Title: Melody's Christmas
Author: I.D. Johnson
Publisher: I.D. Johnson
Quote: "Even though it had been nearly two
years since her father had passed away, there wasn’t a day that went
by that she didn’t miss him."
Melody came back from Chicago to live with her mother in Charles Town, West Virginia, "so they could be sad together." Being surrounded by mementos of her father, who loved Christmas decorations, music, and the Christmas program at the First Baptist Church, is overkill. She's at risk of having a miserable Christmas alone with grief, and maybe even opposition to her mother's having a merrier social life, when she meets the son she didn't know she'd always wanted.
As regular readers know, I believe teenagers do not need and should not have to live with step-parents, step-siblings, even half-siblings of the opposite sex. The Bible and history show us that that's hazardous to the mental health of all involved. But six-year-olds whose mothers died or moved out when they were only a few months old, who are actively soliciting for stepmothers, might be a different thing. Though paperback romance publishers used to have a policy that stepchildren were anti-romantic, "Single Dads" are now a popular theme for Kindle and Book Funnel romances. Some women who can't have children dream of falling in love with a child first, then finding it possible to love the perfect child's father.
So Melody meets sweet, somewhat spoiled and manipulative, little Michael who has noticed that after-school day care is full of babies and Nickelodeon, and goes around inviting himself to the homes of attractive single women and saying things like "I asked Santa Claus to bring me a new mother." Michael's father is even warier of Melody because his six-year-old son fell in love with her first. This is, however, a sweet holiday romance, so Melody's and Reid's mutual wariness, based in a healthy desire not to let Michael lose another mother, only proves that they're perfect for each other and for Michael. You knew that. There is no suspense about the main plot in a sweet holiday romance. The fun lies in watching the characters approach and avoid, misunderstand and reconcile, and Johnson delivers plenty of that kind of fun.
Isn't it fun when Book Funnel writers reach a consensus on which of the Booktober Blitz books deserve to be printed and stocked in public libraries? This web site saw them first--Tara and Her Grumpy Second Chance, Rekindled Hearts, Murder 101, Rural Retreat to Die For, and (wait for it!) Second Chance at Sugarplums are genre fiction, but they're good genre fiction! In the past two days, four writers who didn't order advance review copies have e-mailed to rave about Tara and Timmy. If you like sweet romances and cozy mysteries, you will like these. I will be reading more in other genres after Christmas.
No comments:
Post a Comment