Review: An okay read BUT interesting potential
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 01 27, 2014
I think this book could start a new genre. We have inspiration/Christian and Amish but there is no gap between tradition romance novels and spiritual ones. Meaning there's no sex. It's rare. VERY rare. Almost unlikely to find a book similar to this one.The hero and heroine are a married couple and they have sex. That's right. They have sex. We know it. We read about it. In most Christian romance novels there's the ending where the H and h have a child. There's the fade to black scenes where we know they're doing the forbidden nasty. But you never read about it in detail. Married for Christmas bridges that gap. In a tasteful way.I didn't feel disgusting reading their sex scenes like I do with 90% of romance novels. There's no 50 Shades of Ridiculous type of popular sex scenes that are taking over every romance novel. It's not clinical but not degrading either.They just have sex. They're married and they want children and they do it because well they're adults and it's pleasurable and they ARE married.The story wasn't great. It was kind of sad and heartbreaking. The heroine is in love with her husband but he's cold and makes her feel bad unknowingly all throughout the book by his lack of attempts to seek comfort and friendship and companionship with her.They marry because they want children.He's still in love with his deceased wife and she's his best friend. Marriage makes "sense". IMO, it took way too long for the hero to come to his senses and realize that he loves the heroine. He figures this out at the very end of the book. Like the last page so the story is kind of pointless. He's not really falling in love if it takes him until she's one foot out the door to realize it.But I do applaud Ms. Adams for incorporating sex scenes into a spiritual story. Now I wouldn't call this a Christian story because the characters aren't shysters who just quote scripture like an robot and talk the talk yet don't walk the walk. Too many/most Christian romances just have characters memorizing Scripture and spitting it out verbatim every other page yet the story and characters are lacking.The heroine is nice yet blah but the hero leaves much to be desired.In way this story was too much for the author. She wins incorporating the VERY tasteful sex scenes in yet loses when it comes to the actual story. Can't win 'em all. But the fact that she did "win" on trying something uncommon is enough for 3 stars. The story is just so lacking so it's just an okay good.