Reviewed by Danielle

Title: Miracle on Mistletoe Lane

Author: Derrick Knight

Publisher: self-published

Pages: 251

Blurb:

Joe Koehler and his six-year old son, Joey, are down on their luck. Currently, Joe is unemployed due to a bad economy and taking care of a medically complex son. Recently father and son became homeless due to their apartment catching on fire and Joe being without any insurance. They are forced to live in Joe’s old red pick-up truck. Eventually father and son take refuge at Hope House, a local homeless shelter, which is run by a kindly, yet mysterious, elderly woman named Emily.

Sidney Maier recently inherited his grandparents home but the house is in desperate need of repair. Skills Sidney greatly lacks. He befriends a fellow church member Emily who is the Interim Director at Hope House. Sidney tells Emily that he needs help with remodeling his new home. Also, he confides in her, that he is lonely and wishes he could meet someone special.

Emily and her assistants orchestrate for Joe and Sidney to meet where an instant attraction forms between both men. Joe and Sidney embark on a journey of courtship, but soon a negative force learns of their budding romance and wants to stop it at any cost. Emily and her assistants must all use their special talents if Joe and Sidney are meant to live happily ever after.

Review:

The prologue of this story was so touching and heart-wrenching it had me almost in tears and it made me look forward to what this story would offer.

Let me start with saying this is super sweet and lovely christmas story about the goodness of people, of christmas magic and miracles hence the title obviously.

That being said I challenge everybody to not fall in love with Joey. Even if you don’t fall for either of the two main characters, you will fall in love with Joey.

I have to admit I fell for both men also. They are such approachable, sweet personalities and sometimes you just want to feel that, to read it and to be able to touch it.

In combination with the lovely women of Hope House, they make this story sugar sweet and delightful to read for Christmas. Yes there is a touch of drama there and yes it is predictable, most of the story is, but the love you feel in this story is amazing and the love it feels like that it is written with I have to compliment.

I cannot go into too much detail as the blurb says a huge part of the story already (a bit too much perhaps?) and there isn’t too much more I want to reveal beside that.

Is it all peachy-keen then? No it isn’t. The part that I think is the biggest problem is the way sentences and parts are written. The drumming pace, the summing up of things, the overly detailed use of words and situations and especially how the further in the book you go, the more it comes over like that.

Where you can see an editor took care of grammatical issues I would honestly advise the author to get a couple of beta readers for the flow and the movement, the cutting down  of sentences and especially the overly extensive use of drumming up parts and happenings.

Where for sweetness and the love of the story it could seriously have been a top story those issues took a bit of the glaze away.

Yet I like to focus on what I mentioned above the gentle relationship, the love of a father for his son and the miracle of Christmas. The love for friendship, for community and the lovely moral that is within this story.

If you are looking for a sweet Christmas story with little to no angst and that just makes you feel a warm glow while reading it, I can with a clear conscious recommend you this story.

Rating :   (more like  3.75 stars)

Buy Links:

Amazon

Amazon.UK