Holiday reading challenge entry #1: Snow Night with a Stranger anthology

I live to write another review. Even though it's been so long since i last wrote one. Mainly because i've been working odd and long hours at work. I then come home too exhausted to do anything. Anyways.....

A Holiday Gamble by Jane Feather.

This was my favorite story out of the anthology. It even beat out the tortured hero one. ^^ The story basically is that Ned Vasey is returning home from India for the first time in ten years. His brother unexpectedly died leaving without an heir making him Viscount Allenton. One the way to his former and new home he gets stuck in a blizzard and finds himself at Roger Selby's place. There he meets Lady Georgiana Carey and soon the story begins.

With all anthologies the author only has a limited amount of pages to tell the story so it's not uncommon for the hero and heroine to get together after only knowing each other for a few days. Therefore my usual nick pick of that had to be overlooked. Jane Feather did the best though. You could really feel the buzz between Ned and Georgiana. Neither were particularly looking for romance, but found it. In face Georgiana was on the way of helping herself. She had already devised a plan to escape her greedy cousin and her forced upon fiancée. Ned merely helped her along. So in a way they feel in love helping each other. The only thing i can complain about was that i wanted to here/see Georgiana's cousin and former fiancée reaction to their marriage. Other than that i give the story 5/5 stars.



When Sparks Fly by Sabrina Jefferies

This was my least favorite of the anthology. Mainly because it was so expected of what you think a Christmas story would be. The maiden and her family gets stuck at the old Scrooge's house. She and the children start to bring joy to his life. Girl and Scrooge fall in love. Girl's father "saves" her from the man. The man whom has had a change of heart follows the girl. The funny thing about it is that the author even wrote Charles Dickens as a child in the story which upped the corny level. Definitely a disappointment. 3/5 stars


Snowy Night with a Highland by Julia London

This one was middle of the pack. Strange enough since it contained a tortured hero. One that i normally would have died over. The thing was that it felt like I was missing something. Like 100 pages out of a book. In face up to chapter 10 would have been a brilliant beginning of the book. I really adored reading it. It just felt extremely rushed after that. I almost wished that Julia had scrapped this one as a short story and moved it over to her "long story" pile. It would have been brilliant then. It had all the makings of a good long story. A girl who doesn't recognized the scared man as the one whom humiliated her earlier in life. A missing brother whose in trouble with the law. The girl has her own home in Scotland.... Oh there were so many possibilities.... In stead of the pitiful ending we got. 4/5 stars.

Final ratings: 4 1/2 Bunnies. I enjoyed the characters, plots were generally good, and the sex wasn't that risky.