Keeping it short for a year-long worth of dreaming. (Big Dreams Blog Update #15)

It’s New Years’ Eve! See that obligatory fireworks image.

-wipes tears-

And it feels like only yesterday—

Actually I sorta felt all of 2014 go by, because things happened this year. Not big, crazy publication-deal things, but things:

I finished my first novel for instance, and I decided to write a second one—for good measure and all. Make sure the first one wasn’t a fluke.

 I FINALLY set a reading goal I could work with and I’ve wanted to try book reviewing for a long time and I ended up combining & completing both!

Now I'd like to pause here during my speech and thank the 'Do You Have Goals?' blog hop hosted by authors Misha Gericke and Beth Fred.

For those of you who have no clue what I'm talking about, the 'Do You Have Goals?' blog hop is all about setting big (IMO crazy) goals and then blogging updates on said goal(s). There are 19 of us now, and there's always room to make that 20, 21, 22...

Think about it.

2014 also marked my 1-year blogiversary.

I never thought starting this blog that I would last a year. But this blog hop kicked my butt into gear and the Update Day blog posts we (typically!) every last Friday of the month was a way for me to look forward to something.

It's like being invited to a birthday party, RSVPing and then showing up without a present.

I didn't want to show up empty-handed to the next Update Day, so I would aim to DO something to write about. Blogging with an update about how "I didn't do anything" wasn't tolerated.

This year I’d like to ground new writing and reading/reviewing goals (and if I’ve learned something in 2014, I don’t do brevity but I’ll try to keep this short).

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2015 Writing Goal:

Last New Years’ Eve I set a stupid goal of writing 750 words/daily after being inspired by this site: 750words.com.

And it wasn’t that it was stupid so much as it was wrong for me. 2014 definitely taught me—through trial and error—that I’m not the sort of person that works efficiently in a boxed-in scenario. (I tried it during NaNo…yeah. It wasn’t fun those first few days. Cabin fever and whatnot.)

Writing 750 words/daily is a great goal—just not for me! (In fact I gave up on another goal like this where I was planning to write 1 million words by Mother's Day 2016).

Still I ended up writing 274K-worth of completed and in-progress works (>>>look to your write at the word count bars for proof>>>). It snuck up on me as I was completing stories (fiction and fanfiction) and…it hit me. Somehow I ended up reaching a goal I no longer had a care for. Crazy right? (But isn’t that what this blog hop is about…tackling crazy, big goals?)

But even though I kinda wrote 750 words daily I don’t want to rinse and repeat anytime soon.

No. 2015 is just going to be about writing daily. Rather than set a word count goal, I’m going to keep it short. I’m committing to a one-sentence goal.

As long as I write one complete (hopefully grammatically correct) sentence in all 365 days of the coming year then I’ll be as good as gold.

One sentence examples:

“Every year she set the same resolutions.”

“She typed up the blog post before getting ready for the New Years' party.”

"'I can do it!'"

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2015 Reading + Reviewing Goal:

Last year I set up a reading/reviewing goal. I combined the two because I’ve always wanted to try my hand at regularly reviewing the books I read. Mostly because I’m always sharing details with my family who haven’t read the book and though they look super interested, they’re too polite to tell me to “shut the eff up”.

So that’s where this blog came in handy! :)

My 2014 reading goal was to read and review 30 books. I did that. And then I went on to review 11 other books.

Ahem.

Yes, after reviewing 41 books though I’ve decided that I’m not really cut out to be a professional book reviewer.
Nope. I can’t do it.

Yet I’m renewing the reading + reviewing for 2015—ONLY because I like going back and remembering what I thought about a book sometimes. And it wasn’t all bad… Just not always fun.

So for 2015 I’m going to also up the challenge and aim to read & review 53 books. Why such a crazy number? Because I want to read + review on a weekly basis, and there’s about 52ish weeks of the year. It’ll keep me on my toes.

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Goal-wise that’s it for me.

Some other stuff I’m going to try to do in 2015 includes baking more, participating in more local 'writerly' activities, saving more and figuring out my personal finances—that sort of stuff.

Happy New Years to all of you, and may 2015 be exciting, memorable and fruitful—hehe, that word—as 2014 has (or has not) been.

