Anthology: Love Rekindled at Christmas

Charity Anthology: All 2018 proceeds to Planned Parenthood.

Christmas is a time for rekindling love in five new historical romance novellas. These couples will be sheltering from blizzards and hiding in wardrobes, reuniting with old flames, stealing mistletoe kisses, and falling in love. Passions are reignited by Snapdragon, a fiery Regency party game, but who will receive the best Christmas present of all-a happy ending? Immerse yourself in the romance, snow-covered landscapes, and blazing hearths of a heart-warming, sensual, Regency Christmas.

This is feel-good reading at its best: happily ever after for you and help for women in need.

A Midwinter Wager by Elizabeth Keysian

Her viscount’s been stolen…

When her stepsister tricks her noble beau into a fake engagement, Miss Francesca Heathcote tires of playing nice. She’ll even risk ruin to win him back. A game of dare, a wager and a night in a haunted room offer a chance to set him free, but her conniving stepsister has one more ace up her sleeve…

Christmas Wore Plaid by E. Elizabeth Watson

When Scarlet Fever forced Emerson Lindt to move to England, her only consolation was Brady MacInnes’s promise of writing—letters that never arrived. When she returns to Scotland years later, Brady is adamant that he never betrayed her. And though poverty plagues Scotland and stretches Brady’s pocketbook, their love for each other flares anew. Can a Christmas miracle and the spirit of giving finally grant them a future together after they were denied marriage so long ago?

A Pineapple in a Pine Tree by Eve Pendle

Five years after breaking Amelia Chilson’s heart, he’s back. Robert Danbury wants the mistletoe kiss Amelia denied him years ago, but nothing more; loving a woman again is an unthinkable risk. Then they’re caught innocently in bed together and Robert has an instant to choose: Amelia’s reputation, their lost love, or his conscience.

Let it Snow by Diana Lloyd

When he stole her first kiss one Christmas, Tobin Everleigh didn’t realize it would be ten years before he got another. Saffron Thomas is determined to forget the kiss and the boy who called it a folly. When fate brings them back together for a holiday celebration a fiery game of Snapdragon gone wrong and a midnight dash through a snowstorm proves their attraction was no game.

A Captain for Christmas by Evelyn Isaacks

Georgiana Throckmorton is eager to return to social life after years of isolation in the north of England. When she’s invited to spend Christmas with an old friend she never expects to be reunited with her first love—Alexander Forrester, who ran away to the sea after he made love to her. Passion reignites once again, but past hurts loom over their second chance at love.

If you love Christmas and second chance romances, this may very well be the anthology for you! Featuring first loves, this collection of novellas tell of villains, illness, and other circumstances that separate the H/H and feature fun, dramatic and sometimes funny ways they get thrown back together.

These were all new authors for me, but when they sent me a lovely email request with the added bonus of this book raising money for Planned Parenthood, I was thrilled to check it out.  Like many folks, I love to start getting in the holiday mood after Halloween with a  steady diet of Christmas or holidays reads, movies, and a fair amount of off key holiday song singing.  Plus, it also is the Season for giving, and giving back, so what a perfect present to me (and a worthy organization that provides critical health services, including preventative care  and screening, to so many Americans).

I provided a blurb about each novella above, so won’t rehash the basic plots.  I will say that Christmas traditions were somewhat limited and different during the Regency era, so if you are looking for an explosion of holiday cheer…this anthology won’t be it (best go contemporary).  But if you are looking for first loves reuniting in winter, with all the fun of the Season (snow storms! holiday parties!) you will find it in abundance.

The first novella, A Midwinter Wager, features a hair tearing out scheming step sister who intervenes in the path of true love until Fate does a little intervening of its own.  There was some steamy action, and a lot of tension leading up to a satisfying end.

Christmas Wore Plaid has a H/H separated by illness.  When the heroine returns to her hometown, she finds the poverty rampant and her first love impoverished by trying to support his dependents.  There is also a little mystery to solve.  Lots of heady subjects, that raise good awareness about some interesting historical issues, and a second chance romance to cheer for.

A Pineapple in a Pine Tree is less about second chance and more about an H/H who suffered their childhood crushes in silence only to be reunited.  A bit of compromising circumstance, and a tough choice drives the drama.

Let it Snow is a funnier, more rompish leaning tale about the competition/romance between two childhood friends, and what happens when they get caught in a snowstorm.  It also broaches some interesting historical topics (like Luddites and steam engines) which I thought added to the authenticity of the story.

Finally, A Captain for Christmas features a bit more traditional second chance romance about a woman and her wayward Captain.  This is told at first with a series of letters, so its a bit different, and also features a marriage in between, so this is an older couple whose love gets a chance at redemption.

Overall a lovely collection of diverse tones, topics, and variations of the second chance romance that I think readers will find is easy to read over the holidays (or a few days) and gives them all the ambience of snow, boughs, and stolen kisses.

4 out of 6 Christmas anthology of second chance romances

*A review copy was provided by the authors.  No other compensation was provided.