With a desire to diversify my holiday reading, I borrowed You Make It Feel Like Christmas from the library after seeing it in a publisher's promo email. I didn't realize it's a 2021 repackage of two contemporary romance novellas written in 2003 and 2002, respectively. I have difficulty DNFing books ... but this may have been a contender if I did.
Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree by Donna Hill and Francis Ray is about 200 pages long. I appreciated that the main characters are a wife and husband in middle age who've been married for years, but the basic premise of the plot really bothered me. Denise is tired of being valued only for her skills in the kitchen and bedroom so she asks Edward for a divorce as a wake-up call. Threatening to divorce your partner seems like a really poor tactic and a sign of a much bigger issue in the marriage. This is a Christmas romance so, of course, it has a happy ending. This story also includes a senior citizen couple with a very active sex life, something not included in the romances I've read.
The Wish by Francis Ray is approx. 100 pages long and includes a touch of magical realism. In this story, tall, dark, handsome, single, and successful Nicholas Darling is shopping at a supermarket when an older woman tells him his wish has been fulfilled and he will be engaged by Christmas. This seems pretty unlikely since it's November and he has no interest in dating or marrying anyone. Word of Mrs. Augusta granting his wish quickly spreads and Nicholas's life gets pretty complicated. Then he meets Andrea, Mrs. Augusta's niece who is visiting from NYC. Andrea longs to find Mr. Right but knows he can't be Nicholas, no matter how much she's attracted to him, because her aunt can't grant wishes to family members ... or can she?
The second novella redeemed this collection for me. The first felt its nearly 20-year age. I wonder if the authors would use the same plot if writing the story today.
Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree by Donna Hill and Francis Ray is about 200 pages long. I appreciated that the main characters are a wife and husband in middle age who've been married for years, but the basic premise of the plot really bothered me. Denise is tired of being valued only for her skills in the kitchen and bedroom so she asks Edward for a divorce as a wake-up call. Threatening to divorce your partner seems like a really poor tactic and a sign of a much bigger issue in the marriage. This is a Christmas romance so, of course, it has a happy ending. This story also includes a senior citizen couple with a very active sex life, something not included in the romances I've read.
The Wish by Francis Ray is approx. 100 pages long and includes a touch of magical realism. In this story, tall, dark, handsome, single, and successful Nicholas Darling is shopping at a supermarket when an older woman tells him his wish has been fulfilled and he will be engaged by Christmas. This seems pretty unlikely since it's November and he has no interest in dating or marrying anyone. Word of Mrs. Augusta granting his wish quickly spreads and Nicholas's life gets pretty complicated. Then he meets Andrea, Mrs. Augusta's niece who is visiting from NYC. Andrea longs to find Mr. Right but knows he can't be Nicholas, no matter how much she's attracted to him, because her aunt can't grant wishes to family members ... or can she?
The second novella redeemed this collection for me. The first felt its nearly 20-year age. I wonder if the authors would use the same plot if writing the story today.