See you on the other side…

BOOK REVIEW (41): Persuasion

BOOK REVIEW:

Persuasion

So with the romantic Christmas reading challenge out of the way, I didn’t quite know what to do with myself…so I decided to read. Squeeze in one more book for 2014 before I called it a wrap—

That lucky book is Jane Austen’s Persuasion. I read one of her books earlier this year (Sense and Sensibility) and this one is another of her books that I watched a film version of before actually reading it.

It’s a pattern, really, between JA and I. I watch film adaptations and then get so inflamed I have to read the book. See what’s different between the two and all.

But I don’t really remember the movie as I watched it many, many years ago (at least something like 3-4 years ago). Save for knowing that the protagonist, Anne Elliot (doesn’t that have a lovely ring to it?) gets her HEA. The rest is a blur pretty much so I wasn’t influenced by the film so much.

What’s the deal with Persuasion? Why is it called that anyways?

I’ll tell you.

Persuasion follows 27-year-old Anne Elliot, the second eldest daughter of some fool, prissy/dandy baron and her trials with a father and older sister and younger sister who are all but useless. She’s unmarried, but she’s got a spinster-companion in her older sister. She’s not beautiful, but she’s perceptive and kind-hearted and wife/mother-material. If we were in the Victorian era, Anne Elliot would be the perfect Victorian house angel.

Though plain, Anne was once super beautiful and she had a marriage offer. Unlike the unlucky majority, she actually found a great guy when she was 19 and had been planning to marry him, but her stuck-up family thought Captain Frederick Wentworth as “a young man, who had nothing but himself to recommend him, and no hopes of attaining influence”…so to sum it up: he’s broke and nameless and will probably always be broke and nameless.

So Anne is persuaded from the union. (Get it? :D)

Fast forward eight years later and Anne bumps in Captain Wentworth—a successful naval officer now with his share of great wealth—and it’s like eight years of spinsterhood hadn’t occurred. Neither of them are married (or have been married) and it’s just the perfect atmosphere for a reunion romance.

And because we’re reading JA we know we’re going to get A LOT of drama. I like drama. This has great drama—not too little, not too much. I also liked Anne because not every friggin’ guy was fawning over. I think that’s why I’m all for JA—usually her books don’t have 2+ guys vying over the heroine. If there is a love triangle, it’s more an illusion because one half of the love interests actually don’t care diddly-squat for the heroine and they want some material wealth she owns or has access to. (Which is the case here…)

I liked Anne, too. For the most part, although she reminded me of Anne Bronte’s heroines—like them, Anne Elliot is sorta preachy. Not as preachy as Bronte’s Agnes Grey, for instance, but she’s up there. The novel had footnotes that explained that JA happened to be going through a religious revival or something around the time she was writing this story in 1816, so her ideas clearly leaked into the novel through Anne and her internal monologues. Overall, Anne Elliot was not as bad as the sister-duo from Sense and Sensibility (those two were annoying).

I also liked our hero, Cpt. Frederick Wentworth. He was most certainly NOT a Mr. Darcy, but although he wasn’t an alpha, he had his share of broodiness. There wasn’t too much conversation between him and Anne really, save for after he confesses his feelings for her and whatnot (umm…spoiler?). He’s a good guy. More beta than alpha that’s for sure, but every time he made an appearance I perked up and started reading faster, feeling too much like anxious Anne whenever he was around.

It’s a fairy tale. Anne Elliot is super abused…she’s neglected emotionally and mentally, even if she has everything she wants physically. She’s well off compared to most of the heroines JA writes about (the Bennett sisters anyone? Fanny?), but it’s kinda sad to see her interactions—or lack thereof—with her family. What this girl really needs by the end of it is a HEA (“one HEA please!”) and I’m all the happy she got her just reward for tempering such a silly bunch of blood-related dummies.

All in all Persuasion is almost a moralistic tale, one that applies to the social world and I genuinely believe is more of a universal message (since we don’t really interact in early 2000s like they did in the early 1800s): don’t allow yourself to be persuaded from something you want to do (as long as it isn’t anything harmful to you or anyone else).

A lot of people are held back by the people they love from things they want to do. As an example my family is HELLA supportive of my writing endeavours, but I bring up travelling with my parents and they’ll flip out (“How can you travel alone? What if someone hurts you?” and on and on)…

So take advice as just that, advice. Make sure that you don’t run along with something unless you’ve weighed it with your own feelings and happiness.

And now that I’ve gotten off track, let me return to the review and explain why I don’t give this a full 5 stars.

