Just Finished: The Night Before Christmas

I have started my Christmas reading! It's December now, it's allowed :) My first of the season was The Night Before Christmas, a collection of six romance short stories from authors Lori Foster, Erin McCarthy, Jill Shalvis, Kathy Love, Katherine Garbera, and Kylie Adams. And bonus - this is my first book towards the Book Lovers Inc. Holiday Reading Challenge! I hope to read at least four this Christmas in between all the other books I have to read.

I admit, I'm a sucker for Christmas romance stories and I always try to read at least one fluffy, entertaining kind of book every year. I throw in a few other Christmas stories too but they almost always have some sort of romantic aspect to it. I am a chick lit fan after all :)

I find that a lot of Christmas books have multiple stories by either the same author or different authors. I think those are my favourites because you get little hits of different types of Christmases - different cities, different families, different traditions. The stories in The Night Before Christmas were just like that. They also had one interesting commonality - each story took place on Christmas Eve. I have to admit, I didn't figure that out until after I had read the entire book and started writing this post. It is called The Night Before Christmas which, you know, is Christmas Eve. Duh. :)

These stories were by no means works of literary greatness but I had fun reading them. Each story featured a soon to be couple with a different kind of background. There are neighbours, friend's sibling/sibling's best friend, two stories featured coworkers, another had past lovers meet up, and the last story told the story of a barrista and a well known actor. I liked that they didn't have the same start to a relationship and that kept things fresh for me.

I think my favourite was "Snowed Under" by Erin McCarthy. Claire is out Christmas shopping when she gets soaked by a passing snow plow. Realizing she's a block away from her brother's house and he's out of town she decides to get cleaned up at his place. Imagine her surprise when her six year crush and brother's best friend, Justin, is in the apartment. What follows is a sweet story about what can happen when the timing is finally right.

All in all, I enjoyed reading The Night Before Christmas. It's full of Christmas spirit and new relationships. What romance or Christmas lover isn't going to like that? It's definitely got me in the Christmas mood and I'm looking forward to diving into my next Christmas book!

Happy holidays...and reading :)