A Dixie Christmas by Sandra Hill

Summary:

Two magnolias-and-mistletoe-inspired holiday stories from the bestselling author of more than thirty romantic, humorous novels.
Laughter and love combine in Sandra Hill's BLUE CHRISTMAS-with a touch of Elvis magic. Wealthy Wall Street businessman Clayton Jessup III has only one reason for arriving in Memphis a few days before Christmas-to sell off his inheritance, an embarrassingly kitschy hotel named The Blue Suede Suites. His feelings for the Land of Elvis are dark: his long-dead Memphis mother abandoned him and his dad when Clay was a baby, and now Clay wants nothing to do with a southern legacy that couldn't be more different from his sophisticated big-city life.
But then he steps in trouble-literally-when he confronts the bizarre group of Elvis impersonators who've set up a living Nativity scene on his property. One slip of a wingtip in some sheep poop lands Clay in the care of gorgeous Annie Fallon, whose big-haired Elvis-girlfriend get-up can't hide her wholesome, sexy appeal. Annie and her brothers have set up the Nativity scene to earn some badly needed money for their struggling dairy farm.
The last thing she needs is an angry Yankee with a concussion and a come-hither smile . . .
In JINX CHRISTMAS, sexy NASCAR star Lance Caslow makes a last-ditch effort to win back his ex-wife Brenda. Five years ago, his reckless pursuit of racetrack fame tore them apart and broke Brenda's heart. Now Lance shows up in Louisiana determined to make things right this Christmas, not just for himself and Brenda, but for their young daughter, Patti.
He's got his work cut out for him, and desperate measures are needed. Lance will do anything to prove he's worthy of Brenda's trust again-even join the Cajun Christmas show starring a raucous Cajun family whose menfolk dance for charity events in little more than a smile . . .

Summary taken from Goodreads.com

Length: 140 pages (paperback)

Source: Kindle Freebie

Publication Date: November 18th 2011 by Bell Bridge Books

Let's cut to the chase here shall we?

I didn't like this book at all.

It gave me a migraine.

A couple of weeks ago one of my Goodreads groups was having a 24 hour read-a-thon and in an effort to meet one of the criteria for a prize I decided to read a few on my shorter kindle freebies that I've gotten and get them out of the way.

Despite the fact that this book only has a 2.76/5.00 star rating on Goodreads I thought that it would be perfect for the challenge as it's short, Christmasy (I don't mind reading Christmas themed books through out the year) and the fact that the author is pretty successful, but this one just didn't live up to my low expectations.

I went into it thinking I would be reading two little cute contemporary romance novellas set around the merriest time of the year unfortunately I was met with a poor plot, week characters and over all lazy writing. I say lazy writing because it seems as though the author was just pumping out a disjointed story just for the sake of writing a book in order to capitalize on the holidays. That in itself isn't a bad thing really but I personally expected there to be more effort.

I found all the characters to be very annoying and just as poorly thought out and written as the plots themselves were. None of them made very much sense and surprisingly there was nothing redeemable about them either. Especially the hero Clayton Jessup from the first novella Blue Christmas. He was an ass and of course while the author gave the heroine a bit of a backbone she still basically ended up going along with the hero's way of thinking and doing as he said. As for the other couple in the second story Jinx Christmas that too was just a mess. Though it was slightly more enjoyable than the first novella it just didn't really raise the book up very much in my esteem.

I for one am glad that I got this one while it was a kindle freebie some time ago because if I had paid the $4.75 that Amazon is currently charging for it I would not have been pleased at all. I would not recommend this book to anyone because I didn't find anything enjoyable for it, though if one of my followers has read it or does read it in the future and likes it than that's great. Stop by and tell me so.

As for me I will try the author's other works out especially her historical romance ones.

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★