Review: A Cute Holiday Romance
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 12 27, 2012
After reading an almost-800-page-long Michael Jackson biography, I wanted something short, sweet, warm, fuzzy, and sexy to bury myself into and to put me back in a holiday mood. This new story from Nancy Warren was exactly what I was looking for.The heroine, Lucy Daniels, is thirty-two, neither stunning and too thin nor very successful. She is in desperate need of a good-looking and accomplished man to impress her family at Christmas. Lucy does not have a boyfriend, ideal or otherwise, so she puts together a profile and starts online dating. She has only six weeks to find the man of her mother's dreams, and time is running out. Who will accompany Lucy to her patronizing family's Christmas dinner? Will it be gorgeous, wealthy, and foolproof Emilio or average-looking and unemployed Josh? Someone else perhaps? Or will Lucy decide to face her family alone? You'll need to read the book to find out.Reading this genre of literature usually calls for a suspension of reality, and I am ready to do so every time I pick up a romance. To my surprise, this time I did not have to. Finding Mr. Perfect with the sole purpose of impressing one's family is something I've done in my past. That being said, I could really relate to Lucy and connect with her way of viewing herself and the world. Although I had been younger than Lucy at the time, her insecurities and uncertainties were very familiar, and some of her dates were similar to those I'd had. I very much enjoyed Lucy's adventures, and I was happy for her at the end.The 12 Dates of Christmas was a short story which took me only a couple of hours to read. Like the majority of romance books, it was predictable, but it was funny, the ending had a surprising twist, and the main characters' unusual journey kept me entertained.Nancy Warren is on my list of favorites. She is a wonderful storyteller. I love her humor, her characters are always well developed, and her romance novels are usually hot and spicy--just the way I like them. This novella is an exception; it is clean and sweet (however, the sweetness is not overdone; you won't need an insulin shot after reading it), and while there is chemistry between the couple, there are no sex scenes in the book, but I liked it all the same.Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, everyone!