3 Regency Christmas Anthologies
Regency Christmas novellas! The surest way ever to induce cavities and suffer an overdose of big-eyed children uniting pure women and men who hate Christmas! Or at least are grumpy about it.
Formula tolerable in heavy doses only in that brief time of year when you might be a bit more inclined to enjoy such things.
Of the three anthologies I read, the Signet anthology Regency Christmas Courtship was the best. Barbara Metzger’s “Wooing the Wolf” is the most generic thing ever with a Lady’s Companion ending up with her sister’s kids and somehow having them stay with her employer’s neighbor. Naturally, the children became matchmakers. And yet, incredibly entertaining. Edith Layton followed it up with “The Dogstar,” where a governess and a lord were asked by a school friend to look after the friend’s kid for Christmas, but neither friend knew about the other, and so, war, and Andrea Pickens’s “Lost and Found” had the typical “bickering strangers stuck at an inn fall in love” setup. Nancy Butler’s “Christmas With Dora Davenport” was also entertaining, with a woman hoping to get her rich beau to propose to her while falling in love with her brother’s friend, but had the unfortunate undertone of “what she wants is wrong for her and she’ll have to be embarrassed to learn the error of her ways.” All four were pretty typical, but they were well done and entertaining typical. There was also “Christmas Cheer” by Gayle Buck, which I believe was about a newly married couple where the wife was sad for some reason, but it was so tra-la-la and twee that self-preservation forced me to flee.
Zebra’s A Taste of Christmas was ok, but not nearly as good. Alice Holden’s “Lord Nabob’s Conversion” was probably the best, with the “Christmas? What Christmas?” hero wanting to oust a widow, her friend and a bunch of orphan’s from the lodge he rents to them so he can have a hunting party. Typical, but fun. Debbie Raleigh’s “The Elusive Bride” setup had the typical “heroine must marry hero to pay off male relative’s debts,” with the heroine trying to raise the money to pay off the debt to avoid being sold off. It would have been ok, save for the “But I told you I’m buying you and we’re getting married and why don’t you appreciate my love and sacrifice!” bit. Joy Reed’s “Mince Pie and Mistletoe” wasn’t so much a single story as it was a bunch of just-barely-if-that connected events that I suspect were tying up loose ends from books I haven’t read.
Finally, there’s The Heart of Christmas, which was Harlequin reprinting older novellas by Mary Balogh and Nicola Cornick, and a new one by Courtney Milan. The Balogh “A Handful of Gold,” has what I’m beginning to suspect is a fairly typical Balogh setup where the heroine, an opera singer (But a virtuous one! Really!), is propositioned by a lord, who thinks she’s had experience, and accepts his offer to be his mistress while he visits a friend for Christmas to pay off family medical bills. Misunderstandings abound. Not exactly my favorite setup, but Balogh pulls it off. Cornick’s “A Season for Suitors” has a young woman deciding she needs coaching in escaping fortune hunters after she receives a sizable inheritance, so she asks her brother’s friend, a notorious rake (of course), to give her pointers. She had proposed to him before for purely practical reasons, but he rejected her despite being Sekritly In Love With Her (For Years!) due to a serious case of Not Good Enough For You, as well as But Your Brother Will Kill Me. Various eyeroll worthy moments, but very entertaining. I read about a chapter and a half of Milan’s “This Wicked Gift” and stopped when the hero told the heroine he bought her brother’s debts and she could pay him off with her body. Apparentnly, he was worried someone else would get there first and he wouldn’t be able to convince her to cheat if she got married to someone else and he didn’t want to lose a chance at getting her in bed. At least Raleigh’s guy was doing it because he’d thought she’d make an awesome wife and didn’t think he’d get her attention any other way. (Which is still Loserville, but not as firmly entrenched.) Ayway, I had better things to do with my time.
Formula tolerable in heavy doses only in that brief time of year when you might be a bit more inclined to enjoy such things.
Of the three anthologies I read, the Signet anthology Regency Christmas Courtship was the best. Barbara Metzger’s “Wooing the Wolf” is the most generic thing ever with a Lady’s Companion ending up with her sister’s kids and somehow having them stay with her employer’s neighbor. Naturally, the children became matchmakers. And yet, incredibly entertaining. Edith Layton followed it up with “The Dogstar,” where a governess and a lord were asked by a school friend to look after the friend’s kid for Christmas, but neither friend knew about the other, and so, war, and Andrea Pickens’s “Lost and Found” had the typical “bickering strangers stuck at an inn fall in love” setup. Nancy Butler’s “Christmas With Dora Davenport” was also entertaining, with a woman hoping to get her rich beau to propose to her while falling in love with her brother’s friend, but had the unfortunate undertone of “what she wants is wrong for her and she’ll have to be embarrassed to learn the error of her ways.” All four were pretty typical, but they were well done and entertaining typical. There was also “Christmas Cheer” by Gayle Buck, which I believe was about a newly married couple where the wife was sad for some reason, but it was so tra-la-la and twee that self-preservation forced me to flee.
Zebra’s A Taste of Christmas was ok, but not nearly as good. Alice Holden’s “Lord Nabob’s Conversion” was probably the best, with the “Christmas? What Christmas?” hero wanting to oust a widow, her friend and a bunch of orphan’s from the lodge he rents to them so he can have a hunting party. Typical, but fun. Debbie Raleigh’s “The Elusive Bride” setup had the typical “heroine must marry hero to pay off male relative’s debts,” with the heroine trying to raise the money to pay off the debt to avoid being sold off. It would have been ok, save for the “But I told you I’m buying you and we’re getting married and why don’t you appreciate my love and sacrifice!” bit. Joy Reed’s “Mince Pie and Mistletoe” wasn’t so much a single story as it was a bunch of just-barely-if-that connected events that I suspect were tying up loose ends from books I haven’t read.
Finally, there’s The Heart of Christmas, which was Harlequin reprinting older novellas by Mary Balogh and Nicola Cornick, and a new one by Courtney Milan. The Balogh “A Handful of Gold,” has what I’m beginning to suspect is a fairly typical Balogh setup where the heroine, an opera singer (But a virtuous one! Really!), is propositioned by a lord, who thinks she’s had experience, and accepts his offer to be his mistress while he visits a friend for Christmas to pay off family medical bills. Misunderstandings abound. Not exactly my favorite setup, but Balogh pulls it off. Cornick’s “A Season for Suitors” has a young woman deciding she needs coaching in escaping fortune hunters after she receives a sizable inheritance, so she asks her brother’s friend, a notorious rake (of course), to give her pointers. She had proposed to him before for purely practical reasons, but he rejected her despite being Sekritly In Love With Her (For Years!) due to a serious case of Not Good Enough For You, as well as But Your Brother Will Kill Me. Various eyeroll worthy moments, but very entertaining. I read about a chapter and a half of Milan’s “This Wicked Gift” and stopped when the hero told the heroine he bought her brother’s debts and she could pay him off with her body. Apparentnly, he was worried someone else would get there first and he wouldn’t be able to convince her to cheat if she got married to someone else and he didn’t want to lose a chance at getting her in bed. At least Raleigh’s guy was doing it because he’d thought she’d make an awesome wife and didn’t think he’d get her attention any other way. (Which is still Loserville, but not as firmly entrenched.) Ayway, I had better things to do with my time.