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"I Will" by LISA KLEYPAS: Andrew, Lord Drake, is a rake, and "beyond shame". His father has disowned him leaving his un-entailed fortune elsewhere. To try to win back his father's favor, Andrew blackmails Caroline Hargreave into pretending to be the woman he is courting. As they spend time together, they also become very attracted to each other. On the day of his father's death, Andrew gives Caro the idea that she means a great deal to him. But the path of true love never seems to run straight...

"Puddings, Parties, and Thou" by LISA CACH: Vivian Ambrose has spent the last nine years, since she was sixteen, as companion to a horrid old relative. Now the relative is dead and Vivian has been shuffled off to some distant cousins. She is determined to marry and have a home of her own...

"Union" by CLAUDIA DAIN: It's time for Clarissa Walingford to find a husband. Though she has no desire to do so, she will do her duty. All she truly requires in the man she marries is that he own land in Ireland. Setting out with list in hand, she finds herself drawn to the one man she really would rather not match up with...

"All I Want" by LYNSAY SANDS: All Prudence Prescott's mother wants for Christmas is for her husband "to stop his gambling before he sees us in debtor's prison". So Pru sets out to show her father the error of his ways. The main one to suffer, though, from her misdirected good intentions is the owner of the gaming hell her father frequents...

Featuring the RITA Award-winning novella "I Will" by Lisa Kleypas. 4 excellent Christmas Regencies in one great book. Puddings, Pastries and Thou, by Lisa Cach; Union by Claudia Dain, and All I Want by Lynsay Sands make up the menu. You'll love all four. In I WILL, a young lord convinces a "spinster" lady to pretend an interest in order to keep his disinterested by dying father from disinheriting him because of his dissolute lifestyle. She agrees in order to keep her younger brother out of the gaming hells. Can you guess what eventually happens? PUDDINGS tells the story of Vivian Ambrose, a poor relation, horribly mistreated, and what the Christmas Spirit brings to her life. You'll feel warm all over after reading this one! UNION tells Clarissa's story, and her compulsion to marry only an Irishman, never an Englishman, although she's "coming out" in England, and neither she nor her family understands WHY she feels this desperate need. ALL I WANT is both funny and touching, a story about a girl who sets out to keep her father from putting the family in the poorhouse with his gambling, starts a crusade against a gambling house run by a Lord, and --well you can guess the rest. Needless to say, the wish list is complete by the end of the book. A very satisfying read!

This was okay. Better than I thought it would be.

So far read only the Kleypas story. It was not one of her best efforts. With such short space, I think it's difficult for writers to give us a convincing love story. Things moved too fast, I didn't believe the love story and didn't care much about the characters. I think if she'd had time this could have been a great story.

I really enjoyed the holiday stories, very happy, fun and lighthearted. Great read for an afternoon break! You won't be disappointed.