A Home for Christmas, Book Two in the Angel Ridge Series
Deborah Grace-StanleyMainstream romance
Available from Echelon Press
ISBN: 1-59080-353-1
August 2004
| Janice, a doctor, is only visiting Angel Ridge to meet her great-uncle when she meet Blake. She drives by her grandparents' old home, now owned by Blake, and can't help but stop to look at it. When Blake falls off a ladder while putting up Christmas lights, she has to run to his aid, especially since she's a doctor. He's fine, in more ways than one. Something passes between them while they talk and Blake offers to let her help him put up the lights. And when Janice fails to react to his brother, the man all women seem susceptible to, Blake thinks he might have a chance with her. That thought it cemented when Janice's great-uncle asks her to take over his practice and she accepts, after a very thought-provoking tragedy occurs in her life. But she also doesn't believe Blake, or anyone else, could accept her career. She has no intention of putting someone above her patients.
A Home for Christmas is a contemporary mainstream romance that relies heavily on its characters. There are no subplots beyond the romance, which should please fans wishing for more romance-centered books. Janice seemed like a very sensible heroine, and that was brought home to me even further after one of her elderly patients died alone. She ended up thinking very hard about her choices in life, and what they might mean in the future. I was very touched by that part of the book. However, when she began trying to push the residents of Angel Ridge away, she came off as very rude and I was tempted to stop reading. Her reasons were later explained, and I understood them, but I didn't completely like her as much as I had before. There was a bit of lag in the middle of the story, but overall the book had a steady flow. Blake was a bit of a contradiction. He seemed both self-assured and self-conscious, and he seemed like a strongly independent man, yet was willing to bend to Janice's emotionally-inclined decisions about their relationship. A Home for Christmas is, ultimately, a very sweet romance with an emotionally poignant story.
Overall rating:
Reviewer: Tara Black |
