Merry Farmer

I never want to read about a wedding on Christmas ever again.

I am so so so glad I am FINALLY done with this. The relief! While I actually enjoyed more of the stories than I expected, this went downhill when I read the whole second half over the last week.


THINGS I LEARNED FROM THIS ANTHOLOGY (in categories cause I'm just that sick of everything)
Plot & character things
- All men speak in a rich baritone
- A woman's hair is always long and usually curly
- Every blonde woman is an angel (twice the show more angel if her hair is also blonde & curly)
- Scotsmen are always rugged and we'd forget they're Scottish if they didn't call the heroine "lassie" in at least every second sentence
- Epilogues only exist to show us that the heroine is pregnant
- Isn't it funny to call this heroine in Christmas romance anthology Holly? So original!

Sex things
- "It's called a cock."
- There's always oral sex before the virgin is deflowered (or "claimed", as most stories put it. By his rod.)
- "What was that?!" - "It's called an orgasm."

Actual serious criticism
- People of color didn't exist in 19th century England, not even as servants (except for that one story)
- Neither did queer people
- Beta readers for spelling and grammar? We don't need them cause we're just THAT good. 99% of these mistakes were things spellcheck should've picked up on, what are you even doing?!
- Apparently spanking is so sexy that there's no need to distinguish it from abuse. Hard disagree.


INDIVIDUAL RATINGS (to be taken with a grain of salt, especially those at the beginning - when I wasn't sick of the premise yet - and those at the end, when I was too sick of the premise. I've also got an update with a mini review after every single story for you to enjoy...)
Hell's Wedding Bells - 4 stars
Two Lady Scoundrels and a Duke - 1 star
A Wicked Wedding - 5 stars
The Lady's Guide to Mistletoe and Mayhem - 1 star
The Russian Betrothal - 4 stars
Beautifully Reckless - 2 stars
The Mistletoe Mistress - 3 stars
Deeds Not Words - 2 stars
Holly and the Beast - 3 stars
The Winter Bride - 3 stars
Mistletoe Kisses - 3 stars
The Christmas Countess - 2 stars
Mischief and Mistletoe - 2 stars
Kidnapped With the Knight - 1 star
The Russian Prince's Bride - 4 stars
Christmas Charity - 3 stars
The Angel of an Astronomer - 4 stars
Wassail, Wagers and Weddings - 3 stars
Highland Yule - 1 star
Marrying Miss Bright - 3 stars
Kiss Me, Macrae - 3 stars
Holly and Old Lace - 1 star
Home for Christmas - 2 stars
A Spinster at the Highland Court - 2 stars
The Holiday Hussy - 1 star
December Debauchery - 3 stars
Wedded in Winter - 2 stars show less

Lily Singer has never belonged. Taken from her tribe as a child and raised in a white man’s school, she no longer has a place in either world. Teaching has become her life. When that life is threatened by rumors and prejudice after a string of robberies, she must turn for help to the one man who spells disaster for her carefully ordered existence. Will he save her or steal her heart?

Christian Avery, Justice of the Peace, is used to having things his way. Cold Springs is his responsibility, show more and when its citizens blame the local Indian population for the mysterious robberies, it’s up to him to restore order and maintain calm. The one person who refuses to follow his lead is the beautiful, native-born Lily. Her defiance turns his life upside down and ravages his heart.

But when town gossip shifts from robberies to romance after a foolish indiscretion, Lily’s job and reputation are on the line. She must choose between the only life she has ever known and the only place she has ever felt at home, in Christian’s arms

Given to me in ebook format by the publishers in return for a review.

Set after the American Civil War, and when, in principal, whites and people of colour should be living together happily with no bitterness or recriminations.

For those people of colour - especially those from the Native Indian tribes - the reality is different, with racism, fear and hatred being confronted every day. Lily Singer is a school teacher, who has previously worked in Chicago, but is confronted with reality of living in Cold Springs. Pale enough to almost pass as white, she doesnt know what tribe she belongs to, having been brought up in a white school from a young age. Being from an Indian tribe however, she is effectively a non-citizen, so has learnt that she not wanted or belonging to anyone, certainly not a tribe, and definitely not her country.

