I received a complimentary copy of this anthology from Netgalley but all opinions provided are my own.
My biggest snow story experience? When I was 11 or 12, two of my cousins, my siblings, and I got snowed in at my divorced dad and his then girlfriend’s house for several days. By the end of it, my dad was threatening to rent a helicopter to get us returned home. Because of this (despite this?), I can really respect a snowed-in story, especially of the let’s-fall-in-love-while-the-snow-falls variety. It just seems to work on an elemental level: the vibrancy of the colors, the isolation, the cocoon effect. Everything’s reduced to the people you’re with really, whether it’s the family starting to grate on your nerves or a potential love interest, like in the A Snowy Little Christmas anthology. I was so excited to get a copy of this anthology, mainly because Kate Clayborn’s included and I could happily read her books all the time. They’re lovely. In the end, I loved Clayborn’s novella—as I had expected I would—I really enjoyed the one written by Tara Sheets, and found the first novella in the collection, written by Fern Michaels, to be not quite my preference. I’ve never read a book by Fern Michaels before, and I didn’t have an idea of what to expect. Starry Night, her anthology contribution, follows Jessie, an advertising exec & secret relationship-advice radio host, as she repeatedly travels to the Croton-on-Hudson bookstore her uncle gave her to schedule renovations, relocate the books, etc. There, she finds the close-knit community she’s never had before and meets single dad and contractor Evan. I had some trouble relating to the characters in this one. On one hand, the leads are mature and sophisticated; on the other, they come across as not very approachable and often old-fashioned to me. I also had difficulty with the story itself: it seems to use more telling vs. showing, and the romance is subdued and pretty vague, even in its conclusion. Tara Sheets’s Mistletoe and Mimosas, the second novella in the collection, adorably pairs Layla, the heroine, with the long-remorseful man who was complicit in the bullying she experienced at high school. Both leads are admirable: Layla’s made a successful life for herself and is aware of her worth; Sebastian is very sorry for how he treated Layla in high school and determined to meet the challenge of showing her that. This snowed-in story is sweet and gentle, and Sheets features enough intriguing characters from her other works that I'm planning on reading more. My favorite story in the collection, Kate Clayborn’s Missing Christmas, picks up with characters introduced in her debut novel, Beginner’s Luck. Kristen and Jasper are co-workers and very close friends, and while both have secret feelings for the other, neither wants to destroy what they have on the slim chance that they could have something more. But luckily for us, Kristen and Jasper get snowed in at a one-bed cabin. Clayborn’s a master at subtlety; I love the little touches and observations her characters make. Everything feels so important, so critical, because Clayborn makes the reader feel the leads’s yearning. Missing Christmas is the steamiest story in the anthology and the relationship between Kristen and Jasper has the most depth. Their HEA feels totally believable to me given how thoughtfully Clayborn portrays the history of their close relationship. This novella gives me major feels. All things considered, A Snowy Little Christmas is a delightful holiday offering comprised of three novellas with vastly different styles and steam levels. There’s good romance representation here, but the flip side is that like me, you might find yourself adoring one story, liking one, and struggling with another. 3.5 stars out of 5.
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Four Dukes. Four spirited heroines. At Christmas-time! The anthology How the Dukes Stole Christmas—with novellas written by Tessa Dare, Sarah MacLean, Sophie Jordan, and Joanna Shupe—releases today, and it’s a scrumptious, perfectly packaged morsel that makes even this (gestures to self) rabid fall enthusiast look forward to the holiday season with no small degree of anticipation. Themes of this sigh-inducing collection include the heartwarming appeal of Christmas-time; portrayals of female empowerment—which sometimes includes teaching a grumpy, work-focused duke an important lesson or two; and shortbread. Tessa Dare's Meet Me In MayfairDare’s unexpectedly sweet novella begins with Louisa Ward’s goal of attracting a husband candidate that night so that she can save her family and herself from being evicted from their Mayfair home. Enter James, the Duke of Thorndale, and also the man responsible for their eviction notice. Will James be the answer to Louisa’s prayers in more ways than one, or will her goal come between them? As a rule, I’m often drawn to Dare’s characters most when there’s a knowingness, a maturity to them. In this novella I encountered the softer side of Dare's repertoire, even if her heroine, Louisa, is still unconventional enough to challenge the duke's positions on women and to take him on a solitary tour of Mayfair on a winter's night. It's this combination that makes this novella so winning: for all the attraction between Louisa and James, there’s still an innocence to their relationship and this novella that is surprising, and on some level, refreshing, particularly when you remember that most of the story takes place over one intoxicating night. Sarah MacLean's The Duke of Christmas PresentSarah MacLean follows with this juggernaut of a novella that’s fueled by regret, guilt, and yearning and that hits with all the force associated with a master of her craft. Second-chance romance aficionados rejoice: this novella begins with a drunk Eben James, Duke of Allryd, coming face to face with a ghost from his past: Lady Jacqueline Mosby, the woman he was once affianced to, and who left him twelve years ago, after he became duke and set out to resuscitate his estate. Mosby has been traveling since then, and she’s leaving again soon. Twelve years, a fiancé, and more, lies between them. But is their love story over? MacLean writes intensely—the yearning between Eben and Jack, as he calls her, is palpable—but for all that, her stories never feel bogged down or burdened with it. In this novella, MacLean deftly