Review: Interesting concept - great stories
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 10 11, 2012
Sherry Thomas and Courtney Milan are two of my favorite authors so I was thrilled to be able to read a short story by both of them. I`d never read anything by Carolyn Jewel but that`s the great thing about anthologies - you can meet new authors. The concept was interesting. All three authors situated their stories in and around the same house but at different times in history. What impressed me was how interwoven the three stories were. Where the heroine in the first story planted a tree, the tree grew in the two other stories. And the hero and heroine of the first story made a short but important appearance in the second story - it was lovely to see them again as an aging but still loving couple.The stories had a few things in common apart from the house they took place in. The first two stories had a hero who was bitter at the heroine for some wrong he thought she`d done him. In the third story it was the heroine who was bitter - not at the hero but at the man she`d been in love with since she was a teenager, a man she`d imagined to finally have a future with. The two first stories also had that in common that you as a reader don`t  know what had happened to make the hero react the way he did.One Starlit Night by Carolyn Jewel was a story about very young love that for various reasons ended and how the two parties got on with their lives until they, in this short story, meet again. I felt truly sorry for the heroine. She`d been dealt some rotten cards by life and now she found herself in an impossible situation. Not a dramatically impossible situation with death and destruction but after her brother had married she was relegated to being woman number 2 in the household and woman number 1, the wife, was extremely selfish without realizing it herself.She story started out a bit slowly and I had to read and reread the first couple of pages to understand what relationship the hero and the heroine had to one another. There was also some confusion in how the hero looked at the heroine and I don`t think this was on purpose. All in all it was a beautiful story and I was glad to see the HEA, but the story was the weakest of the three in my opinion. The transition from bitterness to love was abrupt and it felt as if the hero had a slight change of personality. But all in all a very readable story and an admirable heroine, which is the best kind.What Happened at Midnight by Courtney Milan was also a story about a couple who`d met prior to the beginning of this short story. They are now involved in a crime, or rather he suspects her of being involved in her father`s crime. It was interesting to see the heroine grow throughout the story and I enjoyed seeing her find her own strength again - especially considering what she had to go through. I hated seeing how the hero doubted her but I liked it too because that`s what would happen in real life. People in love are often the quickest to judge the person they`re in love with. Like the first story, it was heartbreaking what the heroine was subjected to and I was glad she found her way through.A Dance in Moonlight by Sherry Thomas was a different kind of story from what we usually get in the HR department. First of all, the heroine is the "other woman" in the very beautifulRavishing the Heiress (Berkley Sensation). The hero of that book was in love with her when he had to marry the heroine of that book for financial reasons. That leaves the "other woman" without the man she`s loved since she was a teenager and, though many people probably hated her in Ravishing the Heiress, I felt sorry for her. I was therefor glad to see her finding love of her own - even if (or maybe because of) it was in a peculiar way. This was a quiet little short story but I think it was my favorite of the three. I do love how Sherry Thomas takes chances with plots "everyone" hates and turns them into something beautiful. She`s done it plenty of times and she did it again in this short story where she "grants" love to a woman most of her fans have come to hate.All in all this was a good book with three great short stories. The two authors I knew already confirmed my positive opinion of them and the third one made me curious about her other books. I can recommend this book!