The Heart of Christmas (3 Stories, 3 Authors)

I bought this compilation of three Christmas stories by three romance authors because I really love Mary Balogh.  I enjoy her storytelling.  The way she writes about developing relationships between two characters often makes my heart ache.

"A Handful of Gold" may be the exception to my general enjoyment of Balogh.

Not only is Julian Dare dashing and wealthy, but he's the heir to an earldom.  So what do you get a man who has everything?  Innocent and comely Verity Ewing plans on giving Julian her heart - the most precious gift of all.

Verity Ewing seeks to solve her family's financial woes by posing as Blanche Heyward, an opera dancer "ogled by half the fashionable gentlemen in town, many of whom attended the opera for no other purpose."

As Blanche, Verity meets Julian, Viscount Folingsby, after one performance.  She agrees to dine with him.  He's taken with her and invites her to spend a week with him over Christmas for five hundred pounds.  Desperately needing money to pay for her sister's life-saving medication, she agrees.

Of course the Viscount falls in love with Verity and she with him.  Star-crossed indeed, they part ways and meet later in polite society.  What follows... well, it's what always follows when the main characters are in love.  The rules and practices of a society have nothing to with true love - at least in historial romantic fiction.

"The Season for Suitors" by Nicola Cornick is the second short story in the compilation.

Clara Davenport calls on Sebastian Fleet to learn how to avoid the tricks rakes play on innocent maidens. The pair already has a history, one that has left Clara in love with Sebastian.  Although he doesn't yet realize it, he's in love with her too.

After some close encounters with rakes in which she was nearly compromised, heiress Clara Davenport realizes that she needs some expert advice.  And who better for the job than Sebastian Fleet, the most notorious rake in town?  But the tutelage doesn't go quite as planned, as both Sebastian and Clara find it difficult to remain objective when it comes to lessons of the heart!

Luckily, Sebastian's servants recognize his love for Clara and help orchestrate the perfect opportunity for her to appear.  Unable to deny his love in that moment, the lovers unite and prepare for happily ever after.

I hated this short story, but not quite as much as the final story in the compilation.

"This Wicked Gift' by Courtney Milan

Lavinia Spencer has been saving her hard-earned pennies to provide her family with Christmas dinner.  Days before the holiday, her brother is swindled, leaving them owing more than they can ever repay.  Until a mysterious benefactor offers to settle the debt [sic].  Innocent Lavinia is stunned by what the dashing William White wants in return.  Will she exhange a wicked gift for her family's fortune?

Of course she will.  Of course she gives the gift of herself in love and, as later circumstances reveal, without really needing to offer herself.  Of course William White becomes wealthy beyond imagining.  Of course he can then provide for a wife and family.  Of course there is a happily ever after.

Ugh.

Sometimes I think I'm glad my favorite smut always fails at some level.  I'm longing for some excellent literature to remove the bad taste left by my last few reads.