TITLE: A Kiss for Christmas: Short Holiday Stories
AUTHOR: Caroline Linden
PUBLISHED DATE: 11/18/2019
GENRE: Holiday Regency Romance, Anthology
RATING: ❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥
BLURB:
Seven stories of first kisses, newly wedded bliss, and love long-awaited, in the holiday season of joy.
Bel Astre que j’adore
A lonely French courtesan discovers the mysterious English spy who saved her harbors deeper feelings, under the mistletoe.
My True Love Gave to Me
Innkeeper Adam Milbank and his new bride, Sarah, are snowed in alone for their first Christmas together…
Adeste Fideles
Widowed Lady Fitzhugh dislikes the retired Army officer, Major Arthur Winston, next door, until his dog makes friends with hers—and he serenades her with carols.
What a Woman Needs for Christmas
A surprise arrival brightens a new wife’s Christmas Eve. A holiday epilogue to What a Woman Needs.
A Scot of Her Own
Rosalind, Dowager Duchess of Exeter, has given up on finding romance with Lord Warfield, but he has not. A holiday epilogue to A Rake's Guide to Seduction.
Grace’s Christmas Hero
Every year, Grace Finch falls a little more in love with her handsome childhood friend, Oliver Ford, but will he ever feel the same for her?
A Kiss for Christmas
Thomas Weston is dumbstruck at the sight of Miss Clara Hampton. Unfortunately, she’s nearly engaged to another man… unless Thomas can win her heart.
Some stories previously published.
MY REVIEW:
I was in the midst of reading another book when I received some potentially devastating news about a dear friend’s loved one and I decided I wasn’t in the right mindset to continue reading that book, put it down, and picked up a random book I found on my Kindle when I looked for something short. If you know me, you know I love Christmas stories! While this book didn’t have any p in the v scenes, there were plenty of kisses and the chemistry between some of these couples jumped out of the page at me as I read them over the past day.
There are a total of 7 books in this anthology (I’ll only be mentioning 4 in this review), all that take place during Christmas and were written by Caroline Linden. This was the first time I read Caroline Linden and I am intrigued to read more from her.
My absolute favorite of the seven was Grace’s Christmas Hero. If I were to rate each individual story, I’d rate this as 5 out of 5. I am a sucker for friends-to-lovers and this story gave off that feel. It also reminded me of one of my favorite holiday Lifetime movies, Love at the Christmas Table where we see two friends grow up together, only on Christmas, fall in love as well as struggle through their feelings when they realize there’s more than friendship between them. Likewise, in Grace’s Christmas Hero, we watch Grace gather with her family and friends every Christmas Eve, meet and fall in love with Oliver, and her frustrations when it seems that he doesn’t feel the same. I don’t know if Caroline wrote an extended story for them, but I would most certainly read it if she did!
The next story I want to mention is What a Woman Needs for Christmas. This is an epilogue to Caroline’s book, What a Woman Needs and it made me want to read it. I thought Stuart and Charlotte’s chemistry was very palpable and I loved the emotions Caroline evoked in such a short story! I’d rate this story a 4 out of 5.
A Scot of Her Own was also a good story in this. This is an epilogue for Caroline’s story A Rake’s Guide to Seduction. I really liked this story. Both the heroine and hero are older as the heroine is the mother of the heroine in ARGTS and the hero is the uncle to the hero in ARGTS. Rosalind and Patrick meet in ARGTS and there’s an instant attraction, but Patrick is called back to his home and has to deal with some stuff. in A Scot of Her Own, Rosalind has given up hope that Patrick will come back for her as he’s been gone for months and even his letters have dried up. But, he appears that Christmas Eve and tries to win her back. Will he succeed?
The last story I’m going to mention is A Kiss for Christmas. This story is a prequel to Caroline’s Scandals series. I really enjoyed this story. Clara thinks she’s in love and expectant of a proposal from a man who suddenly starts to avoid her. A new man enters the picture, Thomas Weston, who has ties with the man she thought was besotted with her. Can he win her heart? I really enjoyed Clara and Thomas’ chemistry and banter in this.
If you’re looking for some short Christmas regency romances to read and don’t mind that there’s no p in the v scenes, I recommend you read these!