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Laughter and love combine in Sandra Hill's BLUE CHRISTMAS-with a touch of Elvis magic. Wealthy Wall Street businessman Clayton Jessup III has only one reason for arriving in Memphis a few days before Christmas-to sell off his inheritance, an embarrassingly kitschy hotel named The Blue Suede Suites. His feelings for the Land of Elvis are dark: his long-dead Memphis mother abandoned him and his dad when Clay was a baby, and now Clay wants nothing to do with a southern legacy that couldn't be more different from his sophisticated big-city life.
But then he steps in trouble-literally-when he confronts the bizarre group of Elvis impersonators who've set up a living Nativity scene on his property. One slip of a wingtip in some sheep poop lands Clay in the care of gorgeous Annie Fallon, whose big-haired Elvis-girlfriend get-up can't hide her wholesome, sexy appeal. Annie and her brothers have set up the Nativity scene to earn some badly needed money for their struggling dairy farm.
The last thing she needs is an angry Yankee with a concussion and a come-hither smile . . .
In JINX CHRISTMAS, sexy NASCAR star Lance Caslow makes a last-ditch effort to win back his ex-wife Brenda. Five years ago, his reckless pursuit of racetrack fame tore them apart and broke Brenda's heart. Now Lance shows up in Louisiana determined to make things right this Christmas, not just for himself and Brenda, but for their young daughter, Patti.
He's got his work cut out for him, and desperate measures are needed. Lance will do anything to prove he's worthy of Brenda's trust again-even join the Cajun Christmas show starring a raucous Cajun family whose menfolk dance for charity events in little more than a smile . . .
bikrgran
Posted December 12, 2011
I'm sorry, but this book just totally misses the whole reason for Christmas. First you have a bunch of Nashvillians doing the birth of Christ in an Elvis parody. Then we move onto the sexual content. This just doesn't do it for me. I think I got to chapter 3, before deciding to move on to something a little more appropriate. Sorry, Sandra, but there's too many ways to work sex into books, without besmirching Christ's birth.
2 out of 5 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.TurningThePagesBlog
Posted May 10, 2012
Let's cut to the chase here shall we?
I didn't like this book at all.
It gave me a migraine.
A couple of weeks ago one of my Goodreads groups was having a 24 hour read-a-thon and in an effort to meet one of the criteria for a prize I decided to read a few on my shorter kindle freebies that I've gotten and get them out of the way.
Despite the fact that this book only has a 2.76/5.00 star rating on Goodreads I thought that it would be perfect for the challenge as it's short, Christmasy (I don't mind reading Christmas themed books through out the year) and the fact that the author is pretty successful, but this one just didn't live up to my low expectations.
I went into it thinking I would be reading two little cute contemporary romance novellas set around the merriest time of the year unfortunately I was met with a poor plot, week characters and over all lazy writing. I say lazy writing because it seems as though the author was just pumping out a disjointed story just for the sake of writing a book in order to capitalize on the holidays. That in itself isn't a bad thing really but I personally expected there to be more effort.
I found all the characters to be very annoying and just as poorly thought out and written as the plots themselves were. None of them made very much sense and surprisingly there was nothing redeemable about them either. Especially the hero Clayton Jessup from the first novella Blue Christmas. He was an ass and of course while the author gave the heroine a bit of a backbone she still basically ended up going along with the hero's way of thinking and doing as he said. As for the other couple in the second story Jinx Christmas that too was just a mess. Though it was slightly more enjoyable than the first novella it just didn't really raise the book up very much in my esteem.
I for one am glad that I got this one while it was a kindle freebie some time ago because if I had paid the $4.75 that Amazon is currently charging for it I would not have been pleased at all. I would not recommend this book to anyone because I didn't find anything enjoyable for it, though if one of my followers has read it or does read it in the future and likes it than that's great. Stop by and tell me so.
As for me I will try the author's other works out especially her historical romance ones.