I didn’t like Anne’s do-goodness…I thought it was over-the-top sometimes. Maybe because I was stuck in her head and I thought it would be pretty cool if the story was told from some other character’s perspective. I mean JA writes her tales as limited third person, though she sometimes peeks into the mind of even minor character, she tends to stick fast with the heroine and generally completely avoids the hero while the wooing occurs.

The book also came to a sudden end. The version I have (Everyman publisher) included an alternative chapter that was replaced by the third and second last chapters (respectively Chapters 22 and 23 were not the originals out of the 24-chapter story). Yet this felt like the shortest of her reads…and in a way it was unsatisfying. I don’t care to read short books. As long as I felt like things are paced nicely—I don’t know what I expected. More teasing, more wooing, more conflict…compared to Sense and Sensibility there wasn’t as much twists and turns.

They meet, they are forced together in awkward social situations, they confess their love, and they get married. The end.

It wasn’t satisfying…lo my rating.

Still I recommend you read Persuasion. It’s not as bas as Sense and Sensibility (and that book wasn’t even that bad!)—give Anne + Cpt. Wentworth a chance. Who knows? It might be a perfect read for you.

My verdict:

✮✮✮✮

(4 stars)

BOOK REVIEW (40): Christmas at the Castle

BOOK REVIEW:

Christmas at the Castle

Here is the review of the final book of the 5-book (totally random) Harlequin Christmas Challenge and the only one being reviewed AFTER Christmas. Good thing the book has a plot continuing after Christmas…so it works out! Yes, we’re at the end…time flies by and I’m sad! Sometimes it was hard cranking out these reviews. Particularly the last few days, and I enjoy reading more than gathering my thoughts into a review, but I’ll miss it all. I love the winter holiday and hopefully I’ll get to do more of these.

But I closed off with a winner because this next couple are my favourite couple out of the other 4 I’ve introduced/reviewed on here. Without further ado, let me introduce Angus and Holly…

So like the majority of the romances I’ve read in this Challenge, Marion Lennox’s Christmas at the Castle is part of Harlequin’s line of sweeter/milder romances (basically sex off-page books). But don’t let the ‘sweet’ before romance fool you: this book (like many of the other mild romances) is full of sexual tension. And, as a writer, I find sexual tension is WAY harder to writer!

It reads like a fairy tale-come-true, but Holly’s sassy personality and Angus’ down-to-earth charm ground it in reality. I don’t hate the characters as much when I know they’ve both worked hard for their personal success and wealth. That as characters—aside from the central conflict being their love—they have separate lives.

Angus is a financial wizard and Holly is a chef. He plays the chequebook for Christmas, she’s his fake fiancée. And if that couldn’t get fairy tale enough, there’s a Castle…

Yes, as the new Lord/Laird/Himself, Angus from Manhattan becomes kilt-wearing, village-pillaging, maiden-ravishing Lord Angus McTavish Stuart, Eighth Earl of Craigenstone. For a guy who’s described as the classic ‘Tall, Dark, and Handsome’ alpha, Angus is not much of an alpha. He’s super sweet and SUPER funny (especially with Holly), and quite frankly I’m smitten and I’d wish he would ravish me.

Holly McIntosh is ADORABLE. She’s a combo of ninja + teddy bear. She’s an amazing heroine and possibly the only one I could picture with Angus. To continue the fairy tale motif/plot, Holly is introduced as a talented chef reduced to rags for Christmas and answers Angus’ post for help. Now she has to keep both her hands off him—and his off her because Holly doesn’t want a fairy-tale romance. She’s got too many trust issues and problems with love in general…

“I’ll do this on my own terms, if you don’t mind,’ she said briskly. ‘I need your job. I’d also quite like your fruit cake, but I don’t need anything else.’ (p. 27)

‘Nothing.’ She peeped a smile at him and he saw the return of a mischief that he suspected was a latent part of this woman. ‘So any thought that you might be having your wicked way with the hired help, put out of your mind right now, Lord Craigenstone.’ (p.27-28)

Yeah right. Of course she wants him to have his ‘wicked way’ with her. What red-blooded heterosexual woman wouldn’t? (But did anyone else have a giggle when they read “wicked ways”? Hehe.)

Oh, and from what I’ve learned in this Christmas Challenge, at least one of the characters has beef with Father Christmas and all he stands for.

Angus is the one with the beef in Christmas at the Castle. He’s had a crappy childhood in general and celebrating Christmas (like celebrating birthdays, etc.) was not a family affair. So Angus lacked love and he’s just associated all family-oriented events (like Christmas celebrations) to his own very negative experience.

