Customer Reviews

Silhouette Christmas Stories 1992: Joni's Magic/ Hearts of Hope/ The Night Santa Claus Returned/ Basket of Love

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From the back cover:

JONI'S MAGIC by Mary Lynn Baxter
A man and his dog--that was the sum of Boothe Larson's self-imposed exile deep in the Arkansas woods. All visitors were turned away from the lonely cabin. But then a little girl worked magic on him, and so did her mother, Lacy Madison. It was Christmas magic--and it was called true love...

HEARTS OF HOPE by Sondra Stanford
Rob Green couldn't help laughing as he dropped off the enormous Christmas tree at Mary Shelton's home. How could the tiniest apartment in town ever contain such a huge tree? The woman was expecting a miracle. But one look at Mary got Rob thinking...of trees and mistletoe and the miracle of Christmas.

THE NIGHT SANTA CLAUS RETURNED by Marie Ferrarella
Laura Lekawski didn't believe in Santa Claus and neither did her son, Robbie...until they met him--or at least the Santa in Mattingly's Department Store. Here was the kind of Santa who could make Christmas wishes come true for a sad little boy. And make his lonely mother's dreams come true.

BASKET OF LOVE by Jeanne Stephens
"Merry Christmas" was definitely a contradiction in terms--at least as far as Nina Duncan was concerned. For Jeff Eberhart, that tough-cookie attitude became a challenge. It was past time for lovely Nina to open herself up to the spirit of holiday happiness--and the gift of his love.

And my review:

Silhouette has released some really nice stories in their Christmas collection, but unfortunately, not one of the stories in this installment was any good.

Mary Lynn Baxter's JONI'S MAGIC relied on only sexual attraction to draw the hero and heroine together. I never really felt like I knew the characters, or that I really cared about them. I felt that the hero only really went after the heroine because he hadn't been laid in a while. Not very romantic. And the little girl in this story felt more like a flat plot device than a real person. Two stars.

Sondra Stanford's HEARTS OF HOPE suffered from many of the same problems. There was nothing but overwhelming and immediate lust between the characters. Initial attraction? Great! Looking at a guy's hands two seconds after you meet him and thinking about how great they'll feel on your naked body? Ridiculous, over-the-top, unrealistic, and annoying. Didn't get very far into this story. Two stars.

I wasn't really sure what to expect from Marie Ferrarella's THE NIGHT SANTA CLAUS RETURNED. I've enjoyed some of her stories and been unable to finish others. She always seems to be a hit-or-miss author for me. The head-hopping from the heroine's point-of-view to the hero's and back and forth between them was pretty bad in this story. It was rather distracting and made it difficult to get drawn into the plot. I also didn't like that the hero fell immediately in love with the heroine at first sight. The way he pursued her (even though she was more than a little reluctant) felt a little creepy, rather than romantic. It was more like stalking than romantic pursuit. And I didn't like that the heroine never stood up to her interfering, domineering mother. Two stars.

Jeanne Stephens' BASKET OF LOVE was a story I didn't get very far into. I did not like how the hero takes the first advantage he can find and starts feeling up a grieving widow. Again, not romantic. That's creepy! He was trying to "prove" that she wanted to kiss him, even though she was trying to act indifferent to him. Uhh...this is the same kind of rationalization that rapists use, saying that the woman "secretly wants it anyway". It doesn't matter if a woman might "secretly wants it". If she says no, it means no! It was just sickening, and I quit reading this story right then and there. One star.

Romance anthologies are always a "luck of the draw" situation. Sometimes you'll find a story so wonderful it makes you cry. But that's pretty rare. There are better holiday romance collections out there. See my list "Christmas romance books worth reading" for a list of my keepers and rereads. As for this book, I recommend that you save your money.