Title: Stocking Up for Christmas
Authors: Kari Shuey, Quinn Marlowe, et al.
Date: 2023
Publisher: Rhetoric Askew
Quote: "You should be running your own bakery."
This mini-book collection offers fantasies to suit a variety of taste, though it begins and ends with sweet romances featuring bakers. These thirteen novelettes tour the most "romantic" regions of the United States, from Washington state (where the go-getter baker revives a small town) through Texas, Hollywood, Virginia, ending in New England. Each story mentions Christmas, though not all make the holiday a focal point. No story is explicitly Christian; one is a Pagan-friendly remake of "It's a Wonderful Life." Christmas may be the background for the happy ending, or for the dramatic crisis.
What some readers will love is what others will hate. It's not all sweet romance. There are witch and vampire stories, torrid romances where the characters flop into bed first and get married later, and one story about a geeky girl whose decision to lose her virginity in a sex club leads directly to True Love. I suppose that might have happened somewhere in the real world, but I never heard where or when.
If you have a wide range of fantasies, this book is for you. My guess would be that everyone will flip impatiently through at least one or two stories they find distasteful, but most readers will also find some stories to like. Each novelette ties into at least one full-length novel by the same author.
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