Home for the Holidays

Rating:
Summary: A Romantic Dud
Review: Christmas-themed "Home for the Holidays" is pretty trite. It's not JL's worst romance ("Captive Bride" and "Paradise Wild" tie for most awful ever), but "Home" severely lacks in the passion and character departments. Neither Vincent nor Larissa have interesting or compelling personalities. All we really know about them is Vincent has no feelings and Larissa is so innocent and compassionate she spends most of the book crying. Worse, Larissa is a spineless boor of a heroine; she has no interesting dialogue, no background whatsoever to speak of, and no real reason to fall in love with Vincent. She doesn't even really get mad, when her situation begs for a spirited tantrum or two. As for Vincent, he had potential to be interesting, but the brevity of this novel (it's a novella, really) and JL's awful tell-don't-show narration kept him from blossoming into a full-blown hero. Unfortunately, the only reasons he falls for her are 1) she's gorgeous and 2) he's lonely. Shallow in the extreme. I'd advise skipping "Home for the Holidays" and settling down with a marvelous JL romance instead. Those who enjoy westerns should read "Savage Thunder"; for medieval, read "Defy Not the Heart"; for sci-fi romance, read "Warrior's Woman"; for Regency, begin the Malory Family series with "Love Only Once"; for a good rags-to-riches JL, read "Once A Princess;" or for something a little shocking, try "Secret Fire" (risqué) or "Prisoner of My Desire" (a true jaw-dropper).

Rating:
Summary: A Light, Fun Read
Review: Compared to Ms. Lindsey's other works, I can see where this one is receiveing its poor votes. However, I understood that this story is a short story, more like a novella than a novel, perhaps something the other readers might have missed. True, this book is marketed as a novel, and even has a deceptively large page count, however, upon opening the book, you'll notice the large double spaced print and blank Chapter pages. While this might seem like an unfair marketing ploy, I do not fault Ms. Lindsey for this. Otherwise, if this story were printed in the same type face as her other novels, I doubt this one would exceed more than 200 to 250 pages.

Having written and read many short stories myself, I can identify with this story well and understand where the author was going. You don't have "time" to outline an intricate plot and character development must be swift to get to the meat of the story.

The characters are great, however as a writer, I immediately saw one thing I would have done differently in this story. Larissa had a HUGE heart, and always felt tears spring up at the stories of Vincent's hardships as a child and the fact that he never celebrated Christmas. Why, then, would this sensitive woman *not* get him a Christmas present? I realize they had a falling out on Christmas Eve, but I thought that would have been one more great way to show how good she was and how horrible he would have felt at the knowledge that she had made/bought him a gift.

Other than that one little peeve of mine, this book was worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: A Light, Fun Read
Review: Compared to Ms. Lindsey's other works, I can see where this one is receiveing its poor votes. However, I understood that this story is a short story, more like a novella than a novel, perhaps something the other readers might have missed. True, this book is marketed as a novel, and even has a deceptively large page count, however, upon opening the book, you'll notice the large double spaced print and blank Chapter pages. While this might seem like an unfair marketing ploy, I do not fault Ms. Lindsey for this. Otherwise, if this story were printed in the same type face as her other novels, I doubt this one would exceed more than 200 to 250 pages.

Having written and read many short stories myself, I can identify with this story well and understand where the author was going. You don't have "time" to outline an intricate plot and character development must be swift to get to the meat of the story.

The characters are great, however as a writer, I immediately saw one thing I would have done differently in this story. Larissa had a HUGE heart, and always felt tears spring up at the stories of Vincent's hardships as a child and the fact that he never celebrated Christmas. Why, then, would this sensitive woman *not* get him a Christmas present? I realize they had a falling out on Christmas Eve, but I thought that would have been one more great way to show how good she was and how horrible he would have felt at the knowledge that she had made/bought him a gift.

Other than that one little peeve of mine, this book was worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: Worth Reading
Review: I can understand the reviews for Home for the Holidays is either a book you like or you don't. It's somewhat dark, but ends happily so. Reminds me of a scrooge tale.

Rating:
Summary: A book with potential not realized
Review: I thought this book was mediocre. I thought it read like a very
good rough draft, not a finished product. Less than half way
through, I put it down for a few days and then came back to it,
because I rarely leave a book unfinished and I wanted to give it
a fair chance. It just seemed to lack a lot of details needed
for a good romance.

Rating:
Summary: SOOOOOOOO Disappointing
Review: I was so upset with this book, I threw it out when I finished reading it!! I love Johanna Lindsey and own almost all of her novels, but this one is beyond stupid...I could not get into it. It took me five days to finish it and I usually read a book in a day. I only finished it because I dont like leaving a book unread. The characters are so ridiculous, they never develope, and I hate Larissa. She is so naive and stupid, and who in their right minds would just let a man(and practically a stranger at that) into her bed after only a few weeks, especially after he kicked her out of her house!! I wait longer than that for some of my boyfriends and I generally like them! There was no plot, no developement of a relationship, it was terrible. I would say to anyone who is interested try Johanna's Malory series or Savage Thunder, or Captive Bride. Those are true Lindsey works, not this garbage.

Rating:
Summary: Sensual and Fascinating
Review: Our hero Vincent and heroine Larissa are very passionate people who find themselves torn between the incredible attraction they feel for each other and the strong reasons why they should rather hate one another. Home For The Holidays is a very sensual and fascinating story of how these well drawn characters learn to look beyond prejudices and into the value of another human being. This is a highly entertaining read which I highly recommend.

Rating:
Summary: a bitter-sweet romance=>very nice
Review: this is the first Johanna Lindsey book i'v ever read. i liked the story a lot and thought that the concept was very special. a very nice romance novel. it was bitter, yet sweet but most of all it really was a nice story.i mean it's alwayz the kool guy uses a good way to get a gurl. but this one was different. and in the end it turns out ok. though this book had quite a few difficult words, i liked the story a lot. i had my nose stuck in it. after reading this book, i had a very strong will to read more of Ms.lindsey's novels.
i read a few of the reviews for this book and it seems that most readers don't enjoy the book as much as i did. but i would still recommend this book to readers and especially people who would read ms.lindsey's book for the first time to get warmed up in her magic world. other readers say that her other boox are much better then this one, so i'll b looking forward to reading them

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing Lindsey
Review: This was the worst Johanna Lindsey book yet. The plot was very superficial and I never could make myself care about the characters. It was extremely short and not very well written. I have read all of her other books and have really liked most of them. This one read like it was written in one day. What a disappointment.