didn't read the second story ( )

Christmas has never been hotter than in this sizzling new anthology featuring novellas from three top romance authors: Lori Foster, Karen Kelley, and Dianne Castell.

The Christmas Present by Lori Foster
Series: Brava Brothers (Book 3)
4*

Beth Monroe wants revenge on her cheating fiancé, and Levi, the cheater's best friend, is happy to oblige. But holiday cheer takes on a whole new meaning as their one-hour tryst stretches on. . .and on...

Sweet, intense friends to lovers story. Brandon, Levi, and Beth have been friends for several years, at the same time Beth and Brandon have been engaged. That engagement came to a screeching halt when Beth discovered Brandon cheating on her. Furious, she ran to Levi, looking for a little revenge sex. It was just going to be one night, but the fire between them was so intense it lasted the whole weekend. Beth was so freaked out by what she felt and did that it sent her running home to her family, with Levi hot on her heels.

I loved Levi. I loved how he showed up and made it clear to everyone that he was determined to win her. He'd been in love with her from the beginning, but she was his best friend's girl. He couldn't help but notice everything about her, and that attention to detail came out in their friendship over the years. I loved watching as he talked his way past her walls and showed her how much he cared. The biggest obstacle was the fact that he hadn't actually said the words of why he wanted to marry her.

I loved Beth, too. Though her motive for sleeping with Levi wasn't the best, it did show that she trusted him. Her freak-out at the intensity of their connection was understandable, as she went from being engaged to Brandon to realizing that she may have been in love with Levi all along. It was a lot for her to process, and being near Levi made it impossible for her to think. I liked the scene in the hotel room where he promised to back off physically but used the time to remind her of how many good times they'd had together. Though Beth finally admitted her feelings to herself, she still wasn't sure why Levi kept saying he wanted to marry her. Without those three little words, she wasn't about to chance making another mistake.

There was a hilarious scene involving the ex-fiancé, who showed up stinking drunk to try to get her back. I thought both Levi and Beth were remarkably restrained in dealing with him, especially Levi. He did redeem himself quite nicely at the end, both in his words and actions, and being the catalyst that broke through that last barrier between Levi and Beth.

I also enjoyed the parts that Beth's family played. Though her brothers were protective, they also recognized that Levi loved her. I liked how they supported him. I also loved the conversation between Beth and the women in her family. They helped her break free of her embarrassment and see the truth of how she felt. There were also sweet scenes between each of the couples, which makes me want to read their stories, too.

It's a Wonderful Life by Karen Kelley
Series: Southern Heat (Book 3.5)
3*

Hollywood hottie Jeremy Hunter is spending Christmas researching his upcoming role. But going incognito as a preacher in a tiny Texas town brings wicked temptation in the form of beautiful Bailey Tanner...

Fun story. Jeremy is an actor whose antics have gone just a little too far. He was in danger of losing his next role, one that he really wanted because it was different than anything else he'd done. However, the studio was doubtful that he could pull off the part of a preacher. So he went undercover as a traveling preacher, riding his Harley through Texas. When he stopped to eat in Two Creeks, he ended up hurting himself and had to stay in town, and had to maintain his preacher façade. Not easy to do when all he wanted was to get much closer to Bailey.

Bailey is a fourth-grade teacher who was drawn to Jeremy from the moment she set eyes on him. It was her flirtatious wink that caused him to fall and sprain his ankle. This left her feeling guilty, so she invited him to stay in her guesthouse until he was healed.

The development of their relationship was fast and fun. The sparks between them were hot from the start, but both fought them hard. Jeremy, because he's pretending to be a preacher, and what he wants to do doesn't fit the persona. Bailey, because she believes that he's a preacher and therefore above what she has in mind. I liked how Bailey showed Jeremy around town and got him involved in things like the local Christmas play. Though at first, Jeremy was more interested in seeing how well he could fool the town, it didn't take long for him to realize that he liked them. Added to his acceptance at Bailey's family dinner, he started to feel an unfamiliar emotion - guilt. When the sparks between Jeremy and Bailey turned combustible, Jeremy freaked out at the effect it had on him and ran. But try as he might, he couldn't forget Bailey or deny the effect she had on him. I ached for Bailey when she found out the truth and didn't blame her at all for some of the things she said. I had to laugh at how they were reunited. The ending was pretty sweet. I really liked Jeremy's appearance in front of the town. Seeing him bare his soul in front of everyone was emotional, and I liked his big moment with Bailey. The epilogue was great, and the tagline was the perfect cap.

