A Colton Family Christmas

Rating:
Summary: Give this one a miss.
Review: I just absolutly hate to give a bad review. However, this is one book I'd skip and spend my money else where. The concept of the story itself was good, but the carry through in the writing was weak.

Three short stories in one, this is about the Colton Family who are celebrating Christmas and a Wedding all at once, when terrorists take over. During the course of the terrorist attack, three couples meet and fall in love.

First the positive: I liked that the women were cool under pressure and strong. I liked that they were classy and smart. I also liked the men who were caring and cute. The story idea was a great one with lots of potential. So although I say give this one a miss, it could be worse.

Now the rest of the information:

Billy who is a big, tough man has decided he'll never fall in love. Immediately after saying this, he walks into a dry cleaners only to fall in love at first sight. The girl is, amazingly, a diplomats daughter. Of course, when he leaves the dry cleaners, Billy doesn't know this, he doesn't know her name, nothing. But just by chance he opens the door during the party, there she is wanting to pick up something she hid as a young girl.

The coincidences in this book, never end and in this story there are more than any other stories. She just happnes to knock on the door he is visiting, terrorists just happen to take over while she's there, they just happen to be upstairs, he just happens to save her and so on. It really stretched the plot of the story and got tiring to read.

In the second story, a hostage negotiator and a swat man who loved each other, still love each other, but got divorced meet again. In an action that just screams STUPID, she decides to walk into the house and meet with the terrorists. This makes it clear to big SWAT man that he loves her and can't live without her. During the course of the night all their previous problems that caused the divorce in he first place just melt away and everything is great.

The tension that I would have expected to build during these stories never appears. The stories lurch along with very little tension between people or because of the situation. I was very dissapointed, because the second story had great potentional that I felt it didn't live up to.

In the third story Ian a very rich man manages to save Juliet a bridesmaid, attending the wedding party. He just happens to notice the cameras stop moving and just manages to get her into a coat closet in time. Despite her yammering and yaking, he manages to find a small crawl space. The cuddle up nice and cozy in a crawl space and get to know each other. After plannign the wedding and setting the date, he decides it's time to go out and save everyone else in the party. He distracts the terrorists when big strong swat man comes in and gets shot in the back.

But all ends well and everyone gets married and thus ends the book.

Rating:
Summary: Mayhem for Christmas . . .
Review: Yep, I agree, might as well skip this. Even Carolyn Zane, who can often be counted on for great humor, fails us here. (The second star, though, is earned mainly by Penelope, a gutsy and witty minor character of hers.) One of the things that most disappointed me here was the lack of follow-through in character development; for example, despite a few indications that he could be an intriguing and complex character, the main bad guy turns out to be your basic not-very-bright thug. A similar problem occurs with the heroine's father in the first story. . .

Plus, there's just nothing very Christmas-ish here at all. Skip it. To see Carolyn Zane pull off the secret agent thing with flair, check out "Georgia Gets Her Groom." If you want to LIKE some of the Coltons, check out Cara Colter's oddly-titled "A Hasty Wedding." If you were mighty disappointed in Ian for behaving like such a hard-headed jerk, check out Faye Robinson's "A Man Like Mac." If you need some real Christmas, get ahold of Rexanne Becnel's "Christmas Journey," which is also good if you were disappointed in Kurt and what's-her-name in the second story here.