UNDER THE MISTLETOE
Author: Mary Balogh ISBN: 0451209788 10/2006 HISTORICAL Publisher: NAL
Time Period: Regency
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Dear Reader,
Christmas has always been my favorite holiday, celebrating as it does all that is finest in the human experience—love, generosity, peace, and joy. I am delighted that this volume makes available again four of my older novellas along with one new one. They are love stories in which Christmas is shown to have the power to heal all the wounds of the human heart.
My new story, A Family Christmas, brings together a couple estranged since just after their arranged marriage the year before, and gives them the perfect chance to start over.
In the classic stories, The Star 0f Bethlehem features one betrothal ring lost but three that are mysteriously found as a broken marriage is abundantly mended. The Best Gift is the tale of a teacher who has never known family, love, or Christmas—then finds all three when asked to chaperon one of her pupils over the holiday. In Playing House, a lonely aristocrat and his daughter are drawn to an impoverished young woman and her siblings, who are celebrating their last Christmas together with brave gaiety. And an assortment of unhappy travelers stranded by bad weather at an inn on Christmas Eve encounter love after a young couple arrives to find that there is No Room at the Inn just as their child is about to be horn.
I hope you enjoy reading these stories as much as I did writing them.
Happy Holidays!
Mary Balogh |
 RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS: 
One wonderful way to get into the Christmas season this year is to pick up the mass-market paperback release of this venerable anthology collection by historical romance author Mary Balogh. I enjoyed each of the five novellas, originally released between 1989 and 2003.
The tales are surprisingly spicy in parts, despite themes of families being created and families being reborn. In fact, some of the most poignant stories are of aristocratic married couples that followed all the rules of their class, and have now found themselves estranged and unhappy. One senses Balogh has a gift for getting into the mindset of the early nineteenth century, and the problems of both the upper classes and the in-betweens—the governesses and impoverished clergy families. We even see her focusing in on the poorest of the poor briefly in a couple of stories. In UNDER THE MISTLETOE, the best is brought out in everyone and all problems can be solved, at least temporarily. Reading it will leave you with a warm feeling, just in time for the holidays!
Heather Hiestand |
