Cheryl Bolen

The Wallflowers Christmas Wish by Cheryl Bolen
In this story we find twin to Melvin, Elvin and all his friends are now married and he feels left out so announces he will be getting married although he has no one in mind.
With Melvin’s help he attends the dance and meets many but nobody really catches his eye although all want him to dance with them, he's the best catch of the season.
He had danced with a painter, a step daughter of the Furnace family and sees how her face lights up when he pays her a compliment.
Love finding out new words to me and their meanings. Great story line as we follow Elvin as he proposes Diana to do his portrait for his sisters Christmas gift.
He had seen her in the park painting and he worked out the details of her acquiring the paints she'd need and payment for her time. Love how he keeps it to his servant to pay her without step mother getting her hands on the money.
While he was being painted they get to know one another a lot better. She can tell from his stance the kind of man he is and he is astonished how perceptive she is.
Love what she can do with her hands and that others really appreciate it. She thinks, down the road, her painting may allow her to leave the family house and be on her own and paint others portraits.
He's not gotten her to tell him what she wishes for a Christmas gift. Love discussion about books and how she offers to read to him and why this is such a touching gift to him.
I can see a bit of interfering with the step sisters and step mother and hope they will cease…. It gets worse though.
You wonder if they will have a cordial friendship at all.
Love how his family helps to get them to meet
Like a Cinderella story but with twists that go along even better than the original. Never saw ending as it was, love this book especially as a holiday read.
Book ends with other works by the author and description of each of the series.… (mehr)

I thoroughly enjoyed the many characters in this book. Dot and Forrester bring great fun as the country bumpkin heiress and the rake with the heart of gold. For most of the book the pacing is great, between introducing the conflict between the dastardly Henry Wolf, to the myriad of friends and cats, and the expanding relationship between Dot and Forrester, everything moves nicely. Until the last quarter of the book where it feels like an editor chopped out parts of the resolution and hurried to the end.… (mehr)

I really wanted to like this more, because Jane was a great self-sacrificing, plain, wallflower heroine. But the whole thing felt a bit contrived. One would think Lady Sarah was the only heiress on the market that Season. The hero could have courted any number of women, it didn't have to be her, and after she frequently indicates how non-compatible they are, he could have chased another heiress instead. Part of my issue is that I detest love triangles, and there are too many elements of that here. Also,I was prepared for Poppinbotham to be a semi-villainous foil for the hero to realize his feelings for the heroine, but he turned out to be a perfectly nice, if silly person, who just got hurt in the end. Boo. (2.5 stars)… (mehr)