It takes a lot to make me give a book a 1 star rating. I have tried to write, and I know how hard it is, but this author needed to try a little harder. To be fair I only managed to read the first 100 pages and then I skimmed the ending to see if there were any surprises. There weren't. There are so many things wrong with this book that I almost don't know where to begin. How about we start with the three point of view changes in one page? That's not at all confusing or unnecessary. Then there are the characters that might as well have been named Female Protagonist and Male Protagonist for all of the depth of character development put into them. The large cast of indistinguishable side characters who are defined only by their roles in the "plot" - the money-grubbing, dishonest business owner, the honest, hard-hitting cop, and the evil, anti-social villain. Speaking of the villain, the "author" very carefully points him out in the first couple of chapters just in case you don't want to wait to the end to find out who was going to try to do harm to the cardboard cutouts she substitutes for real characters.

I don't have high standards for Christmas novels. I look for heart-warming, simple stories with only a minimum of writing talent required to keep me from throwing the book away. This one failed to meet even that much. It's going into the first trash can I pass.