Secret Santa

This book consists of four novels set at Christmas time, each around 100 pages. I enjoyed three of the stories greatly.

"Mister Christmas" by Fern Michaels starts things off. It features a corporate lawyer, Claire O'Brien, who is called to Ireland by one of her important clients just days before Christmas. He only does it to get Claire to meet his nephew, and despite the mutual anger about how they were manipulated, it works and the two fall in love. This story was the shortest, and it couldn't be over fast enough. What little conflict there was was forced, awkward, and came out of no where. The hero was just a fantasy guy, and I was rolling my eyes the entire time.

Fortunately, the other three stores are better.

"The Yellow Rose of Christmas" by Marie Bostwick takes us to a small Texas town in the 1980's as spinster Velvet Tudmore thinks she's found love when she receives yellow roses and a few notes. Is it the new history teacher in town? She sure hopes so. But will another woman use this to make Velvet look bad? This was a cute romance with characters I really enjoyed. Realistic? Maybe not, but I enjoyed it so much I didn't care.

"Nightmare on Elf Street" by Laura Levine is the reason I picked up this book. I love her Jaine Austen mysteries, and this one features Jaine playing elf to a very nasty Santa at the mall. It's hardly a surprise when the Santa is killed, but Jaine has to solve the crime so she doesn't miss her annual trip to her parents' house in Florida. The laughs and clues were plentiful, and I loved this book just like I knew I would. It does feel out of place in this anthology, but I didn't care since it is the reason I bought it.

"Room at the Inn" by Cindy Myers wraps things up. More about a woman at a cross roads than a romance, it features Barb. Barb and her husband Jim get stranded by a Colorado snow storm and are forced to spend Christmas with strangers. As if that weren't bad enough, Jim drops a bombshell on Barb. Can she make the best out of a bad situation, accept what Jim has shared, and find her place in the world? While it started a little slowly, I found I enjoyed this story. The characters were good and I could feel the cold.

If you are interested in any of these last three writers, pick up this book. Just skip the first story, and you'll be fine.

In Fern Michaels' "Mister Christmas", we meet Claire O'Brien who had made plans to spend Christmas with her family in Telluride, Colorado. That is--until she gets a frazzled phone call from wealthy curmudgeon/client Donald Flynn, who demands she fly to Ireland immediately as he is on his deathbed! Despite her fear of flying, Claire begrudgingly makes the trip--and is greeted by not only his friendly staff, but strange circumstances within the castle walls, not to mention, Donald's outspoken, hunky Nephew, Quinn Connor! The adventures awaiting Claire will tug at your heartstrings and bring the true meaning of Christmas alive, as only Fern can do.

If you have read Marie Bostwick's "Between Heaven and Texas", then you are well acquainted with the Tudmore women (If you haven't, do ask Santa for a copy). Happily, we travel back to Too Much, Texas, where we find Velvet Tudmore doing what she does best--teaching others about the history of Too Much and what a stalwart soul prized ancestor Flagadine Tudmore was. Miss Velvet is an inspiration to all, but she keeps her charms hidden, having never married or been in a romance. Imagine how her heart fluttered when a yellow rose was delivered from a secret admirer! I loved this tale which just reinforced the notion that you're never too old to fall in love.

Laura Levine's "Nightmare on Elf Street" will have you donning your sleuthing cap and forgetting about Holiday wrapping when you meet up with a frazzled Jaine Austen. It's not bad enough that money is low, debts are high, with no advertising jobs in sight--but spoiled feline, Prozac is being less than cooperative as the "Cover Cat" for Jaine's Christmas cards. Neighbor, Lance comes to partial rescue with an interview appointment at the ritzy/trendy new mall in town, where she is offered a chance to write their advertising, but only if she agrees to don an unflattering elf outfit and work at "Santa Land" for the holiday season. She reluctantly agrees and quickly discovers she's not sure which she despises more, her costume complete with horizontal striped tights, or sarcastic, drunken Santa/Scotty--but she may not be the only one. When she finally gives up trying to capture a cutesy shot of Prozac (cat food on a candy cane??),she trudges off to a professional pet photographer, not far from her workplace--only to have a "Feline fiasco" occur, and with the pandemonium, a crime is committed. Being fingered as a suspect, Jaine goes into sleuthing mode, with many surprises in store for her. If you have followed Jaine and Prozac's adventures in the past, you'll truly enjoy this one.

