle box she has inherited from a friend.  I’ve read lots of time travel romances in the past and have often been left with the thought that there were too many holes in the story to be realistic.  Although I’m aware I’m reading fiction, how would someone transport to the future really survive without Identification, for example.  No driver’s license, no birth certificate, no passport.  What would the person do to support themselves in their new time period?  Details like this make or break a book for me, sadly.  I’m happy to report that Sandy Blair has created a wonderful story with all the details logically taken care of 🙂  I gave this book a 4 out of 5.  Well worth the read 🙂

Well, now that I’m finished with Christmas reading challenges, it’s on to Men in Uniform and the Highlander Challenge. mmmmmm!  Join me won’t you?

What She Really Wants for Christmas by Debbie Rawlins

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ISBN: 978-0-373-79372-3
Publisher: Harlequin
Release: December 2007
Source: I purchased this book to read and review

What would you do if you hit the jackpot?  Thanks to a spectacularly bad ex-boyfriend, Liza Skinner is in one heck of a mess.  She’s lost not only her amazing job at Atlanta’s hottest TV talk show, but also her best friends and her share of millions of lottery bucks!  Frankly, a blackmailing ex in the cherry on Liza’s misery sundae!

But then an unexpected date with Dr. Hunky-Hunk, Evan Gann, turns Liza’s life around again, especially when she suspects the good doctor is quite a bit naughtier than she first thought.  So that whipped cream from her sundae might come in handy for those sinfully delicious nights…

Nights that will end for certain if Evan discovers what she’s been hiding!

What She Really Wants for Christmas is a book that has been sitting on my TBR pile for some time now.  It is the final book of a series that I read back in 2007.  While reading the series, I seemed to develop an animosity for Liza, the subject of the last book and because of that, I had been avoiding reading this book.

Liza Skinner had her dream job – creative director for “Just Between Us”- a popular TV talk show created by her and her two best friends, Jane and Eve.  At some point she started dating Rick, someone her friends didn’t like and through a series of events, Rick stole Jane’s diaries and was blackmailing Liza with them.  Liza drops out of sight and shortly after, the group at the TV show won a lottery jackpot and to pay off Rick, Liza sued her friends to get 1/7th of the winnings.

As this book is started, Liza runs into Evan Gann while lurking at the TV station and decides to take him up on his invitation out for a drink  in order to see if she can pump him for information on the lawsuit.  This starts a rocky relationship between Liza and Evan.

Although I’ve read the other books that made up this series and enjoyed them, I went into reading this book with a bit of a bad attitude, yet trying to be open-minded as I wanted to officially finish this series off, and I needed another Christmas themed book for the Christmas challenges.  I found the premise of the book to be somewhat weak.  I couldn’t understand why Liza, at no point, attempted to go to the police to get help with the blackmail situation.  As time progressed, Rick was progressively drunk or stoned and one would think that the opportunity was there for Liza to seek help from someone.  She even tried to keep Evan in the dark.  I didn’t feel that enough logic existed to explain the series of events that had occurred before the book started and this continued through the telling of the story during the book.  Liza’s actions at times made sense, but frequently she did illogical things.  Evan was exceedingly tolerant of Liza’s irrational behavior.  She was inconsiderate of his feelings, and unwilling to rely on his help with the situation she had gotten herself into.

The redeeming quality of the book comes at the end where this multi-book series is brought to a close.  Like all good series, we get a final glimpse into the lives of the characters we have learned about in previous books and we tie all the loose ends.  Although there is positive and negative in every book, and I remind myself that others may enjoy what I don’t, this book is probably my least favorite read of 2010.

Twas The Night by Sandra Hill, Trish Jensen & Kate Holmes

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ISBN: 9781611940022
Publisher: Bell Bridge Books
Release Date: Nov 15, 2010
Source: I requested from NetGalley to read and review

TWAS THE NIGHT was co-written by three very successful and well-known romance authors: Sandra Hill, Trish Jensen and Kate Holmes. Collectively they have published dozens of novels and are brand names to a very large romance-reading audience.
This sexy, funny and fast-paced romance novel is perfect for light reading during the holidays. Three irresistible guys are trying to get home for Christmas across the snowbound northeast roads. The last chartered bus out of Philadelphia is full of rambunctious senior citizens who call themselves the Santa Brigade. Their fearless driver (a woman) is a retired NASCAR racer.
Our heroes hop a ride with the Brigade and immediately (Christmas magic?) they collide with three fellow hitchhikers who are women from their pasts: these gorgeous gals have not forgotten or forgiven old heartaches, and so it’s going to be a very long night on the bus . . .

Twas the Night is a book that I requested from NetGalley for the Christmas Reading Challenge I’m participating in and also because I’ve not read anything from these three authors before and I was curious.
As the blurb says, this story is about three men who are childhood friends trying to get back to the small town in which they grew up,  so that they can attend the Christmas Eve wedding of their mentor George.   For various reasons, they each need a method to get back to Snowden and the only way of getting through the snow storm is on the “Santa Bus”.  Sam, a Blue Angel pilot arranges to parachute to the bus to impress Reba his old girlfriend, whom he has never forgotten.  Kevin (or JD) is the private investigator who brings Callie-a woman whom he’s been hired to find and take into custody for failing to show at a criminal trial in NY-on the bus.  Stan the injured pro football player, was asked by George to pick up Dana, whom he calls the forest ranger, and bring her to the wedding.  When the roads are closed, Stan and Dana take her snowmobile to meet the bus so that they can get to the wedding on time.  The Santa Brigade is on the bus and is a bunch of senior citizens who travel around the area bringing Christmas cheer to people in need.

Somewhere I read that this book is created by three authors each writing a chapter in turn.  As you read through the book each chapter is labeled with either Sam, Kevin or Stan, but they follow an orderly progression of time from when Sam joins the bus to when they arrive at George’s wedding.  Each chapter is told from one couple’s point of view.  The other characters may be mentioned, but only as observed by the main character of the chapter.  I don’t know for sure if what I read was true, but if it is, these three authors have created a very cohesive book!  It certainly reads as if written by one person.
All three men come from disadvantaged backgrounds and most of the seniors on the bus were adults when the men were kids.  They witnessed all the shenanigans that went on, and are proud of what them men have made of their lives.  As the men work their way through their various issues and convince the women to fall in love with them, their feisty seniors add unwanted advice, and general hilarity!  All of this is told with vivid clarity.  One could just shut one’s eyes and picture the various seniors and what was going on on that bus!
This book is a feel-good heart-warming book for the Christmas season!  A lovely book to curl up by a fire with!