But there’s always a HEA and I can assure you, dear (future) reader, Angus + Holly get theirs eventually…you’ll have to read for yourselves to find out where, when and how though. ;)

What I disliked: Personally I’m not a fan of the insta-love thing particularly when Holly + Angus quickly move from passionate love (lust) to romantic love (that perfect…or supposedly perfect combo of passionate and companionate love)… But the plot didn’t hoodwink me. I got what I cam for—no refund of my time needed. Just ‘cause I’m an unbeliever of ‘love at first sight’ I also believe I can be convinced, persuaded (ravished?) to the dark side…

There’s hope if I love Romances. And boy, do I love romances. And since I’m going to keep an open mind (and heart), you have to let Christmas at the Castle convince, persuade (ravish?) you, fellow cynic.

My verdict:

✮✮✮✮✮

(5 stars)

BOOK REVIEW (39): Snowed in with the Billionaire

BOOK REVIEW:

Snowed in with the Billionaire

Can’t believe I’m starting the review for Book 4 of my totally random 5-book Harlequin romance Christmas-themed challenge (phew. Mouthful there).

With my last review (book 3) I moved away from Harlequin’s sweeter category line to read a sexier Presents title. But now I’m back to the sweet, gooey stuff with another Caroline Anderson title (Ms. Anderson’s also the author of Book 2, Their Christmas Family Miracle). I enjoyed that book, so I was happily surprised when I recognized her name—yeah. Somehow I didn’t realize I picked up two books by Ms. Anderson. Haha.

But in the end I’m glad I did because Snowed in with the Billionaire was a great read! I was swept up from that first page—I’m also a sucked for the classic “snowed in” trope, though tbh it always helps that the H/h are lovable.

Because as the reader I’m also kinda “trapped” with these characters, and this sort of snowbound trope typically constricts plot to a short duration and there isn’t much, ohh I don’t know, travelling and episodic instances and whatnot, so the author really has to work hard to inject internal conflict in just the right doses. (I love drama—but I can only stand so much swooning, for instance).

Thankfully I didn’t want to kill hero, Sebastian Corder, and heroine Georgia/George/Georgie Pullman. They were an interesting couple with a long and even more interesting history.

By interesting I actually meant really humorous and cute and, out of all the couples I’ve read so far, I felt theirs the most realistic pairing. When they bantered, it felt so natural. Sure Sebastian was standoffish throughout most of the book—and he actually has a legitimate reason for the whole ‘my past is crap, so I’m gonna brood’ thing—and Georgia wasn’t this angelic, do-gooder AND the greatest part was that no one hated Christmas.

Usually with Christmas-themed stories, or at least the three stories I read so far, the H/h are divided in their opinion of Christmas. There has to be someone who is a cynical Grinch-Scrooge whose reason for hating Christmas links to a horrible past (and enter operant conditioning) and the other half of the couple has to woo the person over to the spirit of the season, which is all about giving and family and love, right?

But at best both Georgia and Sebastian enjoyed Christmas—it was more of a family problem and personal issues/internal conflict about where the H/h stood in regard to their family lives. For example, Georgia has a two year-old son, and as a single mother she has to put her kid first and she worries about that because she’s also saddled with a mortgage and all this other financial stuff…

And Sebastian is struggling with a 9 year-strong identity crisis that centers on his questionable birth circumstances and his journey to understanding how he defines family.

Lucky him! He chooses a pretty great gal and her little son. I’m a total sucker for kids—mostly book kids more than real kids (lol), but Josh was my favourite child so far. Out of the four books so far in this challenge, this toddler totally made me want to get started on having children. He’s too cute!

He softened up Sebastian and I sometimes wondered if I loved more scenes with Josh interacting with Sebastian versus the scenes between Georgia and Sebastian.

Only one thing I didn’t like and it was so close to the end that it sort of pissed me off because it felt totally annoying:

SPOILER!

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After the couple reconcile, Georgia divulges some (really dumb!) happy news. And here’s a quote (pg. 181):

She laughed and rested her head on his shoulder. ‘Yes, I better had. The first little Corder is due on the nineteenth of September.’

He went utterly still, and then he gave a shaky, incredulous laugh and hugged her tight. ‘Really? You’re having my baby?’

‘It would seem so. I did the test this morning. It was very faint, but it was positive.’

