Christmas Eve Books

Nice little book with cute illustrations. A bit pricey compared to Scholastic book orders from school.

In this story, Jessica Hart employs one of her favorite plot twists; the hero & heroine who have to play at being engaged to each other for (basically silly) reason(s). The hero & heroine can't admit to each other that they are in love with each other, for (basically silly) reason(s). Still, the characters are so believable somehow; and the story has such a sweetness to it (with appropriately witchy female sub-characters to give you someone to dislike), that the book is a good read, if not quite as good as the author's "Blind Date Proposal" which had a similar plot twist and similar warm & charming heroine paired with a cooler, somewhat uptight hero.

a tale about twins and the discovery of a carved angel

Eve's Christmas is just a remake of an earlier Janet Dailey novel called "With a Little Luck."

This book was originally published in 1981 under the title "With a Little Luck" (according to the copyright page in the front of this 2006 copy). You'd think in 15 years the editors could have fixed a few major problems. There are typographical errors, and one event is first referred to as having been two months ago but then the same event becomes the "previous night". (picnic trip) Also the back cover doesn't accurately describe the book. As other reviewers wrote, the book mostly takes place in the spring and ends around christmas. There must be better romance holiday stories out there. This one, the couple gets engaged mid-book and then just spend the rest of the time questioning the relationship. The basic plot line has some promise but it's poorly executed and the romance itself isn't even very passionate. It did raise one interesting issue - the heroine wonders whether she should live by herself for awhile before marriage, after spending her entire life living with her parents. The kid in the book is the most interesting character, and I think the hero would have been more likable had he not been so obnoxious and irresponsible during the opening chapter. I too thought he was the bad guy, not the good guy. I got this book because the front cover said it is written by a New York Times best selling author. Umm.. this must not have been one of her best sellers.

From the back cover:

Have yourself a merry...

A small town Christmas is just what Luck McClure wants for his young son. The snow's coming down and the tallest tree on the lot is tied to the top of his car. All Luck has to do now is trim it, decorate the lakeside cottage, string the lights and wrap the presents. By himself. And then...along comes Eve Rowland to help. How come he never noticed her before? Shy and sweet, the music teacher makes his heart skip a beat. It's a wonderful feeling when you realize the right person has been there all the time. And when Luck takes Eve in his arms, it suddenly becomes the most wonderful time of the year...

And my review:

I really should stop buying Janet Dailey's books. I just don't like her writing. But I am a sucker for a Christmas romance, and will usually by any book that seems to fit the bill, whether I like the author or not. I really have to stop doing that.

Anyway, as other reviewers have said, this is not a Christmas romance. It has a little bit of Christmas tacked on at the end, but that feels more like marketing ploy to boost sales than an actual theme of the story.

I also didn't like the hero. The author was obviously trying to paint a picture of a tortured hero, however, Luck simply came across as irresponsible, a bad father, and a man who has wallowed in the past for far too long. Really, leaving his son with an irresponsible teenager so that he can go and get himself drunk? Yes, losing your wife (six years ago!) is hard, but you have a kid. You have to pull yourself together for his sake, because he's just a child and needs you. After all, he lost his mother. The last thing he needs is a dad who isn't there for him.

Instead, Toby (who was adorable and stole my heart) ends up taking care of his dad all the time. Poor kid, to be only eight and have to take care of your dad's hangovers. Poor kid, to even know what a hangover is and see it so often that you know what to do about it! I really felt for him; he deserved far better.

The first meeting between the hero and heroine made him seem really sleazy. The way he kept grabbing her and wouldn't let her go, even though she kept trying to get away and repeatedly asked him to let go of her. It was too the point that the heroine was getting scared (and who wouldn't be, with a drunken man grabbing you?) and he just wouldn't quit. It made him seem like a creep, not a romance hero. I had no idea what the heroine was supposed to see in him. Being physically attractive is not enough if a guy is not a likeable person. And the way he kept calling her a brown mouse was not in the least bit romantic. The way the author kept harping on the heroine being plain was a little annoying. Like looks are everything.

One last little complaint I had: the heroine really was a mouse. She was twenty-six, yet still living at home with her parents. Her rationalization is that it would cost too much to live on her own. So? That's life, and the heroine needed to get one, in my opinion. Like the situation would change in five years? It was as if she were just waiting for a man to come and rescue her, and that romance theme mostly went out of style years ago. While I like my heroines to be feminine and often traditional women, I also want them to be strong individuals. I didn't feel like the heroine was one.

The only character I really liked was Toby. Like I said, he stole my heart, because he was just such a great kid.

Anyway, that's enough rambling. Suffice it to say that I don't recommend Eve's Christmas, and I've yet to find a Janet Dailey book that I can. I know she has a lot of fans, so her writing must work for some people, but I'm not one of them.

In Janet Dailey's novel, Eve's Christmas, we follow the story of Eve and Luck as they fall in love. Luck is a widower who moves to town with his young son and meets Eve, a mousey music teacher at the local elementary school.
I am a big fan of Janet Dailey and of holiday romance. So i picked this book up thinking that it would be the perfect mix of both. First of all the book doesn't even start until April. The event that they describe on the back of the book didn't even technically happen within the time frame. It happened before the book really started.
Secondly, I could probably tolerate all of this if I actually liked the characters. The main female character, Eve, is a plain jane, struggling with her own feelings of inadequacies. However she never overcomes these shortcomings. Luck (what kind of name is that) is first introduced as a drunk mourning the loss of his wife on the sixth anniversary of her death. In that scene i thought that this odd drunk who was describing how long it had been since he held a woman was going to be a weirdo and then Luck would jump in and save our heroine. Oh, no. He is the drunk.
The characters weren't real, the dialogue and everything in between was stilted. All and all it was a great disappointment and might have just scarred me for life.

