My 100th HP of the year, completing my HP challenge.

I like this one much better than I expected. I usually have a hard time with the made up Middle Eastern countries and their European seeming sheikhs. I had a couple of flashes here of the hero not seeming realistically Middle Eastern but I just tried to ignore it and enjoy the story.

This story shone in character development. The heroine was realistic in her fear when she was abducted and the hero was wonderful in his gentlemanly reactions to the damsel in distress. He was kind of an ass about keeping her as a lover while planning his marriage to a more suitable woman but it wouldn't be an HP without some hero asshatery now would it?

Well written and moves right along ( )

ON THE FIRST NIGHT OF CHRISTMAS by author Heidi Rice, is a November 2011 release by Mills & Boon UK for it’s Modern series.

Jace Ryan was Cassidy Fitzgerald’s first teenage crush back in high school. Has she really grown over him? She is wishing for a candy-man for a sweet fling during Christmas. And she meets him, the bad boy from high school!

It was hilarious the way Cassie jumps into a stranger’s car, eyes flashing, wanting to give him a piece of her mind. And then she realizes it’s Jace. He takes her back to his hotel to clean up the mud he splashed over her clothes and they end up having a passionate fling! But it’s for a week only.

What will happen after the week is over? Will Jace still want to see Cassie?

Jace doesn’t believe in Christmas. When Cassie brings him a Christmas gift, he is stunned at receiving a gift for the first time in his life.
Will Cassie be able to hide her love from Jace?

In Jace’s experience love hurt. It hurt the person loving as his mother was being hurt. It was messy, disappointing, complicated and unnecessary. He never planned to feel it. And he certainly doesn’t know how to express it. He isn’t able to articulate his feelings because of a childhood marred by violence.

I had grave doubts how the author would manage to get this two characters together for their happily ever after, but I was pleasantly surprised.

The growth and progression of the love between Cassie and Jace, though they, themselves are not aware at the time, is depicted in a natural flow which is emotionally satisfying. We know Jace loves Cassie, yet he doesn’t realize it because he feels himself incapable of experiencing love.

The author has delivered a tortured hero, who doesn’t believe in love, a strong feisty heroine, who ends up wanting the fairy tale love with all its frills and rolled them in a story that is filled with emotion and sizzle. Cassie and Jace’s story is hugely enjoyable and highly romantic tale readers will find absolutely impossible to resist.

Redolent with breathtaking romance, spectacular emotional punch, a believable conflict and vivid atmospheric details, ON THE FIRST NIGHT OF CHRISTMAS is the latest high standard offering by author Heidi Rice. ( )