The Christmas Basket
Prolific, bestselling romance novelist Macomber offers fans a stocking stuffer for the Christmas season. Twenty-eight-year-old workaholic Noelle McDowell takes a rare vacation from her high-powered computer company in Dallas to come home to smalltown Rose, Ore., for the holidays and help plan her sister's wedding. Noelle hasn't been to Rose in 10 years-ever since her high school sweetheart jilted her. Theirs was a secret romance because their mothers, one-time best friends, had long been engaged in a bitter feud that began when Sarah McDowell borrowed Mary Sutton's antique tea service and never returned it. A silly popcorn-throwing incident at the movies brings Noelle and her ex, Thom-now a handsome executive at a prosperous startup-together again. They discover they're still in love. But will their warring families ruin their second chance for happiness? Their mothers, coincidentally assigned to the same volunteer job-filling Christmas baskets for the needy-begin their charity mission with a vicious toy-throwing fight at a local mall. Will an accident during an ice storm provide an occasion for their reconciliation? There aren't exactly any hairpin plot turns in this formulaic, feel-good, PG-rated contemporary romance. Still, the mom-against-mom catfight adds a dash of hilarity to this lightweight confection. The good, clean holiday fun should satisfy Macomber's fans.Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.