FROM BACK COVER:

A small town Christmas is just what Luck McClure wants for his young son. The snow's coming down and the tallest tree on the lot is tied to the top of his car. All Luck has to do now is trim it, decorate the lakeside cottage, string the lights and wrap the presents. By himself. And then...along comes Eve Rowland to help. How come he never noticed her before? Shy and sweet, the music teacher makes his heart skip a beat. It's a wonderful feeling when you realize the right person has been there all the time. And when Luck takes Eve in his arms, it suddenly becomes the most wonderful time of the year...

The best part of the book was the back cover. I didn't like Eve and the way she always looked for the worst about herself and Luck. Actully I did like Luck and his son and if the book was about 125 pages shorter it might have been an ok read. I read a few pages and skipped about 5 of 6 pages just to get through it. I bought this book at a half price store and even that was to much to pay.

I have enjoyed Mary and Carol's collaborations in the past, but I couldn't even make it halfway through this one. I would instead recommend any of their other novels. The Christmas Thief, He Sees You When You're Sleeping, and Deck the Halls are far better. Do yourself a favor and save some time by not reading this book.

The usual plot for Mary Higgins Clark, always looking for a new angle with familiar authors.

I was disappointed in Mary and Carol's book. The story was not
interesting as all. Poor story line and writing.

Do you like bungles and bumps? Then you will like this book. It tickled my funny bone many times.

This was a fun, light read! The story went quickly and was very entertaining.

I like it.
It's kind of funny.

it was horrible she just repeated the same stuff over and over. Definitely not a good read!

From the back cover:

Jaz had shared an all-consuming passion with suave American business associate Caid Dubois--but betrayal and disillusionment forced them apart.

Back in England with the festive season approaching, Jaz discovers she has a new boss...Caid! And as if that's not enough to deal with, Caid demands the exclusive company apartment she's been given! Jaz won't move... Caid won't back down... Now she and this arrogant, irresistible man are thrust together in a whirlwind of suspicion, anger and overwhelming passion!

And my review:

I've enjoyed books by Penny Jordan before. She writes the typical Harlequin Presents romance, complete with miscommunication, lots of sexual attraction, a dominant male (who can be a little arrogant sometimes) and usually the relationship is between an older man and a younger woman. While her books are not stellar reads to keep you up all night, they are a nice way to pass the time.

And since I'm a sucker for a Christmas romance, I was quick to snap up CHRISTMAS EVE WEDDING. But I was so disappointed with this book. The author was so quick to rush the characters into bed that it made my head spin. Seriously, they are complete strangers, get into the same elevator, and next thing you know, he's saying, "Let's go to your room." She agrees, and then they're having sex. On page 15. No buildup, no introduction to the characters, no dance of attraction, just boy meets girl, boy gets on top of girl.

Not that I have a problem with sex, but I don't find casual sex between complete strangers romantic. I like it when lovemaking is an added bonus to the love and tenderness between a hero and heroine. A relationship based on nothing but the fact that they are compatible horizontally holds no appeal to me, because I don't believe that sex alone is enough to make a relationship work, nor does it convince me that they are meant to be together. (If it were as easy as being sexually compatible, I hardly think divorce rates would be so high!)

Granted, I know that Harlequin Presents books are a bit "lustier" than other Harlequin lines, but a little buildup would have been nice. Maybe a little feeling that these people saw each other as more than just convenient sex objects. It was as if the author wanted to get the backstory part of the novel out of the way, and so rushed through it. After that, I really felt no incentive to finish the novel. Not recommended by this reader. For a good Harlequin Presents read with a Christmas theme, I really enjoyed Kate Walker's The Christmas Baby's Gift: Wedlocked! (Harlequin Presents)

The short story by Lynne Graham was the absolute worst. Sexist pig guy dumps girl over misunderstanding. She spends the next 18 months in extreme poverty( part of it in the hospital from complications from being pregnant) having lost just about everything. Meanwhile he spends the early time apart from her sleeping with anything that moves and blaming her for it. They meet up again and he spends his time being a giant jerk while she basically forgives hims in an instant for treating her like sh**. Neither of these characters was remotely likable. She desperately needed a backbone so she could have kicked his sorry a** to the curb.

The Christmas Eve Bride by Lynne Graham: It was very hard to like Rocco because he was so cold and overbearing. The attraction between him and Amber seemed more lustful than loving, and they seemed to be together for all the wrong reasons; always fighting, very distrustful and bitter, but they can't keep their hands off each other. Their conflict had caused Amber her career, and then her backup job, yet there was no restitution for this. It would have been nice to seen her restore her reputation as a journalist, but this was not the focus of the story. Although very steamy and sexy, I didn't find this story to be very enjoyable or inspiring of holiday spirit.

A Spanish Christmas by Penny Jordan: I always imagined sexy Mediterranean men to be smoothly romantic, so it came as a deep disappointed that the Spaniard in this story, like the Italian in the previous one, was a snooty and pompous jerk. It was nice to see him humbled by an injury! While lustful and sultry, these two stories lack the suave Mediterranean romance I was hoping to be swept up in. They also felt like they could have been taking place anywhere besides the exotic Mediterranean because the settings were rather generically described.

Christmas in Venice by Lucy Gordon: This was my favorite story in the collection because the author took advantage of the opportunity to present the setting in luscious detail, so the reader felt transported there, seeing all the beautiful sights of Venice in the mind's eye. The story alternates between present and past, providing an interesting perspective as it fills in the details. The charming Venetian man is less brutish and more romantic than the men in the previous stories, and the dialogue is more realistic and natural.