A Regency Christmas: Five New Stories
This is a thoroughly charming collection of Regency romances set at Christmastime, each lively and heartwarming without being too sweetly sentimental. Barbara Metzger brings energy, humor, and skill to her exceptional story, "Three Good Deeds," in which a young widow's three sons atone for breaking the vicar's window by reuniting their mother with her former love, the heir to the local manor. Carla Kelly captivates readers in "The Christmas Ornament," an insightful, funny, and moving story of a well-intentioned young man of a scholarly bent whose awkward attempts  to court a childhood friend leads them on an erratic course to perfect understanding. In "Felicity's Forfeit," Elisabeth Fairchild uses traditional Christmas games to unite an American Southern belle and a responsible English lord, who refuses to place his need for money above his desire for love, despite his family's mysteriously lost funds. Author Allison Lane provides a "Second Chance" for a governess with a sad and secret past and an earl's younger son, whom she loved and lost years ago. And in "Hounds of Heaven," Edith Layton gives a large and devoted puppy named Titania the unique task of teaching a proud but obtuse lord--whose marriage proposal has been inexplicably rejected--a much-needed lesson about the true nature of fidelity and the real blessings of love.--Ellen Edwards