‘Wow.’ He laughed again. ‘I didn’t even think—that night, when I had the dream?’

‘When else? There was only the once.’

Okay. So only abstinence is 100% fool proof. I get it. But WHAT?!

What if Sebastian hadn’t come over to propose? What then? What if he just wanted to come clean and tell her his dark (really not-so dark, but sad) secret and then be off with his life and they just had remained friends…or acquaintances or whatever—what would Georgia have done?

And it’s only been like a week since they had sex. She’s already calculating that shit to the day. Man oh man! Talk about cutting me loose from disbelief heaven...oh vey.

Cue epilogue I would have not preferred after this bit of news. Seriously. That teensy part could have been excised and the epilogue could have just mentioned their marriage and latest addition the following Christmas.

But yes, other than that, this book is totally worth the read. And because that happens at the end, it might not even bother you to read another few pages of the epilogue.

Snowed in with the Billionaire will not disappoint with giving you a great couple, a cute romance, and a totally plausible internal conflict. So read it for all these great features. :)

My verdict:

✮✮✮✮.5

(4.5 stars)

BOOK REVIEW (38): The Twelve Nights of Christmas

BOOK REVIEW:

The Twelve Nights of Christmas

Okay! #3 of the five-book Christmas-themed reading challenge: The Twelve Nights of Christmas. And this book actually totally works for the 19^th—because the story opens on the 19^th! Happy December nineteenth, otherwise known as the simultaneously and paradoxically Worst Day (and Best Day) of Evie’s soon-to-be enchanted love story…

Because Whoa! Is it enchanted and fluffy and just nothing but a Christmas fairy tale? I mean I feel like I haven’t read a Harlequin Presents in YEARS when in fact it’s only been 2 months-ish. I forgot how extravagant and over-the-top and fairy tale-like this specific category romance can be…

Still I love the series for the same reasons I sometimes can’t stand it. I roll my eyes and laugh so hard with only the Presents line. And I might be totally masochistic, but it’s my idea of a Perfect Literary Escape. Kinda like how I love my East Asian dramas, Bollywood films, and telenovelas…same craziness abounds in those (more visual) plotlines.

Back to our heroine Evie Anderson and hero Salvatorio “Rio” Zaccarelli. Let’s start with Evie, not because the story actually kicks off from her perspective—no we get some cryptic hint that Rio is hiding the news of a massive “deal” coming through, but more on that later!

I love Evie. And I hate Evie, too.

Oh what do I love about Evie—how can I number the stars…and such junk?

First up Evie’s a redhead. Hello? That’s cool in and of itself. Of course Rio finds out very early on she’s a *ahem* natural redhead when he finds her au naturel in his bed. Yeah. I mean that was definitely almost me falling flat on my face from the poor suspense of disbelief.

I thought that maybe she was in her panties, but apparently not. And at one point I think Rio’s body guard is still in the room with them and Rio pulls off her sheet and, though it isn’t mentioned, the bodyguard should have gotten the full monty from Evie. Which if it’s true loses a brownie point—how can I believe she cares about her barest (haha, lame pun not intended) dignity if she’s flashing her behind to everyone.

Whenever I’m reading from Evie’s perspective, I find I want to argue more. Here are two examples (the second of the pair will be a SPOILER. I’ll remind you.):

1) On pgs. 136-137, Evie and Rio are at a ball doing what guests at a ball do: dancing and Evie first notices “the heat of [Rio’s] body against hers” and then on the next page over (137) it reads “Evie felt frozen and she thought absently that there was no reason to b cold when the room was so warm, but then she realised that the chill came from him. His skin was cold to touch […]”.

Okay. What?!

Did anyone else think that Rio died on the ball floor while dancing? Haha. No I’m just over-exaggerating there, but it was pretty weird. And this dramatic body temperature change is due to Evie’s mentioning of Christmas (again) and how much she loves “this time of year” (pg. 137). And, of course, one half of the couple in an opposites attract has to totally despise Christmas. (Though to be fair, the author actually gives Rio a darn good reason to hate Christmas).

2) SPOILER ALERT:

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With that significant warning I can hopefully write/tell you that…Rio is a father. He has a little girl named Elyssa and that’s all you need to know about.

