Have the tissues handy. Gunslinger Gabe is meets his guardian angels after being shot on Christmas day. He's offered a chance to return to earth and redeem his soul, but it's for a month and he can't change the course of anything - something that he does at first, but then decides that hell is better thank ignoring what is needed on earth. ( )

Walking on Air was a charming, delightful read. Thank goodness I read it during break, because I really wasn't good for much of anything else until I'd finished it. I loved the characters--not just Gabe and Nan, but Nan's sister Laney was so much fun, as was the boy from under the stairs, Christopher (no plot moppets here, they're actually fleshed-out characters with personalities and everything)...he was like a Mini-Me of Gabe, and the way that the two of them interacted with each other and with Gabe was fantastic.

The time frame was, of course, quick; but Anderson made it all feel very believable. We could tell from the first chapter that Gabe wasn't a bad person, but that life just hadn't given him many breaks. Throughout it all, he was upbeat and positive, finding humor in a life that would have made most people bitter. He slowly draws Nan out of the rut she's created for herself, helping her to lighten up and laugh.

Hanging over it all, though, is the Christmas deadline. Can Gabe complete his mission on earth before he has to leave it again? (And--gah!--does he have to leave? Isn't this a romance novel? She had me a teensy bit concerned...)

Walking on Air is being credited as the first in the Valance family series. Book two will definitely be on my TBR, as soon as it has a title--though this time I don't intend to wait until its release to read another book by Catherine Anderson!

Rating: A-/ 4 1/2 stars

I received a copy from the author in exchange for an honest review. ( )

There is a big difference between preaching and teaching. The main one, in my view, is that preaching doesn’t belong in books. I always mark down for that, even in Christian fiction. Tell the reader a story. Let the reader take away what lessons they will, but please don’t preach. When a writer preaches, it comes across as arrogant and condescending. Unfortunately, that is precisely what happens in this romance novel. The preaching wasn’t even subtle. The angel Gabriel himself was preaching the writer’s version of the Gospel. Did I like the characters? Ultimately, yes. Did I like the storyline? No! It was so weird, that I kept reading with the hope that the author would jump out and say, “Ha!Ha! Just kidding!” But, she never did. I think maybe the author was trying for a version of “It’s a Wonderful Life” or some such, but it didn’t work. If she could have just stopped preaching, then maybe. But she never did get off of her soapbox. The last word of the book should have been “Amen.”

In accordance with FTC guidelines, please note that I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. ( )

Catherine Anderson has done it again~~stolen my nights, my sleep, my thoughts~~and left me
wishing the next book in this series was already ensconced on my ereader. This is an expertly drawn
historical romance with strong elements about faith, hope, and the endurance of love.

This story opens with murder, the murder of the Gabriel Valance, a gunslinger, having killed many
during the course of his short life. Prone on a snowy boardwalk in Random, Colorado, his last cogent
memory is seeing a beautiful 'Christmas Angel' standing in the candle lit window of her millinery shop
across the street. That's when fate intervenes. Now standing before the pearly gates (in this instance,
a table in a crumbling shack), Gabriel is given an opportunity to live life over. He has a month to save a
lost soul in Random, and is provided the names of three individuals who fit that bill. One of them is the
milliner he glimpsed as he died: Nan Sullivan. Gabe chooses her, and so begins the spiritual journey
of a very bad man named Gabriel Valance.

Armed with information provided by the angels at the gates of heaven, Gabe is redeposited in
Random, not only burdened with his responsibility toward Nan, but also with a host of rules by which
he must abide. He knows, too, that at the end of his do-over-month, he will again die at the hands of
his killer, his only hope for heaven being his successful redemption of Nan Sullivan.

Nan Sullivan has secrets of her own. Believing she has murdered a despicable suitor, Nan is on the
run. With her is her much younger sister, Laney, whom she passes off as her daughter. The two have
been living successfully, however fearfully, in Random. But terror comes knocking when Gabriel
Valance shows up on their doorstep, and he wants only one thing~~marriage with Nan.

During his do-over-month, Gabe finds it increasingly more difficult to abide by the rules the angels at
the gates have mandated. Complicating the situation is the fact that he's fallen in love with Nan and
her 'daughter', Laney. The idea that he's preordained to die again on Christmas Eve is almost more
than he can bear.

This is a magnificent, heartwarming, heartbreaking story that had me laughing and crying.
The characters are so well-drawn that I keep hoping any or all of them will show up on my doorstep.
The plot elements have kept me thinking about my own comfortable life, my own comfort zone,
and how often I cast a blind eye on the circumstances of others.

Ms. Anderson has written a love story featuring the personal redemption of a very bad man.

We should all be so lucky. ( )