Author: Jeanette MurrayTitle: No Mistletoe Required
Publisher: Carina Press
Publish Date: Nov 5, 2012
Buy: Amazon
Review Copy Provided By: Net Galley
Book Blurb:Dan Beckins isn't sure how he let his best friend con him into volunteering to build Santa's Winter Wonderland at the local hospital. He's got no problems with charity work, but anything Christmas-related is off-limits ever since he lost his parents on Christmas Day years ago. The only bright spot is working with smoking-hot Anna Smith.
Anna Smith loves Christmas and volunteering at the hospital is one of her yearly highlights. She had leukemia as a teen and then a breast cancer scare in her mid-twenties, and is now operating under a self-imposed rule that she can't have a relationship until the doctors give her a clean bill of health.
A little fling might be permissible, though, and sexy lawyer-turned-carpenter Dan seems like the perfect candidate. But when chemistry flares and the two start forming a real connection, will Anna run away before like turns to love?
Review: This is a short holiday novella from Jeanette Murray. It has all the elements of a great book, but it suffers because of the length. (Only about 70 pages). There's so much to Dan and Anna, that giving them such a short story doesn't seem to be fitting. Both characters have a lot of past baggage that is getting in the way of their relationship.
Its the baggage that really weighs the story down. Not bad writing, not even a bad story line. This plot would have been great if it were even about 90 pages longer than it was. I wanted to know more about the things Dan and Anna went through, not just a brief mention of her cancer scare or the death of his parents.
I guess all I can say is I wanted more.
I connected with the characters. I even understood the reasons for why they did the things they did, most of the time, but I really just wanted more time with them.
This story was good, but it had the potential to be great, it just didn't quite make it there.
I hope I get the chance to read something by Jeanette Murray again, and I hope it is a little bit longer.
Rating: 3 flowers
2 comments:
Sounds like a nice one! I am not a huge fan on short stories though. Lovely Review!
Oh that's a real shame. I read one recently that had much of that same problem. Where they had complicated pasts and it was just barely touched on since it was such a short novella.
Sounds like she'd be worth checking out in her full length stories though! Thanks for the heads up. She's an author I'd never heard of before :)
Anna
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