Review: Small Town Christmas – Jill Shalvis, Hope Ramsay, Katie Lane

Small Town Christmas by Jill Shalvis, Hope Ramsay and Katie Lane
Series:
Release Date:  November 1, 2011
Publisher:   Grand Central Publishing
Page Count:  136
Source:  NetGalley
Buy the book at: Amazon 

Three heartwarming holiday stories
to prove that love is the greatest gift of all

Kissing Santa Claus
NASCAR driver Logan Perrish returns to Lucky Harbor, Washington, with love in his heart and a ring in his pocket. But can Sandy Jansen forget the past and give him a second chance? Or will Logan be spending another Christmas alone?

I’ll Be Home for Christmas
After ignoring the advice of Miz Miriam Randall, local matchmaker, Annie Roberts expects another hum drum holiday in Last Chance, South Carolina. But when a stray cat arrives in the arms of Army sergeant Matt Jasper, a calico named Holly just may be the best matchmaker of all.

O Little Town of Bramble
All Ethan Miller wants for Christmas is to celebrate in Bramble, Texas, with family and friends. But when his childhood neighbor, Samantha Henderson, comes home for the holiday, Ethan realizes that the girl-next-door could be the girl of his dreams.

I’m not generally one for anthology stories.  They’re too short for me (I need substance!!), but I got this one because I had to know what happened with Logan after Tara and Ford got back together in Jill Shalvis’ Kissing Santa Claus.


For the Jill Shalvis story, this was Jill Shalvis crammed into a tiny box.  I love Jill Shalvis, but I need Jill to have lots of space and pages to let the story flow.

Logan and Sandy had some “stuff” to work out before they could get their HEA, but I guess with a Christmas short we can bypass all that messy stuff and skip right to the I love you’s and want to marry you’s in front of the entire town having Christmas breakfast.

That said, it was Jill Shalvis so I enjoyed it.

The other two stories we further proof that I don’t like anthologies.  I’ll Be Home For Christmas was so rushed that I didn’t feel like I could connect or care about any of the characters.  And in O Little Town of Bramble I felt like I just walked into the middle of a tornado.  There was so much thrown at you so fast without any time to really get a fell for why things were happening that I threw my hands up and said “whatever”.

If you’re looking for some quick holiday stories, this may be for you.  Me, I truly need to stay away from the anthologies because they just don’t work for me.