brushes the dust from their past and highlights the complexities of love; how sometimes being in love doesn’t automatically lead to a HEA, like for young adult Eben and Jack, but that love can lead people back to one another, if they’re willing to cover the necessary ground. Sophie Jordan's Heiress AloneAnnis Ballister’s first meeting with Calder, Duke Sinclair is not the auspicious beginning we might hope for. She’s sprawled at his disdainful feet after being shoved there by her not-quite-so-adoring sisters. But luckily for us, they’re brought back together because (1) Annis’s delightful family accidentally leaves without her, (2), a violent band of thieves is roaming the area, and (3), Calder insists that she and her two servants return to his home with him for their safety. Annis and Calder didn’t have the best first impression of the other, and while Calder is reluctantly attracted to Annis, her plans for her future also stand between them. Will Calder and Annis succumb to their attraction and is that enough to bring two people—who at the novella's outset, want different things—together? Though the beginning of Jordan’s novella is a bit cringe-worthy, Annis wins the reader over with her dignity and strength, and these qualities, along with the passion blazing beneath her placid exterior, are attractive to Calder, too. Heiress Alone is dramatic and sensual, and the attraction between these two characters propels the novella to its very satisfying ending. Joanna Shupe's Christmas in Central ParkWe move from the wilds of Scotland to a frenetic newsroom in New York City in the final novella, Joanna Shupe’s Christmas in Central Park. Mrs. Rose Walker is a wealthy, married domestic expert who dispenses advice for the readers of the New York Daily Gazette. In actuality, she’s Miss Rose Walker, an unmarried writer who gets her advice from her servant mother and the fellow servants she grew up with. Unfortunately for her, the president of the publishing empire associated with her paper, Duke Havermeyer III, just had to clean house after a lying scandal and demands that his most popular writer, Mrs. Rose Walker, host a party for members of the board to get him back in the board’s good graces. What could possibly go wrong? Rose is supremely competent and assured, and a large part of her appeal is that she gets things done. She operates with ingenuity and aplomb, circumventing the constraints put upon her by society—and by Duke himself—admirably. Duke’s unwitting battle with a master strategist is a joy and a delight, and it’s enhanced by the truly explosive chemistry between them. Final ThoughtsHow the Dukes Stole Christmas is a lovely collection of Happily Ever Afters, all centered around the magic of Christmas—how it invites us to self-reflection and offers opportunities to re-assess our priorities and to redeem ourselves from the things we’ve let hold us back.
But it’s more than that, too. It’s a collection frequently featuring characters we don’t traditionally get to hear from in historical romances written by white women—servants, and in the case of Sarah MacLean’s novella, a very successful black businessman—who intervene in critical ways, and who inspire our main characters to be their best selves. And, of course, it’s a collection centered around strong, fierce women who speak their minds, pursue their dreams, and move through their novellas with authority, even when they’re facing challenges outside of their control--and that's always sexy to me. **I received an ARC of this anthology from the authors, but all opinions provided are my own. The Need to Know: The Moth Presents All These Wonders is a gorgeous treasure of a book.There was something about The Moth Presents All These Wonders that I was drawn to. It could have been the stunning cover. Or the fact that the Foreword is authored by Neil Gaiman. Or the very nature of the Moth project itself, which offers its participants the opportunity to tell a story about their lives to an audience.
It's D: all of the above. All These Wonders is a collection of forty-five stories by well-known author/speakers like Louis C.K. and Ishmael Beah and people who I didn’t recognize by name. According to Artistic Director Catherine Burns, these stories were taken from spoken-word stories and “transcribed and lightly edited for the page.” The fact that these stories have been transcribed does make for a slightly different reading experience. I was reading and listening to someone’s unique speaking voice; that experience reminded me that these speakers were bold enough to not only put their words down on paper but to speak them into the world. Each story is fairly short and centers on an important event in the author/speaker’s life. We hear from people who are getting their big break, people who are losing their big break; people who are bringing people into the world; people who are saying goodbye to people who are leaving the world; people who have known the violence of others; and people who have known great love. The diversity of these stories, and how they cover the gamut of the devastating to the joyous, is incredible. Regardless of the nature of the event that each author/speaker writes about, each person finds something powerful to hold onto and share with the reader. I don't want to go into detail about the individual stories because they are lovely to watch unfold. But as a collection and individually, these stories are mesmerizing, wonderful reminders of what it means to be human. They are brimming with the things and feelings that happen to ourselves and to others that we don’t typically share—or if we do, we share them only with our dearest and closest. As Gaiman says about these stories in the Foreword: “Honesty matters. Vulnerability matters. Being open about who you were at a moment in time when you were in a difficult or an impossible place matters more than anything.” This book is a moving exploration of the human experience. Besides that, the hardback book is absolutely beautiful—a book that I’ll be so happy to add to my shelves. I highly recommend it for you and also as a gift for others. It’s one of those books that I think that will make many people feel connected and loved. I received a copy of this book from Blogging for Books, but all opinions expressed in this review are my own. |
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