Lance Caslow has gone to Louisiana to enlist Tante Lulu 's help with a reconciliation with his wife Brenda. A hilarious short story to make you smile.
0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Oh my, this was quite a quick read. The book certainly keeps you tangled between the pages and if I'm going to be honest - I don't really know why. A Dixie Christmas by Sandra Hill consists of two short stories, Blue Christmas and Jinx Christmas, both located in Southern parts of North America. First of all, I have to say I really liked how the author used a bunch of pop culture references, everything from Desperate Housewives to even Richard Gere and Julia Roberts, not to mention that one of the characters supposedly dated Natalie Portman when she wasn't yet famous. And then there's some mention of a Mad Hatter (I'm a sucker for everything related to Alice in Wonderland) and then there were some references that I didn't particularly like. For example the mention of Bosnia and how there was enough food on the table to fatten the entire nation of Bosnia. Since I'm from 'the Balkan' area too, I was somewhat slightly insulted by this. Yes, this part of the world had its share of wars and social/political problems, but still... it's recovering quite nicely. That left aside I would recommend this book to all those who like slightly dirty chick-lit books. It's especially good to read around Christmas time, perhaps with a nice glass of champagne?
Ok, now lets get to the business. Reading Blue Christmas, the first novella, reminded me of the language used in R.J. Waller's Border Music novel - the language bothered me. I'm not familiar with 'southern' expressions and there was a gigantic pile of them. Also, just like the main character Clay, I was bothered with constant mentions of Elvis. I can fully understand the impact he had on the world and on Memphis, but there's a certain limit of adoration. Clay, the male lead, is big city business men who comes to Memphis to approve a demoliton of Blue Suede Shoes hotel. There he meets Anna, a farmer with killer legs who looks like a younger, thiner version of Julia Roberts (now imagine how gorgeous she must be). I find this refreshing - mostly the books (and movies for that matter) focus on big city girls coming to a country land with high heels and Chanel No.5. And here we have this adorable,innocent farmer. The story itself was... well, I can't find other expression than too-fast and too-quick. I get the whole aspect of love at first sight and the shortness of novella, but the whole falling in love thing was happening way to fast. You just can't get rid of all doubts and all your values and propose so quickly. I had a weird feeling that Hill was trying to make the characters dirty and the whole aspect of haylofts and naughty farmer girls was slightly over the top. It didn't really sound dirty, it sounded simply wrong. But I have to admit that there was quite some funny twists and dialogues that made me laugh really loud. For example talking at the table about breeding cows (that was hilarious) and I loved whole Annie's family, her brothers seem to be good looking young creatures. Yum. And the best part of the whole book was Aunt Liza. Hands down to an old lady buying condoms for the whole family. Hands down.
The second novella, Jinx Christmas was shorter and better, but at the same time more confusing for me. Too much 'south', ok I don't really know how to explain this. I honestly didn't understand half of the story but it still seemed better, perhaps because the characters were closer to me. I could relate to them more - which is weird since I'm not over-30, not a mother and definitely not an ex-wife of a hot NASCAR driver. Brenda used to be married to Lance and has a daughter with him. He's a celebrity and fame sort of got to him so the marriage slowly fell apart. I usually don't like rich men, they just don't cut it for me, but Lance has some sort of a charm. This must be a consequence of the fact he loves Brenda and is working so hard to get her back. Even the story was a tiny bit unrealistic it was nice and funny. And wet.
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Posted December 14, 2011
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Posted December 17, 2011
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Posted January 6, 2012
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Posted June 17, 2012
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Posted December 21, 2011
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Posted December 21, 2011
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Overview
Laughter and love combine in Sandra Hill's BLUE CHRISTMAS-with a touch of Elvis magic. Wealthy Wall Street businessman Clayton Jessup III has only one reason for arriving in Memphis a few days before Christmas-to sell off his inheritance, an embarrassingly kitschy hotel named The Blue Suede Suites. His feelings for the Land of Elvis are dark: his ...