Brought to you by OBS reviewer Heidi

Silent Night is marketed as a Christmas anthology, boasting the highlight as J.D. Robb’s In Death novella, Midnight in Death. I’m not a big fan of short stories, but decided to go ahead and give it a read so that I could keep my In Death series going in order.

I found it kind of annoying when I look at the cover and read the blurb on the back that each story is listed in the opposite order than it actually appears in the book. So I’ll break down each story…in t More...

The book cover says "Tis the season for passion & intrigue- in four festive Christmas novellas by four outstanding authors." The first two stories were Christmasy. A Berry Merry Christmas by Claire Cross and The Unexpected Gift by Dee Holmes. I read those in a few hours! The Christmas Promises by Susan Plunkett was more of a story about a woman and her old flame hunting for a missing child of an abused mother. I didnt really care to read about abused women & missing children. After thing More...

Read this book because Midnight in Death was part of the omnibus.

Storyline: Eve's name has a made a Christmas list, but it's not for being naughty or nice. It's for putting a serial killer behind bars. Now the escaped madman has her in his sights. With her husband Roarke at her side, Eve must stop the man from exacting his bloody vengeance-or die trying.

We begin with Eve Dallas being called to investigate a body in Times Square of a judge found very early Christmas morning. The body was dumped More...

This book is a collection four short Christmas themed stories. Sometimes anthologies or omnibuses work well, especially holiday related novellas. But, sometimes the stories compiled just don't compliment each other well. That's the case with this book.
The first story was written by Claire Cross, aka Claire Delacroix. This one set a poor tone for the book and shouldn't have been the lead in. In my opinion, the story was a rip off of the movie "Elf ". Way to silly for my taste . I think it would More...

I don't like these 4 author compilations of which J.D. Robb is one. The other 3 stories are not of the same caliber or genre so it somewhat spoils the read. You pick up a 300+ page book, absorb a 100 pages of it and flip through the rest. This was the second compilation I attempted.

Somewhat disappointed in J.D. Robb's performance here. The main character, Eve was having serious PMS. This is the most bitchy she has been in any of the novels. I wonder if she portraits Robb in any way? Fortunately More...

I was only going to read the J.D. Robb short and then I read a few pages of the Claire Cross story and then ended up reading the whole book. "Midnight in Death" is a nice little story going back to early days of Dallas and Roarke, though I think I like the full length novels better than these shorts. Claire Cross's story "A Berry merry Christmas" has a fantasy twist that's a bit corny but I found myself enjoying it and embracing the goofiness for a "feel good" happy story. I'm always a sucker fo More...

I read the 1st & last story in this anthology. Too many books came in from the library at one time.

Claire Cross's "A Berry Merry Christmas" - I actually really enjoyed this light-hearted story.

J.D. Robb's "Midnight in Death" - The reason I checked this book out in the first place. This was a great quick fix featuring Eve, Roarke, Peabody, Feeney & McNab. For a short story, this one was really good.

The end came a little too quickly but again this is a novella. The storyline and writing are where the reader expects. The relationships with Peabody and McNab are firming and the best of the series are in the later books. The last few pages aren't packed with the extreme action I've come to expect and have read in later books in this series. This is a better read than a few of the earlier books, numbers 3-5 were a little disappointing. The series from this point forward starts moving along at a More...

The only story I really enjoyed was Claire Cross' A BERRY MERRY CHRISTMAS, a story about an elf who is sent on a mission to help a family and ends up falling in love. It's been a re-read for me.

But I'm kind of confused as to why it's in this collection, since it's marketed as a romantic suspense anthology. It's a sweet Christmas story, with no suspense at all!

Reread December 2012.

the JD Robb story was awesome. It tied some loose ends together in the main story. In this one, Eve has to chase down a killer that she has already put in jail. He has a hit list and on it are herself and Doctor Mira.

This is during her and Roarke's first Christmas and New Years Eve together. Can she stop him before he harms one of her closest friends? Or will she be too late?

Just a short story of Eva Dallas accompanied with her multibillionaire husband, Roarke in their first Christmas day, ran after David Palmer, who excaped from prison, haunted and killed everyone related to his arrested. Eva was at the last list for his short murder target, just after Dr. Mira. This hunt just became a personal situation to both Eva and David.

The only one I read from here is the In Death story. It was really creepy and the bad guy was very bad, but the story was too short to really appreciate him. He's a bad guy Eve saw prior to meeting us and Roark. Good addition to the line, but it made me tired for Eve, coming right on top of her last case.

Four short stories by four authors, including J.D. Robb. All with Christmas themes mixed mostly with romance or "chic" lit. J.D. Robb's was Christmas and murder. Not a bad collection of stories. Nothing too sappy, all were pretty sexy. Can't complain about that.

I enjoyed these stories! If that's surprise you can hear in that statement, you'd be correct. Not a fan of the short story, but these weren't bad. I liked the Claire Cross and the J. D. Robb the best, but the other two were good too

The villain was too horrible (well, aren't they all but still), the plot/relationship didn't seem to advance. Felt like filler. It was ok but if, like me, you do giant re-reads of In Death, you could skip this.

I really enjoyed MIDNIGHT IN DEATH and A BERRY MERRY CHRISTMAS. The other two I couldn't finish. Didn't grab my attention.

I do wish that MIDNIGHT IN DEATH were longer. I really enjoy this series.

I just reread this book and the first three stories are all fun romantic Christmas stories which I enjoyed reading especiallly when I'm feeling down. The last one wouldn't really be called warm and cuddly. None of J. D. Robb stories can be called warm and cuddly. Althought they are very thought provoking and interesting. I really enjoy how Eve Dallas takes every death personally and has it become her honor to find the killer and bring them in. I can't believe how Ms. Robb thinks up all the horri More...

I recommend this anthology to fans of J.D. Robb's In Death series, the 'Midnight in Death' novelette was exciting and tight, well worth reading. The rest of the stories in this anthology are less brilliant:
I liked Susan Plunkett's : the whole battered women scenario is not a fav, but the story was good and very well told.
I was kind of indifferent to Dee Holmes: it started off well and then became weak and predictable.
I really didn't like Claire Cross' totally hackneyed story, it was really bad. More...

First story done and not to bad just rather predictable. Second story done - not to bad! Happiness around the holidays is always a good thing!

I don't know if this should really be counted as finished but I made it half way - the last two stories didn't interest me much and received two new books for Christmas and still have a huge amount sitting on my shelf to read!

'Midnight in Death' by J.D. Robb is the only novella worth reading in this anthology.

Good JD Robb story, but I couldn't get into any of the others.

Realy cool christmass/new year stories. Love'em

I only read the book by J.D. Robb.

Only reading the one by J.D.Robb

Midnight

4

Loved Midnight in Death but not the others.

Another fun group of books.

The only thing that was really worth reading in the book was the JD Robb and Susan Plunkett's stories. Holmes and Cross's stories were light-weight and sappy.