A mistletoe wish…All her life, Serena Talbot has been in love with the handsome boy next door, Sir Paul Garside. She always eagerly looks forward to Paul’s visit to her family over the Festive Season, even if he usually brings along his dark, sardonic friend Lord Hallam. This year, Serena is determined that Paul’s kiss under the mistletoe will lead to a proposal. Even if she has to enlist every ounce of Christmas magic she can get her hands on to make that happen.
But the mistletoe gets it wrong!
When Serena slips a sprig of mistletoe from the village kissing bough under her pillow, it’s not Paul who turns up in her dreams as the man she’s going to marry, but brooding, intense, annoying Giles Farraday, Marquess of Hallam. Still more annoying, once everyone arrives for the annual Christmas house party, she can’t stop watching Giles, and thinking about Giles. And kissing Giles, whether there’s mistletoe about or not. Now Paul wants to marry her, and Giles wants to seduce her–and Serena has a bone to pick with the old wives who came up with all this superstitious nonsense in the first place.
A Christmas of confusion lies ahead! Will mistletoe magic lead the way to a happy ending?
------------------------
**Please don't be put off by the reviews of this book on Amazon. Unfortunately there was a problem when purchasing the book and only the cover and first pages downloaded. The issue has now been resolved but customers were understandably annoyed and were trying to warn other customers which has led to a low star rating for the book.**
At 153 pages, this is a sweet tale that is perfect for a short diversion away from all the Christmas madness.
Serena has been in love with Paul since she can remember but this Christmas it’s his best friend, Giles Hallam that she hopes she’ll meet under the mistletoe. Our heroine is but 21 years old and this adds to the sweetness of the tale. What I particularly liked about Serena’s character is that while young, she almost matures before our eyes as she realises the difference between youthful infatuation and real love and desire. She didn’t play games, she was as honest with herself as she could be and I really liked her confusion over her feelings. And her interactions with Giles were fun to read.
Giles is perfectly my type of hero; Brooding and lonely yet filled with love for a woman he knows he can never win. It might be mean of me but I like watching my hero and heroine go through the emotional wringer of doing what they want versus what they should. While Giles is definitely dark and brooding (but himself still young at 25), he also has an easy manner about him that made him more than two dimensional. Anna Campbell excels at angst and while there’s not much of that in this story, there are glimpses of it in the relationship between Giles and Paul.
Paul is worth a mention as a secondary character as it’s easy to write a character that we hate and hope won’t win the girl - it must be so much harder (but so much more realistic) to write one that’s a decent sort of chap. I also really loved the brief scenes of Serena with her mother - such a nice relationship.
For the majority of the book there’s lots of kissing. It’s when you get to the epilogue that anything more occurs. It was nice to see the story - and the relationship between Giles and Serena - continue after their declarations. I do love a good epilogue.
This is a short but satisfying story that has some nice festive touches. It’s sweet, it’s light but you’ll fall in love with Serena and Giles as they fall in love with each other. 5 stars.
------------------------
0 comments:
Post a Comment