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Holiday Inn
The Freedom Inn, Port Freedom, New Hampshire--across the centuries, the warmth of its hearth brings true hearts together at Christmastime in these four unique and heartwarming romances. Stories include "love's Light", "The Christmas Pearls", "Rachel Hero?", and "Home for Christmas".
400 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1996
45 people want to read
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Leisure Arts
2,549 books45 followersLeisure Arts was born from a simple concept: The Art of Everyday Living. From its inception in 1971, Leisure Arts brightened lives through the art of needle crafting, specifically through crochet and knit publications. Today, Leisure Arts provides all the tools you need to live creatively. As a leading publisher of lifestyle and instructional craft publications, we work with a team of talented designers to bring you the latest trends in all crafting categories. From needle crafting and general crafting how-to books to adult coloring books, coloring instruments, home décor and beyond, it’s easy to make memories with Leisure Arts.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 21, 2020
This book contains 4 novellas, all taking place at the Freedom Inn in New England, over a span of 200 years. The first story takes place in the late 1700's with the 4th tale set in late 1900's. The stories all involve the same family. It was great seeing how the family evolved and the Inn changed over a couple of centuries. Really good stories!
September 27, 2015
Good stories, all centered around an inn in the tiny town of Port Freedom and spanning two centuries. It was pretty enjoyable - the historic stories were the best. I particularly liked The Christmas Pearls and Rachel's Hero. On the whole the first three stories had very interesting and likable characters, the story and the romance progressed well with everyone getting their HEA.
The first story, Love's Light, follows Medora and Alex. Alex was blinded in the Revolutionary War and comes home to recover with his family at Christmas. Medora, takes it upon herself to help Alex through his recovery and they fall in love. But Medora has a secret that Alex might not be able to accept.
The Christmas Pearls was my favorite. It has two of the most interesting heroes - Eli, a former privateer who is looking for a wife and thinks he found it in young Abby, until he starts finding more in common with her widowed older sister and chaperone, Sara. The two characters spark and ignite with one another and it's truly exciting to read.
Rachel's Hero follows Rachel, who has had a crush on T.S. Beauchamp since she was just a little girl. 17 years later, T.S. is forcing his sister to marry against her will and runs to Rachel for help. Rachel's hero worship is taken down a peg or two at the thought of her hero being such a backwards, chauvanistic monster, but she starts to realize that T.S. is such a "monster" because he's hurting and lonely and sets out to save him.
The last story, Home for Christmas by Ruth Ryan Langan, was my absolute least favorite. Very unbelievable reactions, too many characters and too much talking about minutiae. First of all, when a guy comes back after ten years after he broke your heart and left without an explanation - you don't just let him into the kitchen and start laughing with him. I rather expected a bit more confrontation over it. But no, she never even asks until Are these people completely devoid of feeling that they can't feel any angst, regret, anger, etc. for any of this? And really...pages upon pages of kids cutting down christmas trees, every detail about cooking in the kitchen... enough already! And there isn't really any conclusion at the end of it all.
Get this book for the first three stories and skip the last one.
The first story, Love's Light, follows Medora and Alex. Alex was blinded in the Revolutionary War and comes home to recover with his family at Christmas. Medora, takes it upon herself to help Alex through his recovery and they fall in love. But Medora has a secret that Alex might not be able to accept.
The Christmas Pearls was my favorite. It has two of the most interesting heroes - Eli, a former privateer who is looking for a wife and thinks he found it in young Abby, until he starts finding more in common with her widowed older sister and chaperone, Sara. The two characters spark and ignite with one another and it's truly exciting to read.
Rachel's Hero follows Rachel, who has had a crush on T.S. Beauchamp since she was just a little girl. 17 years later, T.S. is forcing his sister to marry against her will and runs to Rachel for help. Rachel's hero worship is taken down a peg or two at the thought of her hero being such a backwards, chauvanistic monster, but she starts to realize that T.S. is such a "monster" because he's hurting and lonely and sets out to save him.
The last story, Home for Christmas by Ruth Ryan Langan, was my absolute least favorite. Very unbelievable reactions, too many characters and too much talking about minutiae. First of all, when a guy comes back after ten years after he broke your heart and left without an explanation - you don't just let him into the kitchen and start laughing with him. I rather expected a bit more confrontation over it. But no, she never even asks until Are these people completely devoid of feeling that they can't feel any angst, regret, anger, etc. for any of this? And really...pages upon pages of kids cutting down christmas trees, every detail about cooking in the kitchen... enough already! And there isn't really any conclusion at the end of it all.
Get this book for the first three stories and skip the last one.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 21, 2010
Interesting theme for an anthology: all of the stories take place in the same family-owned inn over the centuries, spanning from 1781 to 1996. I thought the stand-out story was THE CHRISTMAS PEARLS by Linda Madl, and I'll be looking for more stories by her.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews