Yuletide Treasure: The Finest Gift\A Blessed Season Book

SUMMARY:

The Finest Gift by Lauraine Snelling

A plain Jane without any suitors, Arley Hoople doesn't dare dream of romance this Christmas. So she brings holiday joy to others: repairing her grandmother's nutcracker and commissioning a dollhouse for the girls at the orphanage. Yet one knock at the woodcarver's door unexpectedly brings Arley a gift of her own: love.

A Blessed Season by Jillian Hart

An abandoned girl asks bounty hunter Rafe Jones to track down her long-lost mother for Christmas. The holiday wish breaks through his hardened heart, and he easily finds Cora Sims in Montana Territory. She's definitely the woman Rafe has been looking for. But is she actually the girl's mother?

REVIEW: These two shorter length historical Christmas stories are both well done. I enjoyed the commonality that both girls felt themselves to be rather plain and yet the men pursuing them both thought them lovely. Each story had an unexpected surprise for the young women. Light romantic Christmas reads that definitely put you in the Christmas spirit.

FAVORITE QUOTES: "Happy? Such a transient thing. Contented, yes. Joyful? Yes. But that comes from inside. You can choose joy and it will be like an artesian well that never runs dry. You can turn it off sometimes, but when you turn it on again, it will gush forth. The Bible promises us that. But if you grab for happiness, it will slip away, like the mist in the morning sun."

"...love claimed her heart. Not in a giddy rush or with a sudden proclamation as she always thought it would, but in a quiet, calm whisper like dawn's first light in midwinter. Gentle and sure and bringing light to shadowed, forgotten places. Love so bright it ached deeper and deeper within her, bringing tears to her eyes."