With Cindy Myers' "Room at the Inn", we find Barbara and Jimmy leaving their cozy home in Houston, traveling to Eureka, Colorado, to spend Christmas with Barbara's best friend, Maggie. However, Mother Nature has other plans as they get caught in a blizzard and the highway is closed. With assistance from the highway patrol. Barbara, Jimmy, truck driver Reuben and the Rodrieguez family take shelter in sparsely appointed fishing cabins owned by a crotchety soul named Mae. Little by little the group learns a lot about each other, volumes about themselves and more importantly, that "You can't judge a book by its cover." This is a tender tale of love, caring, sharing and the promise of a brighter tomorrow--an adaptation of a tale as old as time itself.
Deck your bookshelf with this heart-tugging anthology. It will bring joy to your heart!
Nancy Narma

I really hate to give low reviews as I know first hand how hard all authors work, but this is one of the very few times I feel its warranted! This collection of stories was very disappointing...and the one I kind of liked, read like a recycled story from the 1980s! I'll go by author's first name on this review so you know what stories I'm referring to in this collection:

Fern's story was so expected and ridiculous that it was clearly not her best work, the rich guy makes everyone's dreams come true by throwing money at everything. There is almost no conflict whatsoever and the pacing is just terrible. I could barely even finish reading it.

Marie's story is the only one I kind of liked simply because it was different with an older heroine.....but its set in 1985 - the characters are rushing home to watch Dynasty!! its almost like this one was recycled after being under the bed for thirty years and no one took a few minutes to even update it.....

Laura's story is the only one in first person and didn't feel like it belonged in this collection at all as its clearly not a romance....its a murder mystery and the heroine ends up alone...wow Merry Christmas readers.....I have no idea why it was just stuck in here.

Cindy's story is also not a romance at all....and the problems presented to the characters are so easily solved as there just happens to be everything they all need right at hand - even though all these people are supposedly stranded on the highway in the middle of nowhere....just not even close to plausible. The main character (heroine) is really unlikable as she comes across as a aging rich, useless beauty queen and doesn't seem to learn anything the whole story.

Someone at Kensington was asleep at the wheel on this one!

I only read Nightmare on Elf Street and my rating and comments only have to do with that story. I believe this Jaine Austen story is the last one I needed to read to have read all that currently exist. Yay!

I am a fan of the series and this story was pretty typical of the series except more compact. It was missing the stories of Jaine’s parents which are some of the best parts of the series and I absolutely missed them in this book.

Lance, Jaine’s best friend was a jerk in this book. Sometimes he is more of a jerk then others and in this one he was fairly jerky but not as much as in some of the other books. Jaine’s friendship with him can be grating because of how he treats her. Jaine believes, or at least tells that reader, that Lance is always there for her when she really needs him but I think that only comes through in some books. I didn’t feel it much in this one.

The mystery was one of the good ones where the reader is given some reasonable clues about the murder and one of the people Jaine suspects is actually the murdered which doesn’t always happen in this series.

Prozac, Jaine’s cat is my favorite character in the series and she was her usual wonderful and obnoxious self.

It was a good but shore Jaine Austen. I would have liked to see it as a full length work and I think it could easily have been made one.

Still, it was a good read.

Well I just looked at some of the reviews and am shocked at the low * some have given this book. They are all wonderful and I have to say I had only read 1 fern michaels novella and I have read Marie bostwick before but the other 2 I have never read before and what I treat I liked then all very much! What do you expect from a Christmas Themed book? Maybe some romance, some good Christian morales and values, Santa and Jesus and a little food and good cheer? Well I recommend this book if you like those things and it was a feel good book w some zany zingers to laugh about too! 5 * * * * *

I enjoy some mindless fiction around the holidays, but this collection is subpar even by lowered standards. The Fern Michaels entry involves a heroine who is angry because one of her clients wants to marry her off to his rich nephew and bequeath her his Irish castle and his fortune. It's a nonsense "problem," and the characters are about as well-developed as a forest in a third-world country. The second story was so forgettable that I can't even recall it now (I read it last month). The Jaine Austen murder mystery was meant to be written in a breezy, humorous style, but the jokes and asides fell flat, and the murderer was obvious, even if his weapon would never have instantly killed anyone, as happens in the story. I haven't read the final story yet but, given the first three, my hopes aren't high.

Great!!

This was a gift for a relative in a nursing home. She liked it.

A+

Worst. Book. Ever. It was like the authors didn't have enough time to meet their deadlines and they slapped words down on a page. I hate to waste a book and had to force myself to finish it, hoping that each story would be better than the last. Didn't happen.