Reviewed by Carissa
TITLE: Comfort and Joy
AUTHOR: Joanna Chambers, Josh Lanyon, Harper Fox, and L.B. Gregg
PUBLISHER: JustJoshin Publishing
LENGTH: 231 pages
BLURB:
A Holiday anthology
Rest and Be Thankful by Joanna Chambers
Two stormy hearts find peace when feuding neighbors in the Scottish Highlands are trapped by a blizzard.
Things haven’t been going well for Cam McMorrow since he moved to Inverbechie. His business is failing, his cottage is falling apart and following his very public argument with café owner Rob Armstrong, he’s become a social outcast.
Cam needs to get away from his troubles and when his sister buys him a ticket to the biggest Hogmanay party in Glasgow, he can’t leave Inverbechie quick enough. But when events conspire to strand him in the middle of nowhere in a snowstorm, not only is he liable to miss the party, he’ll also have to ask his nemesis, Rob, for help.
Out by Harper Fox
Can a stranger unlock the courage and passion in a young man’s captive heart?
It’s Christmas at Edinburgh’s magnificent Barlinney Hotel, and chief housekeeper Cosmo Grant is in charge of the festivities. He’s already got his hands full when handsome Ren Vaudrey checks in.
It soon turns out that Ren is an undercover cop. Cosmo wants to help him, but unless he can do it within the Barlinney’s walls, Cosmo is stuck. A victim of crippling agoraphobia, he’s been a prisoner in this gilded cage for over a year. Cosmo gathers all his courage to do the right thing by Ren and Sam—and as a glittering Christmas Eve descends on the city, finds himself confronting his very darkest fears.
Waiting for Winter by LB Gregg
Some mistakes are worth repeating.
Luke always thought he and Winter were the perfect couple—until the day Winter announced he was taking a new job and they were uprooting and headed for Germany. No discussion. No debate. For the first time in his life, Winter miscalculated. Badly. Now Luke is trying his best to move on with his life, but Winter is back in town and he’s set on digging their relationship out of the deep freeze.
Baby, It’s Cold by Josh Lanyon
Or maybe it’s the flu. Breaking up is hard to do — especially around the holidays.
Talk about Kitchen Nightmares! TV Chef Rocky and Foodie blogger Jesse have been pals forever, so it should have been the most natural thing in the world to move their relationship to the next level. Instead, it turned out to be a disaster. But Christmas is the season of love, and someone’s cooking up a sweet surprise…
REVIEW:
Rest and Be Thankful by Joanna Chambers–4.5 stars
Cam’s life is not going well, at all. His boiler had bit the dust, his business has flown south for the winter, and pretty much everyone in Inverbechie dislikes him–including the sexy café owner who he had a blazing row with moths ago, which led to the town shunning him. And he’s broke; so very, very broke. No, life is most definitely not going well. He can only hope that come midnight on New Year’s Eve, he’ll figure out a way to make this new year a better one. Because he really doesn’t fancy freezing to death, alone in his run-down cottage.
This was a bit depressing at times, if only because I am currently experiencing a bit of Cam’s problems in my own life, but overall it was a very nice holiday story. Even the parts that made me a bit weepy (but then again, anything that reminds me of how broke I am is bound to do that). The story was very well written and I really liked how Cam didn’t give up, even though if I had gone thru all that I would have sat in the middle of the street, popped open that bottle of Champagne and gotten bloody pissed. Not that drinking every really helps anything, but the dude just couldn’t seem to catch a break…well, until he caught Rob. And boy was he worth catching! Lovely story, and I enjoyed reading it very much.
Out by Harper Fox–4 stars
Ever since being held-up at the post office a year ago, Cosmo has suffered from an acute case of agoraphobia. Unable to leave the hotel in which he works, he is forced to follow the whims of his homophobic, bigoted–and probably criminal–boss. When Ren checks into the hotel, though, Cosmo didn’t expect to find himself challenging all his fears to help and protect a man he has only know for a few hours.
It took a bit for me to get into this one. There was just something about the writing that had me off-kilter for the first two chapters. I wasn’t exactly sure what was going on or why Cosmo was being forced to stay in the hotel, but after all that settled into place the story started to really flow for me. I really do love Harper Fox’s way of writing, and these two characters really were fun to read about. I am rather hoping that Cosmo’s boss finds himself at the pointy end of a rather sharp stick, the poncy bastard.
Waiting for Winter by L.B. Gregg–3.5 stars
It’s been six months since Luke last saw his ex, Winter. And having the man waltz up to him in a bar and declare that they were leaving–without so much as a by your leave–reminds Luke of all the reasons they fell apart so quickly and so badly. But it also reminds him of why he was never able to say no to the insufferable man. With so many crossed wire and screwups between them, Luke doesn’t know if there can ever be anything between him and Winter other than a whole lot of regret.
In the end, I liked this story…I just had to deal with me wanting to shove Winter into a snowdrift for a good portion of the story before I got to the liking stage. He just has one of those personalities that rubs me the wrong way. And other people might find his cockiness an attraction, like Luke does, but for me it just make me want to take his fancy tie and shove it up his…well, I think you get the picture.
But for all his abrasiveness, by the end of the story I was quite happy cheering for these two. No one side was really at fault for what happened, and I like that they both admitted it. I do with they had done more talking before they got down to the sexing, but make-up sex is supposed to be good…so I guess they couldn’t help themselves.
Baby, It’s Cold by Josh Lanyon–3.5 stars
Paid to cook a romantic dinner for two, for his ex and someone else, Jesse didn’t think that his Christmas could get any worse. Then the someone else shows up. Now Jesse is having to deal with a whole pot full of jealousy, a recipe gone right off the rails, and generous helping of the flu. And that’s all before the snowstorm moves in. It’s shaping up to be one hell of a Christmas.
As with most of Josh Lanyon’s works, I enjoyed this. Not quite used to having the relationship front and center with him, but a departure from dead bodies and tricky mysteries was quite nice. I liked that these guys had been in a relationship before, and that it imploded because they were idiots…especially since it was obvious that fixing things was never going to be easy. In fact I wasn’t sure it was going to be fixable at all till the end. And as someone who has spent several Christmas staring at the bottom of a NyQuil bottle, I can say I fully sympathise with Jesse. Though unconsciousness is an excellent excuse to use when you need a way to avoid some rather tense family gatherings.
Overall I found this anthology rather enjoyable. And while Rest and Be Thankful by Joanna Chambers has to be my favorite of the quartet, all of them I enjoyed in some way or the other. Whether you buy them separately or altogether, these are a nice addition to the Christmas stories this year.
RATING: 
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