I liked the secondary characters of Bailey's siblings and friends. I liked Wade's super-protectiveness and Bailey's reaction to it. The family dinner was fun, and I liked how the family members drew Jeremy in. Their effect on Jeremy was eye-opening for him, just seeing what a normal family was like. I also loved how they all rallied around Bailey when Jeremy left, and their willingness to go after him. Their part in bringing them back together was hilarious. I will have to go back and read their stories.

Home for Christmas by Dianne Castell
Series: O'Fallon (Book 4)
3*

LuLu Cahill is having a terrible Christmas, until she heads home to O'Fallon's Landing, where jilted groom Sebastian Moore is going through with his pre-wedding holiday bash. All he needs is LuLu to fill in for the bride...

My least favorite of the three stories. Lulu went home for Christmas, broke, pregnant, and dumped by her fiancé. In a mood, she was hanging out in the town gazebo, mentally grumping about all the happy people she saw. There she encountered a man she called "Handsome" escaping his own problems. Sebastian was supposed to get married on Christmas Eve, but his wedding was canceled. But with family in town, the festivities were going on anyway. Thanks to an immediate and intense attraction between the two, they had a "quickie" encounter right there in the gazebo. They then went their separate ways, not expecting to see each other again.

The next morning, Lulu was working her shift at the diner when in comes Sebastian, shocking her into dropping a tray full of dishes. There went any hope of keeping their knowing each other a secret. Another encounter later in the day, with the sparks flying between them, set them up for matchmaking hijinks from Sebastian's family. Because of it, Sebastian and Lulu try their own matchmaking efforts to take the heat off them, all the time finding it impossible to keep their hands off each other.

As the story went on, the truth came out about the end of Sebastian's engagement, showing him as protective but clueless. That same clueless attitude kept him from admitting his growing feelings for Lulu. Meanwhile, Lulu was avoiding thoughts of a relationship with anyone, as she believes she has "bad man karma" because all the guys she's been with have left her. The whole craziness with the matchmaking setup was funny, but not really believable in the romance department. Lulu and Sebastian declaring their love after only about 36 hours was stretching things.

On the positive side, Sebastian liked Lulu just the way she was. She complained about being "fat," but Sebastian reminded her she was pregnant. I liked his attitude when her ex showed up, and he was there to back her up when she told her family about being pregnant. Lulu was just kind of fun. She tends to blurt out whatever is on her mind creating some amusing moments. I liked her determination to be independent, though it did create an obstacle between her and Sebastian.

I liked the families. I read the original O'Fallon books about ten years ago, so I don't remember much about them, but seeing them years down the road was nice. I liked their support of Lulu, and also that they liked Sebastian. ( )

The Christmas Present by Lori Foster - The Christmas Present is a sweet, sexy novella from Lori Foster that is a wrap-up to her Brava Brothers series. Even though everything happened perhaps a tad to quick to be entirely believable, I loved it anyway. The hero and heroine are adorable, and their friends to lovers romance is a favorite theme of mine. I also enjoyed seeing the heroes and heroines of the previous books as the supporting cast. Overall, it was a fun addition to my holiday-themed reading.

Levi and Beth are perfect for each other, but before they can have an HEA, Levi must convince Beth of that fact. Beth was just cheated on by her philandering fiancé, and went to Levi, who was his best friend, looking for a little revenge sex. It was so sweet how Levi had been in love with Beth the entire time she was with his best friend and didn't know what he was going to do if they finally got married. With that being the case, he was more than happy to oblige Beth's request, but what was supposed to be a one-night stand turned into a whole weekend of pure bliss. The intensity of feelings she experienced with Levi scared Beth to death and sent her running. Beth's fears made perfect sense given how rapidly her life changed. She went from being engaged to one man to facing the possibility she has been in love with his best friend all along, overnight. I positively loved how Levi doggedly pursued her all the way back to her hometown, quickly won her family over to his cause with his charming honesty, and finally convinced Beth that they were totally right for each other and always had been. It was so wonderful how he knew so much about her just from being friends with her, far more than her ex-fiancé ever knew, right down to all her favorite things. It was also cute how he kept insisting he wanted to marry her even though they'd only been a couple for a few days. Again, it made sense though, because he'd loved her from afar for so long, he already knew she was the only woman for him. Theirs was definitely a whirlwind, but swoon-worthy romance.

