Thursday, October 28, 2021

Romancing the Holidays, Vol. 2

 During this busy season take a break to relax with Romancing the Holidays, Vol.2, a collection of 14 short romances released by the members of First Coast Romance Writers of Jacksonville, Fla.

 Our Review: so many emotions and feelings were evoked as we read these short stories, covering Halloween through Valentine’s Day and settings spanning war-torn France to present day Miami to the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York. Genres run the gamut from romantic suspense, to paranormals to historicals.

 * Debby Grahl’s Fall Into Magic features a hard-nose US Marshal who meets a been-there-done-that witch in the middle of an old west gunfight.

* A warlock, dressed as Buzz Lightyear, is confronted by a witch in a Little Red Riding Hood costume in Melody Johnson’s paranormal, Fated by Fire and the fun begins.

* Sparks fly, in more ways than one, when a busy OB-GYN battles a TV set designer for the last can of pumpkin in Elise Darby’s Oh My Pumpkin Pie.  

* Barbara Whitaker takes us back to a different time and place in her World War II romance, Thanks for the Doughnuts. There’s nothing like a little shellfire from enemy forces to teach a timid Red Cross worker and a brash, pushy soldier lessons in life and love.

* Maggie Fitzroy uses an historic lakeside lodge in Maine for the setting of Christmas Peril, featuring a travel writer and a PI, who while posing as husband and wife, set out to get the goods on a potential gold-digging fiancé and end up with a dead body on their hands.

* San Diego is the setting for a contemporary military romance by Leah Miles. Stolen Christmas features a struggling widow with an intrepid five-year-old who steals the heart of their landlord: a macho US Navy SEAL. Bring on the tissues.

* For those who enjoy a good attorney bash joke, Karen Renee shows a new side of the law in Holiday Fixation. Nothing brings out the hero in a group of hard-charging lawyers when one of their own is threatened by a stalker.

* For a touching story of a family reunited in post-Civil War Georgia, Sara Walker’s Miracle de Noel is the one for you. War injures more than those who fought; the family left behind is equally harmed—and Walker shows those injuries very well.

* Vickey Wollan displays an obvious talent for snappy dialogue with The Secret Santa Surprise when two teens, in need of community service hours in order to earn a college scholarship, are forced to walk in each other’s shoes. The question ends up: which is more fun, the ‘breaststroke babe’ sitting high on her pity pot or the dorky superhero Inviso-Man? What a treat.  

* Just Four Days offers new meaning to wedding cruise from Hell when Maid of Honor Hailey runs slam bam into Best Man Don. Author Gloria Ferguson poses the ultimate problem: can two exes bury the hatchet long enough to see their best friends married without shoving each other overboard?

* When Dustin Biggs tells his ex-wife “I know you’d rather sled down a mountain on an ironing board than let me in but it’s freezing in here!” we were hooked by Abigail Sharpe’s second chance contemporary romance, New Year’s Ex-Pectations. A beauty of a fun story.

* Laura Salas gives readers a treat with an inside look into the celebration known as Three Kings Day in Love on Calle Ocho. Set in Miami, Carlos Flores has moved on after a serious betrayal; teacher Maddie Jones, also betrayed, has not. Together the two help each other in remarkable ways.

* In True Love Found, P.K. Brent brings enchantment fairy Marielle Charmaine face to face with her first crush, electromancer Alan Corben. As teenagers they helped each other survive loneliness, bigotry and misunderstanding. As adults, after finding each other again, new possibilities come to fruition.

* Winding up the series is The Matchmaker’s Valentine, a love story among shapeshifting werewolves. Jax is looking for a mate but where to find one? Those inside his pack find him too big, too broody, too crazy. And, as pack enforcer his reputation has gone out of control. In the middle of a noisy bar he finds Cece, a matchmaker self-described as ‘she’d walk through Hell with gasoline panties on before she ended up like her mother’. Laugh out loud.  

 On a scale of 1-5, Romancing the Holidays, Vol 2 deserves a 5.

 Kat Henry Doran, Wild Women Reviews

 

 

 

 

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