(Image from Amazon)

I haven't even put up my Halloween decorations yet, but I just finished a cozy Christmas read that put me right into the holiday spirit!  A Christmas Courting is a collection of four short Regency romances set at Yuletide.  Three popular LDS romance writers—Jennifer Moore, Chalon Linton, and Jen Geigle Johnson—are featured, as well as newcomer Heidi Kimball (her first novel, An Unlikely Courtship, came out in September).  

As you can imagine, the four short stories in this volume are warm, upbeat tales that offer the kind of swoony, light hearted entertainment you crave during the chaotic holiday season.  While I liked some of them better than others, all of the tales are clean, uplifting, and cheerful.  Some deal with more serious issues, but in the end, all the tales guarantee happy, satisfying endings:

Peanut butter and jelly.  Cookies and milk.  Hot chocolate and marshmallows.  Some things just go together, you know?  I'm fairly new to Regency romance books, so I've never really considered what a sweet combination could result from pairing the genre with magical holiday settings.  If Christmas Grace, a collection of Regency love stories by various authors, is any indication, I'd call the mixture a very pleasant one indeed. 

Christmas Grace, a new collection of holiday tales by beloved LDS romance writers, includes four selections:

"Let Nothing You Dismay" by Jennifer Moore tells the story of Ben Talbot and Camilla "Millie" Prince, childhood sweethearts whose elopement ends with a tragic accident.  Reunited after eight years with no contact, the former fiancés have a second chance at love.  Are they brave enough to take it?

"Christmas at Canterwood" by Krista Lynne Jensen stars Julia Seaton, a governess who's taxed with keeping up the spirits of the children in her care while their parents are away from home at Christmastime.  When the handsome but too-serious vicar gets roped into Julia's plan to distract the kids, unexpected sparks start to fly. 

"Winter Angel" by Anita Stansfield concerns Mariah Pritchard, the 22-year-old daughter of a London baker.  When she encounters a poor, beaten man during her rounds of distributing bread to the homeless, she's surprised to discover he's a gentleman in disguise.  She's even more shocked by her heart's reaction to the down-on-his-luck stranger.

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Trigger Warning—the title of Gaiman's 2015 anthology—comes from the idea that art, movies, t.v. shows, books, etc. should come with cautions about potentially distressing material contained within. While he understands the need to protect children from adult content, Gaiman had this to say about mature readers:

Given his view on the subject, it's not surprising that Gaiman subtitles his book "Short Fictions and Disturbances."  Certainly, some of the selections are disturbing.  Others are funny, scary, zany, cautionary and downright odd.  There's a nice variety of pieces here, from magical yarns to horror stories to fan fiction to poems (which "perhaps might need their own warning for the people [like me!] who are frightened, disturbed, or terminally puzzled by poetry" [XLI].).  To my surprise, my favorite story in Trigger Warning was a Doctor Who fan fiction piece called "Nothing O'Clock.  I'm no Whovian (all it took was the spooky "Are You My Mummy?" episode to scare me out of watching the show forever), but I found the tale fresh, funny and charming.  "Orange" and "My Last Landlady" were also memorable selections.  Even the stories I didn't really get sparked my imagination as only a Gaiman creation can.  

Besides the variety, one of the things I enjoyed most about Trigger Warning is that Gaiman includes explanations of every selection.  He uses interesting personal stories to discuss why he wrote each piece, who/what inspired it, and how it was received by various audiences.  These peeks into Gaiman's creative process make his stories even more compelling. 

I didn't love every single selection in the eclectic Trigger Warning, but that's okay.  Overall, I enjoyed this strange, macabre journey through the mind of one of the most original authors around.  If you're a die-hard Gaiman fan, you'll probably like it even more than I did.  In fact, you'll probably want to put this one at the top of your Christmas list.  

  

(Readalikes:  Hm, nothing is coming to mind.  You?)

Grade:

for language (a handful of F-bombs, plus milder expletives), violence, blood/gore, and sexual content

To the FTC, with love:  I received a finished copy of Trigger Warning from the generous folks at HarperCollins via those at TLC Book Tours.  Thank you!