Beth's family were all present to lend their support and I very much appreciated that they were being protective but not meddlesome. Her step-brother, Ben, and his wife, Sierra ([book:Never Too Much|1069204]); her father, Ken and step-mother, Brooke, (who represented the secondary romance in [book:Never Too Much|1069204]); and Ben's half-brother, Noah and his wife, Grace ([book:Too Much Temptation|763215]), all had roles in the story. Each couple also had brief and sweetly sensuous scenes of their own. All in all, The Christmas Present was another great read from Lori Foster and a nice way to end the series. Now that I've finally finished the Brava Brothers, I'll have to figure out which of her books I want to read next. Star Rating: ****1/2

*It's a Wonderful Life by Karen Kelley - It's a Wonderful Life is the final, wrap-up novella for Karen Kelley's Southern series. It's a quick read featuring Wade's sister, Bailey, who was first introduced in his book, Southern Comfort, and hot, sexy, playboy movie star, Jeremy Hunter. Bailey is a sweet, upbeat school teacher with three overprotective older brothers, although Wade is the only one we see much of in the story. She's immediately taken with Jeremy (aka Trey) when he comes to town but keeps trying to put the kibosh on her sexual desires for him, because she believes he's a preacher. It was nice to see Karen Kelley trying out a different type of female character, who's not the alpha female loner, but unfortunately Bailey's characterization doesn't go much deeper than what I described.

For once, the hero, Jeremy, is the one who's a bit better developed. We learn a little about his past that brings some sympathy to his character and some realism to his cynicism surrounding Christmas and people in general. I liked Jeremy all right, but I have to admit that the way we see him in the opening chapter, waking up after a wild night of partying with two naked women in his house, is not particularly endearing. In those moments, he comes off as a bit spoiled, but he at least has enough of a drive for the upcoming movie role to be willing to do anything to keep it when the movie studio threatens to recast because of his bad reputation. That said, though, I'm not usually a big fan of hidden identities in romance unless there's a hugely compelling reason for it, because it seems dishonest to me. Jeremy only goes on the road, pretending to be a traveling preacher to satisfy the movie studio's demands for him to keep that same role in his upcoming movie. At first, he comes off as little more than a con-man, who thinks that if he can fool Bailey and the townspeople of Two Creeks, Texas, he can fool a movie audience into believing he's a preacher too. Admittedly, Jeremy does start to feel guilty for his actions after a while, which made him more human, but ultimately his major attitude change that alters his whole outlook on life and that takes place in less than a week's time, was a little too quick to be entirely believable. But Christmas is the season for miracles, so I suppose I can cut a little slack.:-)

Overall, the entire story needed a little more space to build it into something truly believable and heartwarming. As is, everything happens a little too fast, including the townspeople forgiving Jeremy for his deception and the love scene, which is barely there. But as with Karen Kelley's other books I've read to date, it had a certain entertainment value to it and wasn't a chore to finish. In addition to Wade, his heroine, Fallon, also appears as a secondary character in this novella, and we get a quick visit from Cody and Josh (Hell on Wheels) as well. It's a Wonderful Life was originally published in the anthology, I'm Your Santa, but was recently republished as a stand-alone eBook, retitled Southern Star. Although her books can be somewhat entertaining, thus far, Karen Kelley hasn't really wowed me yet. I have a feeling she's going to be one of those middle of the road authors for me, but since at least one of the books in this series received four stars from me, I might still try another of her books that I have on my TBR list before deciding whether I'll keep reading her books. Star Rating: ***1/2

Home for Christmas by Dianne Castell - Home for Christmas was 90+ pages of pure matchmaking and battle of the sexes silliness with a little sex thrown in for good measure, and all told at a frenetic pace. The story takes place over about two days time, during which the hero and heroine have sex, fall in love, and are tricked into getting married, in that order. I'm sorry to say I didn't really connect with any of the characters and the plot was too contrived to be even remotely believable. Overall, I wasn't particularly impressed with my first foray into Dianne Castell's storytelling.

Lulu has one of those wildly extroverted personalities and is the type of person who has absolutely no filter between her brain and her mouth. She seems to simply blurt out whatever comes to mind. In my opinion, this was a bad thing, because on the few occasions that Sebastian says something romantic, she negates it by saying something inane (eg. He tells her that her body is beautiful, and she says she's fat when in reality she's just pregnant). Overall Lulu is too mouthy and flighty for me to be able to connect with her, and her insistence upon always calling Sebastian Handsome instead of by his given name annoyed me.