So in the epilogue Elyssa, Rio, Evie and their new baby girl, Lara, are celebrating their first Christmas (a year later! Phew. They work fast) as a family. And Rio has is now the sole caretaker of his daughter. And the proud parents are delighted when Elyssa calls her stepmother, Evie, “Mummy”. And everyone seems to be forgetting in the moment that Elyssa has a friggin’ mother. Albeit a really horrible-sounding woman, but a mother she was raised with for the first four years of her life.

And Rio totally encourages it and takes it to the next level, and I present Case #2: “It’s snowing! Mummy, Daddy, we’re going to have snow for Christmas. Can we build a snowman? Do you know how?”

Rio brushed the snow from Evie’s cheek. “Yes, I know how. We need a carrot and some pebbles and a few twigs. And we need your mother because she’s brilliant at building snowmen.”

Uh huh. Yeah, really?

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But thanks to Ms. Morgan for making Evie really funny! And making that whole mother bullplop easier to tolerate…

I mean she’s the only heroine who says what she’s thinking. It’s just literally out there on the page in dialogue format with the quotes around it indicating she’s just spilling her thoughts. She doesn’t beat around the bush. She’ll just belt out her rendition of her favourite Christmassy song, Twelve Nights up on the table tops of charity events. It’s all water down the open back of her silvery dress.

Sure, she talks like she belongs in a mid- to late twentieth century world (think 1950s to 70s), but then there’s the confidence. Surprisingly there are not a lot of heroines out there who will just tell a guy they like him.

“You were in a hurry last night,” he said silkily (for a second time actually! What the hell does this mean anyways? ‘Silkily’? How do you say something ‘silkily’? *_*) “Or was the champagne to blame for your sudden transformation from virgin to vamp?”

She sucked in a breath, mortified at his blatant reminder of her own desperation. “No,” she said softly. “It was you.”

See! Just lies it out there, Evie does—so thankfully Rio knows how to pick up the ball and there isn’t a lot of relationship pussy-footing that seems utterly pointless as in the couple actually has a reason not to be together.

And as much as I genuinely love that Evie’s a breath of fresh air compared to the lot of Presents heroines I’ve come to meet and get to know, she’s also not very real. She’s super giving and just the perfect friggin’ fit for Rio, it was like they were shaped out of the same cookie cutter. I mean it works that way with most romances, but I think the opposites attract was a trope that threw me off a bit from this story.

That being said, I still liked Evie more than broody Mr. Alpha. Rio was annoyingly funny. Like I hated when he made me laugh because I wanted to hate him and I had reason too. He’s an arrogant SOB, but I tip my hat off to Ms. Morgan. She totally redeemed his character by revealing his dark secret.

It’s a great dark secret, though a bit mislead with the “dark” part. It’s not as dark as it could be… Like I was thinking body bag-dark—Oops spoiler! If I stole you idea of ‘dark”—but it was more psychological dark place that actually required more help, unfortunately, than the book should have mentioned.

Nope. Whatever mental instability Rio has been bottling up for years is all cured and metaphorical past wounds are healed by the Force of Evie’s Love. Seriously, he just talks to her and tells her what the secret is (or are? Hmmm. Have I interested you into reading this yet?) and that’s it. Everyone—namely Evie and Rio—just wipe their hands clean of the sordid past and move on to HEA-affirming epilogue…

But they made me laugh like I said and a lot. I’m glad I regulated reading this book from my bed, because it would have been awkward on the commute if I just burst out laughing—“Don’t mind me, fellow passengers, just reading this really funny part”. Heh.

So if you’re going to sink your teeth into this one…maybe even extend your reading to twelve nights (though there aren’t even 12 chapters), read it because for the blend of light humour and sexy tension, and the extravagant escapism it offers.

Also since I’ve been dropping quotes all over this review, let me close off with my Favourite one (I hope you love it, too!):

From pg. 100 (a bit of background then—Rio drags Evie out of a Christmas movie premiere with Hollywood stars and red carpet A-listers and she’s none to happy about missing the movie’s end): “Thanks to you, I won’t ever find out how [the movie] ended.”

“How do you think it ended?” His handsome face was a mask of frustration and tension. “Happily, of course. It’s a Christmas movie. They only ever end happily.” (I digress, Rio! Horror-themed Christmas movies like Black Christmas).

“I know it ended happily but I wanted to know how it ended happily. There’s more than one route to a happy ending, you know. It’s how they do the happy ending that makes it worth watching.”

I bolded all the beautiful part because it deserves to be highlighted. Every romance story should follow that reasoning.

