From the back cover:
Christmas Miracles really can happen and Christmas dreams can come true. Join three of your favorite romance authors as they celebrate the festive season in their own special style!
1) When Dr. Oliver Hay-Smythe sees how kindhearted Bertha's family takes advantage of her, he decides to sweep her off her feet with...
"A Christmas Proposal" by Betty Neels
2) Bethany seems to be the perfect mother for Nick Rafferty's three children--and the perfect wife for Nick. So perfect, in fact, that Nick suspects he's being watched over by...
"Heavenly Angels" by Carole Mortimer
3) Jill Barton loves her role as stand-in mom for five-year-old Kip. But as soon as Jill meets Kip's father, the gorgeous Zane Doyle, she realizes why all Kip wants is...
"A Daddy for Christmas" by Rebecca Winters
And my review:
Betty Neels' story was just okay, which is pretty much how I've found all of her work to be. Fine for a one-time read, but you would never bother to re-read it. Three stars.
I had high hopes for Carole Mortimer's story. I normally love her writing, and I love paranomal twists to romance, so I thought I would love this story about an angel finding love. I didn't. The whole story had so many sour notes that I ended up not finishing the last chapter. The assertion that heaven would send someone to break up a marriage so that both partners could be happier, leaving the children strung between two homes was disgusting. (Before Bethany died, she was sent by heaven to be a nanny, where Nick would fall in love with her, only she died before it could happen, and now she was being sent back as an angel to help him find love again, now that Nick and Samantha are divorced.) Heaven does not send women to cause married men to cheat on their wives. The ends do not justify the means!
And the head angel, Mrs. Heavenly, even goes so far as to say that Nick's ex-wife should be admired for having the courage to find a man that really loved her. Blah, blah, barf! She was married! You're not supposed to be shopping around for a new man when you're married! Cheating is cheating, I don't care what kind of a nice spin you put on it. I'm just glad this wasn't the first thing I read by this author, or it would have been my last. If you want to read something good by this author, read "A Marriage to Remember" from Harlequin Presents. That was one of the few Harlequins that wasn't a Christmas story that made it onto my keeper shelf. One star for this story.
The third story was very good. I have yet to read anything by Rebecca Winters' that I didn't like. Her romances are always sweet and clean (no explicit sex), and her characters always jump into your heart, even (sometimes especially) the kids! This was the story that I kept the book for, and I've re-read three times already. Five stars.
So, while I found the middle story offensive, the first was good, and the last one was great. This book is worth getting your hands on.
