Review: The Holiday Present by Johanna Lindsey




Imprint: Avon
Date of Release: 07/15/2014
Pages: 480
List Price: 5.50 USD
BISAC1: FICTION / Romance / Historical / General
BISAC2: FICTION / Romance / General
Buy Link: http://www.harpercollins.com/9780062374189/the-holiday-present
Sexual Content: 2 / 5



Synopses


The Present: The love story that began the Mallory dynasty. Miracles have been known to happen in this season of peace and giving and love, as this dramatic story of a mysterious exotic gypsy that became the bride of a duke shows.

Home for the Holidays: A treasured gift of love, tenderness, and ecstasy unbound. An enchanting story of a young impoverished gentlewoman and the mysterious gentleman whose heart is melted by her beauty.

Review


Two stories for the price of one.

The First Story

. . . refers to the Mallory series players and explains the head of the clan and how it was that Anastasia and Christopher Mallory came together.

The beginning was a bit tedious because I had difficulty trying to remember the details of any of the Mallory stories I'd read so long ago. James was the only one who stuck out in my mind, but I had him married to another woman entirely and so got more confused as the chapters went on.

The kids discover an unmarked grave in the forest on the property and inquire about it as they all gather together for another Christmas. Then they find a mysterious 'present' set atop a pedestal near the tree and start to wonder about it until curiosity overcomes Amy and she decides to just open the thing before Christmas morning even arrives.

We then are taken back two generations and learn the story of Christopher Mallory and how he meets gypsy Anastasia on his property; how they fall in love and how they rectify his status over hers.

The love story was simple but very romantic, and I adored Christopher descriptively, to say the least.

I also, now, need to go back and re-read a majority of these Mallory Clan novels just to refresh my memory so this story makes better sense :D

The Second Story

. . . is fabulous.

A short, sweet, and concise accounting of two people tossed together on a dastardly whim who can't help but fall for one another in the brief time they are together, and even if it isn't what either of them want or had intended to have happen in their bitter and distrustful moods.

Larissa Ascot is Baron Vincent Everette's latest target of revenge. He's received word that his younger brother committed suicide over bad dealings with Larissa's ship captain/merchant father and so Vincent sets out to destroy the Ascots.

Once he lays his liquid gold eyes on the beauty and her aquamarine orbs, things take a strange yet understandable turn for our handsome, reclusive, and thought-he-was-immune-to-emotions Baron.

Vincent was easily charming and just as easy to like even if he did start out on the wrong foot. And, the more we learn about him, the easier it becomes to fall in love with him -- as easily as it was for our innocent Larissa to do the same.

She is evicted from her home on a cold, snowy night a week before Christmas, and with a sickly ten-year old brother upstairs and no money left in the coffers, and with her father still not returned from his latest voyage long after he is due, Larissa is beside herself with grief and worry when Baron Vincent Everette arrives to seemingly save the day.

He offers her shelter at his town house in another part of London and from there the story takes shape, unfolds seamlessly, and then crescendo's with the return of her believed-to-be-dead father.

Cold-hearted Vincent has fallen hard and fast, but now that the truth is out, it isn't likely he will ever get the chance to tell Larissa how he really feels. He's hurt her in the most despicable of ways and made a huge mess of things.

She never wants to see him again, and he can't blame her.

I would definitely recommend this to anyone who loves Lindsey and has read all of the Mallory tales, but for the second story alone, it is worth the price and the time it takes to read both.


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