In the end, I give it four calling birds…

My verdict:

✮✮✮✮

(4 stars)

BOOK REVIEW (37): Their Christmas Family Miracle

BOOK REVIEW:

Their Christmas Family Miracle

Where's Edward?

This review is part of a personal Christmas reading challenge. No rules, only that I try to aim to read and review the 5 Harlequin Christmas-themed books I grabbed for my first round of playing catch-up on literary escapism.

Book #2 on that pile is Their Christmas Family Miracle by Caroline Anderson. So that title pretty much gives a hint as to what the book is about—it’ll be, duh, set in Christmas and it’ll have something to do with a family.

Family usually = kids, and for some readers romances don’t equal kids.

I mean, what’s romantic about family? Squalling babies with soiled diapers crushing and sucking away the entire libido with their totally off-schedule late-night deedings and such…*shudder* Family should equal no sexlandia, and tbh (or at least imho) it does.

At least for the most part I find families are usually part of the community atmosphere in Harlequin’s sweeter romance series. You won’t find a whole lot of secondary cast support in a Harlequin Presents, or a Harlequin Blaze—babies maybe. But they sleep a lot and an average of 16 hours of sleep = a lot of time for sex. It’s when they learn to open doors…

But I personally love family stories. Because sometimes I just want to read about how the H/h juggle their work lives with their personal lives outside of the relationship. Case in point with Their Christmas Family Miracle, heroine Amelia “Millie” Jones not only has to worry about three kids and a dog with health problems, she also is homeless at the book’s opening.

Yup. Straight from the get-go I was sorta battling tears, especially when she’s being thrown out with her children and by HER SISTER of all people. Her friggin’ sister—I mean, what the heck is up with that? I sure as damn well know my sisters would never pull garbage like that, and because the relationship between the sisters wasn’t really explored, I wasn’t able to suss out if they were close or not.

I got the sense they weren’t because Millie has a best friend who acts as a WAY better sister.

What I loved about Millie is that she was industrious. Even though she’s been forced out a job and into full-time motherhood, she seems like she was the type to work out of the home. The interactions with the children brought a smile to my face—especially the ones with baby Thomas. :) (I’m a sucker for infants).

I know I’ve already mentioned this in my last review, but I’m really beginning to believe that heroes who aren’t Alphas can be super sexy, too! I mean sexy nowadays = this:

Or in my case this:

And that’s all nice and now, but man oh man was Jake Forrester something smouldering… Phew. I think he’s just what I needed now with the coming winter cold.

He’s introduced as an asshole all ready to throw Mille and her kids from his home—a home he actually was supposed to be away from for the Christmas and New Years—but then he changes his mind and contracts Millie as his housekeeper in turn for a place for her family to stay.

Who changes his mind? The children and the dog. Jake is one part tough-businessman, and other half total family guy and a sap for Cavaliers in particular. So he basically adopts the Joneses family for the holidays and signs himself up for more than just a housekeeper.

And…they have sex! I’ve read three other Harlequin Romances, and none of those had sex scenes. But this one does! The one with the largest family has a sex scene! Just one is described, and not in too-great detail because of this specific category’s reader expectations, but we got one folks! (For those of us who wanted Millie and Jack to knock each other’s socks off…just saying. Hehe.)

The only thing that threw me off—for which I knocked off .5 from a perfect rating—and it’s totally miniscule but it bugged the heck out of me and I can surmise it in one word: Andy.

Well actually to be fair Millie’s sister, Laura, and Laura’s husband, Andy. I mean whattheflippintableland! They were SO messed up. These two were the ones who unknowingly kicked off the chain that forced Millie to accept the offer to occupy Jake’s empty home and so on...

Laura and Andy kick out Millie and then at the end: Lo and behold! There’s an explanation for all of it. Andy and Laura can’t have kids! Ah! I know right? It explains everything, right? They can’t have kids, so they couldn’t stand the sight of Millie’s children. Why didn’t I think of that at the start?

Seriously. ~50K of wondering why her sister was an immense butthole and it’s all explained in the next to last page…
(*- m -)

*sigh*

Other than that blip on one of the last few pages and the minor stain with the Millie and Jake’s HEA, I loved Their Christmas Family Miracle and I suspect you will, too, reader-who-will-now-go-out-and-buy-this-book.

Go. Now. For the love of this adorable puppy!

My verdict:

✮✮✮✮.5

(4.5 stars)