Thoughts of a Reader

This novel is a collection of four novellas: “The Christmas Clue Finding You” by Pepper Basham, “Silver Bell Secrets” by Cara Putman, “An Unscripted Christmas” by Teresa Tysinger, and “Dreams in Toyland” by Janine Rosche.  I have read books by two of the four authors and really enjoyed them which is one reason I wanted to read this collection.  The other reason is that it is set in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina at Christmas.

The first novella in the collection called “The Christmas Clue Finding You” was such a sweet romantic story that also had elements of forgiveness.  It warmed my heart as I was reading it.  It definitely made it so I wanted to live in the town of Kedgewick Creek and participate in the Christmas scavenger hunt.

“Silver Bell Secrets” is the next novella and it is also such a great story.  It pulls at your heart for Avery to not feel comfortable with her learning disability.  As the reader, you are wishing she would realize that it is not something she should be ashamed of or trying to hide.

“An Unscripted Christmas” is novella number three in the collection.  In this story, you have a couple that has been married for awhile and are having issues to the point of wondering if they’ll make it.  I found myself wanting to jump in and help them with their problems because you can tell they are so cute together when things are going well.  And I also found myself knowing a great solution to part of their problem which just added to the desire to make a jump into the story.

“Dreams in Toyland” is the fourth and final novella of this collection.  It is such a cute romantic comedy and has a good life lesson of not judging a book by its cover at the heart of the story.

I have to say this is one of the few Christmas collections I have read in which I could not pick a favorite novella.  They were all fantastic in their own way and I enjoyed reading every single one.  I have to say I thoroughly love going to the North Carolina mountains and these stories made me feel like I was right there.  I definitely recommend this collection.

This is the first book I have read by Rachel Scott McDaniel. You will be captivated from the very beginning of this novel. It is set in the 1920s in Pittsburgh with the daughter of a mob boss. One interesting part is that the daughter, Catarina Salvastano, had no idea of his profession until arriving from overseas. Now she has to figure out how to survive and not let anyone know of her real identity. She changes her name to Kate Chamberlain. I found myself empathizing with Kate because she has no control over who her father is or what he does but yet her life is completely affected by it. It gets harder for her to hide her identity when she is threatened because the investigator that comes to help her might not be so understanding if he were to find out her real name. This book has a lot of suspense and intriguing situations along with some romance. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who likes a page turner.

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book in order to give an honest review.