Snowbound: Shotgun Wedding, Murder by the Book, On a Wing and a Prayer

by Charlotte Lamb, Margaret St. George, Jackie Weger

Three charming love stories by renowned romance authors--Charlotte Lamb's Shotgun Wedding, Margaret St. George's Murder by the Book, and On a Wing and a Prayer by Jackie Weger--explain what happens when three irresistible heroes are stranded with three reluctant heroines during a blizzard. Reprint.

634 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Sheila Ann Mary Coates Holland
aka Sheila Holland, Sheila Coates, Charlotte Lamb, Sheila Lancaster, Victoria Woolf, Laura Hardy

Sheila Ann Mary Coates was born on 1937 in Essex, England, just before the Second World War in the East End of London. As a child, she was moved from relative to relative to escape the bombings of World War II. Sheila attended the Ursuline Convent for Girls. On leaving school at 16, the convent-educated author worked for the Bank of England as a clerk. Sheila continued her education by taking advantage of the B of E's enormous library during her lunch breaks and after work. She later worked as a secretary for the BBC. While there, she met and married Richard Holland, a political reporter. A voracious reader of romance novels, she began writing at her husband's suggestion. She wrote her first book in three days with three children underfoot! In between raising her five children (including a set of twins), Charlotte wrote several more novels. She used both her married and maiden names, Sheila Holland and Sheila Coates, before her first novel as Charlotte Lamb, Follow a Stranger, was published by Mills & Boon in 1973. She also used the pennames: Sheila Lancaster, Victoria Wolf and Laura Hardy. Sheila was a true revolutionary in the field of romance writing. One of the first writers to explore the boundaries of sexual desire, her novels often reflected the forefront of the "sexual revolution" of the 1970s. Her books touched on then-taboo subjects such as child abuse and rape, and she created sexually confident - even dominant - heroines. She was also one of the first to create a modern romantic heroine: independent, imperfect, and perfectly capable of initiating a sexual or romantic relationship. A prolific author, Sheila penned more than 160 novels, most of them for Mills & Boon. Known for her swiftness as well as for her skill in writing, Sheila typically wrote a minimum of two thousand words per day, working from 9:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. While she once finished a full-length novel in four days, she herself pegged her average speed at two weeks to complete a full novel. Since 1977, Sheila had been living on the Isle of Man as a tax exile with her husband and four of their five children: Michael Holland, Sarah Holland, Jane Holland, Charlotte Holland and David Holland. Sheila passed away on October 8, 2000 in her baronial-style home 'Crogga' on the Island. She is greatly missed by her many fans, and by the romance writing community.

Reviews

[Maria · Rating 1 out of 5]

Three short novellas featuring being trapped in a snowstorm in some way for some length of time, some shorter, some longer. The first, Shotgun Wedding, had protagonists that fought all the time as did the last one, On a Wing and a Prayer. It got tiring reading all the sniping going on. The second, Murder by the Book, had a whole crew of sniping guests. All three were tiring to read.

[Janet]

Snowbound: Shotgun Wedding (1991/Charlotte Lamb), Murder by the Book (1992/Margaret St. George), On a Wing and a Prayer (1988/Jackie Weger)

The first offering in this anthology by CL didn’t bode well for the book. I would give it 2 ½ starts. It is all about timing, or wrong timing, and while it was an older book it somehow read like it was a lot older than it was.

Then we got MSG book which was really good, 4 stars from me. It dealt with a total of three murders and the consequences of out of control jealousy. The blend of murder mystery with a romance was well done. And the murders were not so easy to figure out, the first one being the exception. So I had high hopes now but alas the worst was yet to come.

The 1 star addition here by JW was so bad while I read the entire book I did try to skim a few scenes and almost wanted to just stop reading already. Again it sounded a lot older than it was and the helplessness and chauvinism displayed was just part of the problem Both the H and h went back and forth with their emotions (I hate you/I can’t resist you) so much and within a few sentences at that. The hero started out fine but didn’t seem to progress characterwise much and the heroine was just a mess, very annoying and whinny. For example; the hero almost dies after braving hazardous conditions to help the situation they were in and was unconscious for awhile. What does she do after the initial worry, complain that she has to do all the work and he is just laying around. Really, he made a remarkable recovery awfully fast but sheesh.

[Gemma · Rating 3 out of 5]

The only decent story was Magaret St. George's, but I'd read it before. Charlotte Lamb's was okay, but the whole "I hate you, come here" got annoying after a while, and I couldn't stand the hero in Jackie Weger's story. He was such a jerk!