She meets with Christian when he steps in during a school yard fight between white kids and local Indian children. Her defences are up so high that his confidence, apparent and different world view irritates her, but she recognises there is a chemistry between them. However, there are robberies around town that are being blamed on the Indians living outside of town. Suspicion is also placed at Lily's door in a case of guilt-by-association. It's not long before an unknown Indian man from out of town is in the city jail, having been accused of the latest robberies, despite having only just got off the train. Army friends of the chief bigot arrives in town and makes himself unpleasant with his insinuations and assumptions.

Meanwhile, Lily cant escape the sphere of Christian's arms, and soon the two of them have begun a (fairly explicit) sexual relationship. Things come to a head, where Lily is placed into a situation where her job and reputation are on the line, and she needs to make a decision of who - or what - she places her faith in. It's then that she gets to find out who her friends are, and that perhaps she belongs in more places than she ever gave herself credit for.

The dynamic between the two leads is good, the sex scenes are not for the prudish, some of the secondary characters are fleshed out well. The ending is left as a bit of a cliff hanger, but hopefully the story has been set up to allow the reader to come to a satisfactory "what happens next" ending. This is not a section of history that is covered much in mainstream fiction, especially where it covers the nature of mixed-race relationships. I dont remember anyone actually having issue with Christian and Lily being together, more just a case of Lily's presence in the town in the first place - but perhaps that's another story. show less

Traveling by covered wagon was not easy and doing so to get away from death threats only to find out that someone in the group traveling with you is out to kill you could not have been easy for Lynne. Having said this, I found Lynne to be a spoiled, headstrong, brat for most of the book. She did not listen to the man put in charge of her safety and did many rather silly things that threatened not only herself but livestock and others in the wagon train. I cannot see her father sending her show more across country without a woman to act as chaperone but this is fiction so perhaps anything is possible. I am interested in finding out how Callie, left alone due to the death of her family, ends up with the man she married out of necessity and wonder if Emma ends up with the man she seems to be interested in. I also wonder if the man in charge of the wagon train will find someone to love. The book was somewhat predictable but was well edited and fun to read. show less

I really didn't care for this one. It started out with promise, the political partnership could have been very interesting, but then it just became about anything other than that, and the characters seemed to get dumber as they went along. I wanted to like them, but they just kept sabotaging their own chances for happiness. Like eye roll, facepalm levels. *significant spoilers* For instance. 1) The hero has an illegitimate son who many people know about, and who looks just like him, and who show more he has a relationship with, and who is kept near his country estate. He doesn't tell the heroine before the wedding (lame), and then also doesn't mention it anytime in the first 6 weeks of their marriage (double lame), but THEN he actually takes her TO that country estate, where he has the gall to be stunned when she very obviously discovers it... Like WTH can you possibly be thinking? Or, 2) The villains have kidnapped the child and the lead characters have good reason to believe he's being held in a particular hostile brothel. They have people and resources and just need a plan. But instead, the heroine, untrained, unarmed, undisguised, alone and *without* a plan, goes in herself. Like she can possibly find the kid without being seen and then somehow just waltz him back out?? In what world really is that remotely feasible?! Of course in actuality she's just handing herself over as an additional hostage and is absolutely zero help. (I actually would have respected it more if she *had* purposely joined him, in an attempt to look after him until they could both be rescued. I wouldn't recommend that plan of course, but at least it would be based in reality and have *some* chance at succeeding). (I won't even get into how, when she's actually taken to him (and has a chance at being able to keep an eye out for him/protect him when things go down/soothe him/etc.), she immediately tries some *super* longshot call for help *while they're still standing there watching*, basically insuring that they knock her out, thus making her worse than useless. Sheesh. The rest of the plot strained all believability as well. Content/Trigger Warning miscarriage on page.

I've read 7 previous books by this author that were honestly all pretty middle of the road (I have heard that her m/m books are maybe better though, and I haven't tried them). So this book is an outlier in that sense, but it was still pretty disappointing. show less