[.ca] Home for the Holidays (ISBN 0380814811)

Worth Reading:
I can understand the reviews for Home for the Holidays is either a book you like or you don't. It's somewhat dark, but ends happily so. Reminds me of a scrooge tale.

Sensual and Fascinating:
Our hero Vincent and heroine Larissa are very passionate people who find themselves torn between the incredible attraction they feel for each other and the strong reasons why they should rather hate one another. Home For The Holidays is a very sensual and fascinating story of how these well drawn characters learn to look beyond prejudices and into the value of another human being. This is a highly entertaining read which I highly recommend.

SOOOOOOOO Disappointing:
I was so upset with this book, I threw it out when I finished reading it!! I love Johanna Lindsey and own almost all of her novels, but this one is beyond stupid...I could not get into it. It took me five days to finish it and I usually read a book in a day. I only finished it because I dont like leaving a book unread. The characters are so ridiculous, they never develope, and I hate Larissa. She is so naive and stupid, and who in their right minds would just let a man(and practically a stranger at that) into her bed after only a few weeks, especially after he kicked her out of her house!! I wait longer than that for some of my boyfriends and I generally like them! There was no plot, no developement of a relationship, it was terrible. I would say to anyone who is interested try Johanna's Malory series or Savage Thunder, or Captive Bride. Those are true Lindsey works, not this garbage.

Boring!!!!!!:
This has to be one of JL worst books! The plot and I use the term for lack of a better one was really really bad! Larissa was as dense as a potted plant. Vincent was a flat cardboard copy of what a romance hero should be. Together they had a much chemistry as water and water. So in sum a poor plot and weak one dimensional characters made for very dull reading. I was very disappointed.

A Light, Fun Read:
Compared to Ms. Lindsey's other works, I can see where this one is receiveing its poor votes. However, I understood that this story is a short story, more like a novella than a novel, perhaps something the other readers might have missed. True, this book is marketed as a novel, and even has a deceptively large page count, however, upon opening the book, you'll notice the large double spaced print and blank Chapter pages. While this might seem like an unfair marketing ploy, I do not fault Ms. Lindsey for this. Otherwise, if this story were printed in the same type face as her other novels, I doubt this one would exceed more than 200 to 250 pages. Having written and read many short stories myself, I can identify with this story well and understand where the author was going. You don't have "time" to outline an intricate plot and character development must be swift to get to the meat of the story. The characters are great, however as a writer, I immediately saw one thing I would have done differently in this story. Larissa had a HUGE heart, and always felt tears spring up at the stories of Vincent's hardships as a child and the fact that he never celebrated Christmas. Why, then, would this sensitive woman *not* get him a Christmas present? I realize they had a falling out on Christmas Eve, but I thought that would have been one more great way to show how good she was and how horrible he would have felt at the knowledge that she had made/bought him a gift. Other than that one little peeve of mine, this book was worth reading.