I am somewhat ambivalent about this little anthology, even with my reasoning behind acquiring it – Kim Harrison’s contribution – nicely satisfied. With a tenuous link between all four of a national holiday as backdrop, familiarity with the authors – three of which I am not – may increase the reader’s grasp but, on the whole, the condensed format tended to leave me a tad disgruntled at the conclusion to the stories.

The first, Two Ghosts for Sister Rachel by Kim Harrison, is a prequel to The Hollows series, and reveals the circumstances of Rachel Morgan’s life in her late teens, the reasoning behind her desire to gain a contract as a runner with the I.S., and her quite extraordinary, if personally-oblivious, witching abilities. When her brother Robbie, home for the solstice holiday, attempts to dissuade Rachel from this career path, by daring her to produce a complicated spell to summon their father’s ghost in order to gain his opinion, the result is not what either sibling expected. A ghost is summoned, forcing a search for a missing girl, and her mother’s ingenuity is finally unveiled – now we know where Rachel gets it from! This story, which although I felt was rushed in the dénouement, I couldn’t fault as an avenue to more knowledge about a favourite character of mine.
The second story Run, Run, Rudolph written by Lynsay Sands, contains an interesting interlude in the day of newly-made shape-shifter Jill, after being zapped by her brother’s mad ex-co-worker and inventor in order to experiment on her changed form. Amongst her frenzied escapes from this deranged hunter Jill still manages to fulfil her duties at the Christmas parade by utilising her burgeoning powers, with the help of her scrumptious, shop-owner neighbour, Nick. While I enjoyed the inventiveness of Jill’s new-found potential and the cleverness of the underlying premise, the conclusion felt too easy and I was left, at the end, feeling flat.

Six by Marjorie M. Lui, third in the book, occurs during the Spring Festival in China where Six, a highly-trained and lethal member of the elite Squad Twelve, joins - if at first reluctantly - with necromancer Joseph Besud, to fight the paranormal forces of vampires threatening her country. And, for the first time in her harsh reality, while battling to save her very existence, finds respite in the most unlikely of places. I was rather enthralled at the beginning of this story but became disappointed with the conclusion – this narrative would have been better served, in my opinion, as a novella, the length working against the plot; the speed of events at the end inconsistent with the start.

The last in this anthology, The Harvest, is another prequel, to the Signs of the Zodiac series – one I haven’t read - but this little tale piqued my interest with the fundamental supposition to its story-line. Once more the brevity excluded a full insight but, from what I gathered here, there is a world balanced between forces of the ‘shadows’ and the ‘light’, these superhumans associated with the signs of the Zodiac. Zoe Archer – with a long, complex history behind her – has relinquished her immortality to save her offspring and fulfil the Seer’s prophesy, linked to the fate of the world. But when her grand-daughter is stolen, on Thanksgiving, Zoe must return, now powerless, to her past and face many consequences she had hoped, in her mortality, she had left behind. In doing so the reader glimpses a fragment of this interesting world and, in my case at least, is left with a desire to read further.

Overall, I am pleased to have learnt more of the background to Rachel Morgan, and to have discovered new authors from this anthology. However all the stories left me feeling underwhelmed due, most likely, to my personal preference for intricacy and more depth in my reading material? To me, the ‘how’ is as crucial as the ‘why’ – at times even more so; especially in my paranormal reading worlds, and with less emphasis on the romance much preferred. Not likely, or indeed probable in this form…

(May 16, 2009) ( )

Well.. I only read the short story by Kim Harrison and it was really cool because it was Rachel when she was 18 and a bit more of a weaker character than we know her as. Just a touch of romance and lots of action in this short story. :) ( )

Did not care for this one all that much...only liked the Kim Harrison story. ( )

"Holidays Are Hell", an anthology of four different short stories by various authors, suffers the same problem as most other anthologies. The stories have varying degrees of sucess. The theme here is obviously the holidays and unfortunately most of the stories could have been written before the theme was decided and the authors could rewrite a few lines mentioning its the holidays and voila...their short stories fit the theme. Only the short story by Lyndsay Sands, and maybe the first story by Kim Harrison, truly feel like the holidays are a part of the main theme.

The first story is Kim Harrison's anchor story featuring her Hollows character Rachel Morgan. In "Two Ghosts For Rachel Mogan", we get to visit with a younger Rachel Morgan, fresh out of school. Rachel's brother Robbie is in town for the Holidays and makes her a deal that she can't do a high level spell to raise the ghost of their deceased father. Rachel definately does raise something, and the action has its consequences. This was a fun story that fit the short story format fairly well. I found all the background and up close look at her family beneficial and I think it will add to my experience continuing the Hollows series. I don't know how many new readers would be as fond of the story as I was. I give it 4 stars.

Lynsay Sand's "Run Run Rudolph" was the suprise hit of this volume. I enjoy her "Argeneau" vampire series to some extent, and I expected this to be very similar. Not so much. In this story, Jill finds herself being stalked by someone who wants to study and experiment on her because she has recently become a shapeshifter. Desperate to not be caught, Jill finds herself on a race through a Christmas parade, through stores, and more, changing her shape often (and sometimes in a quite funny manner). For whatever reason, this story truly worked for me. While I would love to read more about Jill, this feels like a completed story to me. I give this one 5 stars.

I barely made it through Marjorie M Liu's story "Six". Six is a government agent trained her whole life to be tough. Suddenly she is thrown for a loop when she runs into a man who seems to be on the same side as she is, but doing it a different way. When she is infected by a vampire, she has to put all her trust in Joseph to save her. Unfortunately this story was dull. I never got a good hand on what exactly Six was and how she got in that position. The idea seemed pretty good, so I guess just the execution was not so hot. I haven't read this author before, but planned to. Now I am not sure. 2 stars.

The final story is "The Harvest" by Vicki Pettersson. It is a prequel of sorts to her Signs of the Zodiac series. Since I have read the first two novels in this series, I found the story to be very interesting. It answered some questions and left some more, that I hope will be expanded on in further volumes. This is definitely a don't miss for Zodiac fans...but if you haven't been introduced to this world, I am afraid readers may be somewhat lost. While Pettersson does make an attempt to 'set up' her world here, it seems to be a mix match of ideas and not a full blown explanation of the "Light" and "Dark" signs and their history. I felt the first story in the series made a better attempt to explain the complex world, and it took me to the second book to fully understand the entire set up. Maybe, new readers will be confused enough to also be intrigued enough to start the series. For my own enjoyment of the story I give "The Harvest" four stars. I would probably give it a 3 for someone who has never read the Zodiac series yet.

This still is an anthology well worth picking up if you are a paranormal or urban fantasy fan. It has four well known authors and even if you pick and choose the stories you want to read, it seems worth the money to purchase. This would be a 3 1/2 star book overall, if I could rate it that way. ( )

I love anthologies,, they are a great way to fin new authors. I got into Vicki Pettersson through reading this anthology and the Zodiac series is great and the short story in this collection is really nice. ( )