Review: Cute and Heartwarming Stories but plagued by editing issues.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 11 18, 2013
CHRISTMAS ROMANCE OF 2013 is a sweet collection of four short stories that will warm your heart and bring you some cheer during the holiday season.  Overall, I give it three stars and recommend another round of revisions, including making the page layout and formatting conducive to reading the pdf on a computer or e-reader.CHRISTMAS WISHES by Danica Winters tells the story of two people who are still grieving the loss of a significant loved one – Albert, his wife Brooke, and Lee, her son Daniel.  Albert and Lee meet at the cemetery, the graves being adjacent to one another.  A second chance meeting outside of a diner results in Albert and Lee spending Christmas together with Albert’s daughter, Penny.  Even though Christmas dinner is a disaster, these three feel the blessings of new friendships and new possibilities that go a long way to healing their broken hearts.I enjoyed CHRISTMAS WISHES because it was so appropriate for so many people.  Few people have “Normal Rockwell” Christmases, and CHRISTMAS WISHES highlights the fact that anything is possible if we give God a chance to work.  The romance is sweet, focusing on the stresses and difficulties of the holiday rather than the physical attraction between Albert and Lee.  This story is definitely a good read for teens and adults alike.  Despite a few editing issues and a page layout that isn’t conducive to either computer or e-reader, I highly recommend this story for your holiday reading.CENTRAL BARK AT CHRISTMAS by Jennifer Connor tells the story of Tennyson and Parkash, two dog lovers who meet at the dog park and bond over an abandoned dog.  Both have to gather their courage to move forward in life; Tennyson has to get over her last relationship, and Parkash has to take a stand with his father about his future in the family company.I had trouble enjoying CENTRAL BARK AT CHRISTMAS because, although the substance of the story was cute, the pervasive grammar, punctuation and editing issues seriously detracted from the story.  Inaccuracies and inconsistencies in descriptors, awkward word choices, awkward sentence and paragraph structuring, misused homonyms, incorrect or missing punctuation, subject-verb disagreements and verb-object disagreements plagued this story.  The romance was believable until the very end when both dog lovers declare their love for each other; it was just too quick and lacked enough foundational support from the plot for me to believe it.If this story were revised with a fine tooth comb and an eye for the issues noted here, the likeable characters and sweet plot could be enjoyed by teen and adult readers alike.HALO’S WISH by Sharon Kleve tells the story of Halo and Rich, another pair of animal lovers, who meet while Halo is undercover at Pemsky security, investigating Pemsky’s role in some animal abduction and ransom cases.  Rich is immediately interested in Halo, but Halo very clearly tells Rich that she can’t date him because she is focused on her career.  Pemsky is convicted, but once out of jail, he attempts to kill Halo.  Will Halo come to her senses and agree to date Rich before it’s too late?I did not enjoy Halo’s Wish.  It felt stiff and awkward.  The story had several subplot-lines that did nothing but mark time and add to the jolting feel of the story.  The Pemsky plotline seemed like the main plot, but then Pemsky fell off the page for so long, I wondered whether he was significant at all.  The characters could also use further developing.  Halo’s parents make a pre-Christmas appearance, which was an opportunity to develop Halo’s character, but in the end, it felt like their appearance was merely to explain Halo’s new Sunshine yellow car, rather than help illustrate Halo as a person.  So many opportunities to add depth to the characters were missed.My biggest issue with this story was the romance, which was so thin as to be non-existent.  Rich McFarlane is too forward to be attractive.  What is supposed to be a sexy come-on at Pemsky’s office is just creepy.  His forwardness, in reality, is assault, both criminal and civil.  Moreover, at the end of the story, Halo thinks to herself that she doesn’t know Rich McFarlane well enough to buy him a Christmas present; but apparently they know each other well enough for Rich to call her honey, and sweetie and to kiss her whenever and wherever possible?  The relationship just did not make sense to me.  It needed a lot more substance for me to believe it.Add to all of that some serious grammar and editing issues, and this was a difficult story to get through.A CHRISTMAS HOPE by Casey Dawes tells the story of Clara and Sam, two people who have suffered through the loss of a loved one around the Christmas holidays, but who have had very different reactions.  Clara is positivity incarnate and believes that celebrating the holiday is a way to honor her father.  Sam approaches the holiday like Scrooge, refusing even to acknowledge the day.  Clara and Sam meet when she approaches him with a business idea, and even though he rejects her idea at first, Clara perseveres to make her business a success, ultimately bringing Sam around to her holiday philosophy as well.At first, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of this story, but then I realized that what I was feeling was Clara’s uber-optimistic streak that her ex-husband called “flighty.”  Clara is definitely a dreamer, and I’m more pragmatic.  So it took me a bit to warm up to her.  I understood Sam’s perspective much more easily, and like Sam, I was feeling the warmth of the Christmas season before the end of the story.I’m so glad that the epilogue illustrated the time lapse between that first meeting and Clara moving to Roxbury.  It added the depth and substance of Clara and Sam’s relationship necessary to make it credible.There were some distracting editing mishaps, including places where Clara’s name was spelled Carla, but by the end of the story, I was focused more on the uplifting success of Clara’s business and growing friendships in Roxbury than I was the editing.  I definitely enjoyed this story.