Holiday Kisses: A Holiday Romance Collection by Shannon Stacey, Jaci Burton , HelenKay Dimon, Alison Kent and Angela James (Editor) is a collection of short romance tales all with the theme of Christmas. The first story is “This Time Next Year” is one of a woman who finds herself stranded on the side of the road on the way to visit her grandmother for Christmas. Just at her moment of need a cowboy comes riding to the rescue, pulls her to safety and together they find out just what it means to have someone they love at Christmas.

The second story, “A Rare Gift” is about a man who has no interest in women after a disastrous marriage that is why it takes him by surprise when his ex-wife’s younger sister begins to grow on him during a work project. Now with the holidays approaching he finds himself asking whether or not he can put his trust in love a second time.

The third story, “It’s Not Christmas Without You,” is about a woman who breaks up with her boyfriend in order to accept her dream job in the city. Still in love with her boyfriend she cannot bring herself to go home for Christmas. When her boyfriend, who is also still in love, discovers this he is determined to bring Christmas to her in the city in hopes that after Christmas she will come home with him and resume their love story.

The last story in this romance short story collection is, “Mistletoe and Margaritas.” Two years after losing her husband a woman still finds herself not quite ready to move on. However, she still believes in love and is not surprised when her needs start to manifest themselves in her dreams. What surprises her however are the feelings that she has begun to develop about her best friend, Justin. As it turns out he has always had affection for her and when they find themselves at a holiday party together they are no longer able to conceal their true feelings for one another.

I have to admit there are few times when I rate a romance novel higher than 3 stars. This collection started off with great promise the first short story actually engaged me in it’s story line before moving on to the “romance” part of the novel (read here the lusty love scenes). For short stories they actually did take their time letting their characters fall in love and all of them stuck true to the holiday theme. What made this book dip below the typical 3 stars I will give a romance novel is the graphicness of the love scenes. Call me a prude but I have read many Sandra Brown novels with some pretty intense love scenes that did not make me say, “Well now THAT is just going too far,” this collection made me say that more than once. I am sure there are many readers out there that enjoy those type of love scene but for this reader it bordered on erotic fiction and outside the taste of this reader.

People who enjoy romance novels however will more than likely enjoy this collection, as mentioned earlier the contributors do take their time to develop a story between their characters and many of them are enjoyable page turners, the only real problem with this collection is that according to the taste of this reader some of the love scenes were just a little too much.

Publication Date: December 5, 2011