Setting: Deer Lake, MO Contemporary
Genre: Romance
All She Wants for Christmas
Country star Riley Jensen returns to the small town from which she had fled 10 years earlier after being betrayed by her boyfriend and best friend. She's there at the Christmas holiday to tape a biography piece. "She thought the whole thing was ridiculous. She was still single, had no kids, hadn't been on drugs, didn't hang out at the clubs and party, and spent most of the year on the road." She's hoping to not run into said ex boyfriend or ex best friend in town. But.... she is immediately fan-girled by a seven year old who turns out to be the daughter of Ethan Kent and Amanda Richfield, who had obviously married. She's still attracted to Ethan, who was in the crowd with his daughter. Turns out Amanda died 4 years previous. There's a lot of emotional crap Riley and Ethan have to go through to get to their HEA.
A Rare Gift
The three Kent brothers, Ethan, Wyatt, and Brody run a construction firm. In this novella, which starts the winter after the end of Ethan and Riley's story, Wyatt has to manage the construction of an addition to a daycare center. A daycare center owned by the younger sister of his ex wife, Cassandra. The divorce left him bitter and disillusioned, and distrustful of women in general. Despite the fact that Calliope is the polar opposite, he has specific trust issues with her. Even though they are attracted, he is just waiting for her to betray him. And she just might have to, then see if he can get past it.
The Best Thing
Brody, the youngest of the Kent brothers, is a manwhore. He has a reputation of being a love 'em and leave 'em kind of guy. Tori was the mouthy, ascerbic office manager at Kent Brothers Construction, but at the end of A Rare Gift, Brody was spotted giving her a hot and heavy kiss at the company Christmas party, and since then she has been cold and downright mean to all 3 of the Kents. Ethan and Wyatt tell Brody he has to "fix" her, since it's his fault Tori has "turned into a fire-breathing she-dragon." But that whole kiss incident the previous year was a two-way street and Brody doesn't understand why Tori won't give in to their mutual attraction. But Tori knows Brody's reputation, and she doesn't want to be one of the women he jumps in and immediately out of bed with. Besides, she loves her job and can't see staying on after giving in to her urges vis á vis Brody. But give in she does, just waiting to get dumped. Brody, for his part, doesn't know what Tori is doing to him.
These 3 novellas were previously published in holiday anthologies in consecutive years. I appreciate the sense of time passing. So often, romantic trilogies are set in the same time frame, so the action seems compressed. That these were all set around Christmas and published in different years. I also appreciate that, at least in the case of Wyatt and Brody, the I-love-yous happened after the development of a relationship over the course of a couple of months. I dislike insta-love, and even Ethan and Riley's relationship was a rekindling, rather than instant attraction acted on instantly. All 3 of the stories are well-written, and all 6 0f the protagonists are characters with depth. The men, especially, are multi-faceted because they play supporting roles in each other's stories.
This is a good collection to accompany your holiday season, or just any time you want to read a feel-good story with snow.