It's that time of year, folks, when I finally have an excuse to read and review the plethora of Christmas themed romance novels and anthologies that pop up like snowmen during the holiday season! Hooray!
And I have a delightful line-up for you - first up is the Jane Feather/Sabrina Jeffries/Julia London anthology, Snowy Night with a Stranger, followed by The Christmas Countess, by Adrienne Bosso, and after that, I'll be tackling The Heart of Christmas, an anthology of novellas from Queen of Awesomeness Mary Balogh, Nicola Cornick, and the wonderful Courtney Milan, who was kind enough to give me a free copy when I won a contest on Twitter.
There will be a short break whereupon I will read and review Georgette Heyer's These Old Shades, the prequel of sorts to Devil's Cub, thanks to the wonderful folks over at Sourcebooks.
BACK TO CHRISTMAS THEMED ROMANCES! Snow! Holly! Mistletoe! Gingerbread debauchery and peppermint scandal!
The Holiday Inn anthology, headlined by Farrah Rochon is next (thanks to the wonderful Booksmugglers, from whom I won this book last year), followed by Eloisa James' An Affair Before Christmas (which I won last year from her messageboard in a short story contest), and then (again, thank you Booksmugglers!) I review This Year's Christmas Present, an anthology led by Nina Bangs (whom I met I RWA!)
There will be another short break, in which I will read a novel by Laura Kinsale that I cannot review until January because the book's not out until February, but am reading it in December so that I can ship it to my fellow Kinsale-a-holic Kat from BookThingo, who lives in Australia, and I just assume that it will take a while to reach her because Kangaroo Mail travels so slowly, what with all the hopping - almost as slow as my Canadian Polar Bear Mail (but the melting ice caps are speeding things up as of late!).
And after that, to celebrate the end of my Big Giant Christmas Review, I am holding a Second Chance Challenge with Wandergurl from BookThingo. Basically, for the Second Chance Challenge, I challenge a blogger who has given up on an author I loved after only one book - to try another book by the same author, while I give a second chance to a favourite author of hers that I've placed on my Do Not Read list after a single attempt. In return for Wandergurl giving Laura Kinsale a second chance by reading Prince of Midnight, I will be giving Nalini Singh a second chance to win me over by reading Caressed By Ice - Ice! C'mon! It's Winter-Themed! It totally fits! Totally!
Here's hoping for Happy Holidays, dear readers! Happy Festivus, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and Smugglivus to everyone - and Merry Christmas to those of us who don't believe Frosty the Snowman melted on the candy cane cross for our sins!
I'm reading The Christmas Countess now and like it a lot!
ReplyDeleteOoh, I can't wait for your Christmas roundup. I also love your second chance challenge. How many times have I begged people to give a treasured author of mine a second chance? And you're MAKING them do it. LOL. Way to go.
ReplyDeleteThat Second Chance challenge sounds really interesting! Caressed by Ice is one of my favorite in the series. (I love me a tortured hero!) I'll be looking forward to checking out both reviews.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous --> My own review of that will be up shortly. I'm just putting on the finishing touches.
ReplyDeleteCarolyn Crane --> I can only hope that Caressed by Ice lives up to the hype. I'm also giving CS Wilson another go, but only because the second and third books in her series are already on my TBR.
Renee --> I liked tortured heroes, too! Oddly, though - I'm not a huge fan of tortured heroines, at least ones that just mope and cry about how sucky their life is (*cough*SlavetoSensation*cough*). Sometimes I get mopey that everyone and their dog on the internets loves Nalini Singh while I tired of her halfway through her first book - so now I'm seeing if the series improves some.