For his part, I had to question Sebastian's judgment. He'd just broken up with his fiancée right before they made it to the altar. He's in the military and about to ship out overseas for a one-year tour of duty. He supposedly caught his fiancée kissing the drummer for a band that was playing at her bachelorette party and didn't want to have to worry about her being faithful to him while he was gone, nor for her to worry about his safety. Then he goes and has sex with pretty much the first woman he meets after the breakup, claims he's in love with her after only one day, and marries her after only two, despite his previous concerns about a wife. Otherwise, Sebastian seemed like a decent guy, but his decision making skills certainly left something to be desired.

As a couple, I honestly don't know what Sebastian and Lulu saw in each other that was supposedly so magnetic. I didn't sense any emotional connection or sexual chemistry between them, and there's no real romance either, only sex. Both of them, especially Lulu, insist that it's only sex too, which is not romantic to me at all. The sex scenes aren't even anything particularly out of the ordinary either, and yet they can't seem to keep their hands off each other. The way it started with them having stranger sex in the park was not my cup of tea. At one point during that encounter, Sebastian mentions wanting to make it special for Lulu because it was special for him, but it certainly didn't feel special. They'd barely met, only known each other for mere minutes, and didn't even know each other's names, but have sex on a park bench in a gazebo in the town square in the dead of winter with snow on the ground. Neither one has any intention of taking their liaison any further, because both think the other is leaving town the next day. Ummm, yeaaah, that's real special. (Normally, I'm not sarcastic in my reviews, but I felt like Sebastian's comment was simply begging for it.) This first love scene was also rather light on details and pretty short, leaving me wondering what the heck was so impressive about the encounter that neither of them could stop thinking about it afterward.

I think perhaps Home for Christmas was supposed to be a humorous story that wasn't meant to be taken too seriously, but despite that, I didn't find it particularly amusing. Anyone who enjoys slapstick-style rom coms might enjoy this one more than I did, but I found it to be so utterly ridiculous that I simply couldn't buy into any part of it. The characters are all one-dimensional with the women coming off as bubble-headed bimbos, and although the men seemed fairly decent, they too were lacking any real depth. The entire novella is mostly made up of banal chit-chat with no meaningful introspection or character development. The plot is so shallow a dingy would run aground in it. I'm not even sure the silly, farcical wedding would have even been considered legal. In spite of there being an epilogue in which the hero and heroine reunite after his one-year tour of duty is up, I couldn't believe that they would have made it for that long much less a lifetime, considering how things started for them. They barely even knew each other before he left for a year, and they spent the entire story arguing. The only thing they both remarked on was the supposedly great sex, which does not a great love or romance make. In my opinion, there simply wasn't any discernible reason for them to be together in the first place, much less stay together long-term.

The mechanics of the writing were rather rough around the edges too. I found lots of typos and errors in sentence structure. There were times when more transition details were badly needed, such as when Sebastian starts putting on a condom when he hasn't even so much as unzipped his pants yet. I also found some continuity errors. I have no idea how Sebastian figured out Lulu's name, and toward the end of the story one of Lulu's brothers-in law essentially bids Sebastian a safe tour when he'd barely met the guy and no one had even mentioned Sebastian was in the service and headed overseas.

I didn't figure out until the end of the story that Home for Christmas is basically a follow-up novella to Dianne Castell's O'Fallons series. The only thing that tipped me off was that in the last chapter all the heroes and heroines of the previous novels show up, and their exchange with Lulu left me feeling like I was missing something. Unfortunately, Home for Christmas did not leave me with any burning desire to go back and read the earlier books. Overall, this little novella was such an unsatisfying read that I won't be actively seeking out any more of Dianne Castell's stories. Star Rating: ** ( )

Have read this several times. Current rating and dates are based on a re-read just of the Foster novella; was very frustrated this time with both leads witholding data from each other, and him chasing her to her family just didn't sit right (though without it I know there wouldn't have been a story). Not sure when/if I'll re-read the other two stories, but don't expect a final rating above 3 for the set. ( )

Read for Lori Foster's short story. Typical Lori Foster. Way more characters than there needed to be. ( )