Enchanted Christmas

TEST

Have you been having trouble sleeping? Do you adore heroes who wallow in self-pity? If you answered yes to either of these questions, Enchanted Christmas could be the book for you. If, on the other hand, you prefer books that keep you awake, with characters who don’t spend four hundred pages feeling sorry for themselves, then you would be well advised to spend your money elsewhere.

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There are about five things that happen in this book:

1. The extremely wounded hero, Noah Partridge, comes to New Mexico Territory in 1869. Here he meets Grace Richardson, a widow with a young daughter, Maddie.

2. Noah fixes someone’s piano.

3. Noah, Grace, and Maddie go on a picnic.

4. Noah and Grace visit Grace’s land, and make love there.

5. Noah offends Grace and goes away for three weeks to fix a reed organ.

There is one other thing; they get together at the end of the book. But you knew that already. I have honestly never read a book with less action than this one. The basic conflict between Noah and Grace is that Noah wants to buy Grace’s land, and she won’t sell it. She considers it Maddie’s legacy from her father. Noah and Grace have lots of conversations about this, and they are all the same.

Meanwhile, Grace, Noah and Maddie are all living with Mac. Mac is a wizard who owns a wagon yard and a store. Grace supposedly earns her living working in the store, but we never really see her do this. Noah, on the other hand, seems to have no need for income. He spends the entire book sleeping in Mac’s barn, doing nothing to support himself. All of these people live in a town, but their sole interaction with the townspeople takes place when Noah sends a telegram, which is a one time event.

Grace is not such a bad character, and she could have been interesting in a book with some action. Noah is completely uninteresting. I wanted to feel sorry for him, because he did have some awful things happen to him. But he literally spends the entire book complaining about how awful his life has been, how he just isn’t normal, how he’s frozen inside, etc. I don’t mind wounded heroes now and then, but this one was just too much. I kept comparing him, unfavorably, to other wounded heroes who managed to get on with their lives (Clay in Lorraine Heath’s Always to Remember comes to mind). The strongest character is Mac, but he just isn’t used to his full potential. Mac has phenomenal magic powers, which I thought should have been used as comic relief in this dreary book. But Mac is never funny, which is a shame.

I had some historical quibbles with this book as well. First of all, there is little mention of the Indians, and you never see any. This would have been very unrealistic in 1869. Also, Grace owes money on her property, which would have been very unlikely in 1869 New Mexico. Congress passed the Homestead Act in 1860, which gave 160 acres of land free to anyone who would live on the land and improve it. Grace moved west in 1864, and there would have been plenty of free land available at that time. For that matter, Noah could also have gotten free land, so he didn’t really need Grace’s.

The love scenes in Enchanted Christmas are very well written, but love scenes alone can’t make a story. A better place for a story like this would be a Christmas anthology. In an abbreviated form, this book might not have been so bad. Since only the long version is available, I recommend skipping this unexciting novel.

Reviewed by Blythe Smith

Grade: D

Sensuality: Warm

Review Date: 30/11/98

Publication Date: 1999

Review Tags: Christmas romance

Recent Comments …

  1. excellent book: interesting, funny dialogs, deep understanding of each character, interesting secondary characters, and also sexy.

I've been at AAR since dinosaurs roamed the Internet. I've been a Reviewer, Reviews Editor, Managing Editor, Publisher, and Blogger. Oh, and Advertising Corodinator. Right now I'm taking a step back to concentrate on kids, new husband, and new job in law...but I'll still keep my toe in the romance waters.

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