You Went Away - Timothy Findly

one sentence summary:
a woman struggles to keep from falling apart during WWII

review:
this is a beautiful work, short and with no wasted words. The emotions it dragged me through were more than enough to last a life time. There was so much tragedy and love expressed in the short work it was amazing that Findly could express his story with such flow and consistency (not to mention beautiful prose). It is a really short read, just go read it.

9/10

The Delaney Christmas Carol - Kay Hooper, Iris Johansen and Fayrene Preston

one sentence summary:
many generations of the Delaney family have looked into the magic mirror and seen a glimpse of the future, these are three of those stories.

Review:
none of these stories were particularly well conceived or well written. Iris Johansen's was the best in my opinion and the other two weren't much worse. All three felt rushed and without strong plots. The Delaney family, however, does seem like a family worth writing about and I will probably seek out more of their stories.

4/10

The Bite Before Christmas - Heidi Betts

one sentence summary:
even vampires need a little love around the holidays.

Review:
Three vampire stories that all feed one to another and are written by Betts. She has done a phenomenal job of all three vampire tropes, human girl loves vampire male, vampire female loves human male, and vampire female loves vampire male. All in all  three stories about overcoming the odds, coming to terms with your emotions and falling in love, all with happily forever after endings. The writing is pretty alright, easy reading for sure. The stories are cute and entertaining. Great reading for a snowy afternoon by the fireplace (or the sweltering heat of July if you, like me, are in need of a taste of Christmas to lift your spirits.)

7/10

Supernatural - Larissa Ione, Alexandra Ivy, Jacqueline Frank, G.A. Aiken

one sentence summary:
You love  who you love and not even the supernatural can keep you away from them.

review:
I read all four of these authors, and these short stories were all quite well done. I enjoyed all four of the stories. The best IMO was Larissa Ione's The quick romance between a were and her vampire boss, with just a dash of family drama thrown in. My next favourite was by G A Aiken, the story of two very different people being forced to spend time together and realizing that differences do attract. Jacqueline Frank's story was smut filled and entertaining enough. Alexandra Ivy's story was pretty good, but easily forgettable. I recommend this book for people who want to read some pretty good romance without wanting to read a whole novel.

8/10

Beyond the Dark - 4 novellas - Angela Knight, Emma Holly, Lora Leigh, and Diane Whiteside

one sentence summary:
a supernatural element always makes smut somehow smuttier.
review:
All four of these stories were pretty all right. The strongest was the one by Lora Leigh, another of her breeds stories, genetically altered humans who are biologically compelled to mate for life once they have found their destined partner. A lot of pre-coitus drama and not all that much smut, but the drama was entertaining. The second and third strongest were pretty well the same level of entertaining, Whiteside and Holly both have strong females as their protagonist. Whiteside  is more of an alternate history style story where as Holly's can be categorized without any second guessing as erotica. I would say 75% of her story is sex. It is highly entertaining. Angela Knight had the weakest story of the bunch, which is odd because usually she is good, but she fell into the trap of trying to fit to much plot into to few pages. I must admit, by the time I finished the book I didn't really remember much about her story, it is the first or second story in this edition. I recommend it to people who like this sort of thing

6/10 *smut rating based on actual smut may be as high as 8 but the stories were not all particularly good*