The Gift - Richard Paul Evans

Title: The Gift
Author: Richard Paul Evans
Pages: 335
Published: 2007
Genre: Christmas
Rating: 4/5

Nathan Hurst hated Christmas.  For the rest of the world it was a day of joy and celebration; for Nathan it was simply a reminder of the event that destroyed his childhood until a snowstorm, a cancelled flight, and an unexpected meeting with a young mother and her very special son would show him that Christmas is indeed the season of miracles.

Reason that I read this book: For the 2010 Holiday Reading Challenge and the Christmas Spirit Reading Challenge. 


Thoughts: It was a nice diversion from the heavier material that I had been reading and took me a couple of days to finish.  I really enjoyed the book and was one of the better ones of his that I have read this Christmas season.  It was an interesting premise and I quite liked it.

Bottom line: Not disappointed by the book, in fact I was impressed more than I expected.  A lovely book.

A Christmas Carol, The Chimes, and The Cricket on the Hearth - Charles Dickens

Title: A Christmas Carol, The Chimes, and The Cricket on the Hearth
Author: Charles Dickens
Pages: 304 pages
Published: 2004
Genre: Classic, Christmas
Rating: 4/5

Generations of readers have been enchanted by Dickens’s A Christmas Carol—the most cheerful ghost story ever written, and the unforgettable tale of Ebenezer Scrooge’s moral regeneration. Written in just a few weeks, A Christmas Carol famously recounts the plight of Bob Cratchit, whose family finds joy even in poverty, and the transformation of his miserly boss Scrooge as he is visited by the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future.

From Scrooge’s “Bah!” and “Humbug!” to Tiny Tim’s “God bless us every one!” A Christmas Carol shines with warmth, decency, kindness, humility, and the value of the holidays. But beneath its sentimental surface, A Christmas Carol offers another of Dickens’s sharply critical portraits of a brutal society, and an inspiring celebration of the possibility of spiritual, psychological, and social change.

This new volume collects Dickens’s three most renowned “Christmas Books,” including The Chimes, a New Year’s tale, and The Cricket on the Hearth, whose eponymous creature remains silent during sorrow and chirps amid happiness.

Reason that I read this book: I read it for a couple of Christmas reading challenges and for a reading challenge on Goodreads.  I also read it because it was the Christmas season and I wanted to read something with a Christmas theme.

Thoughts:  Overall, it is a very good collection of three of the five Christmas stories that Dickens wrote over a 5 or 6 year period in the 1840s.  I really enjoyed the first and the final stories, but for some reason the middle story didn't really capture my imagination.  Not that it is a wonderful story, but I just felt that The Chimes dragged a little bit and didn't seem to have the same sort of vibe that A Christmas Carol had.  I suppose it doesn't help that The Chimes isn't as well known as A Christmas Carol and the expectations were probably higher than I had for The Cricket on the Hearth.


Bottom Line: Overall, it is a good overview of 3 of the 5 Christmas stories and while it does include A Christmas Carol, which is important, I just felt that the expectations of the final stories were probably a little too high and that the writing for the second Christmas story wasn't exactly what I was expecting and the final story was nice and light and shorter than the previous two stories.

Grace - Richard Paul Evans

Title: Grace
Author: Richard Paul Evans
Published: 2008
Pages: 316
Genre: Christmas
Rating: 4/5

She was my first kiss. My first love. She was a little match girl who could see the future in the flame of a candle. She was a runaway who taught me more about life than anyone has before or since. And when she was gone my innocence left with her.

As I begin to write, a part of me feels as if I am awakening something best left dead and buried, or at least buried. We can bury the past, but it never really dies. The experience of that winter has grown on my soul like ivy climbing the outside of a home, growing until it begins to tear and tug at the brick and mortar.

I pray I can still get the story right. My memory, like my eyesight, has waned with age. Still, there are things that become clearer to me as I grow older. This much I know: too many things were kept secret in those days. Things that never should have been hidden. And things that should have.

Reason that I read this book: For the 2010 Holiday Reading Challenge and the Christmas Spirit Reading Challenge. 

Thoughts:  I actually had started reading the book about a year ago and then quit.  I picked it up this Christmas and was floored by the powerfulness of the book.  Excellent read.

Bottom line: Probably one of the better books that I have read by Evans and only hope that I am not disappointed with my next read of his. 

Finding Noel - Richard Paul Evans

Title: Finding Noel
Author: Richard Paul Evans
Published: 2006
Pages: 320 pages
Genre: Fiction, Christmas
Rating: 3/5

The Christmas season is supposed to be full of joy, but not for Mark Smart. Life had dealt him one blow after another until one snowy November night, when he finds a beautiful young woman who will change his life forever. Macy Wood has little memory of her birth parents, and memories she'd rather forget of her adopted home. A Christmas ornament inscribed with the word "Noel" is the only clue to the little sister she only vaguely remembers, a clue that will send her and Mark on a journey to reclaim her past, and her family.

Reason I read this book: For the 2010 Holiday Reading Challenge and the Christmas Spirit Reading Challenge. 


Thoughts: I had read this book about 4 years ago and actually liked it.  Now, I don't know if I like it as much.  I still enjoyed the story and read things I hadn't realized had happened in the book.  Still was an enjoyable read.


Bottom Line:  A lot like what the previous two books that I have read within the last few weeks of Evans and even though I read it a few years ago, I still enjoyed the book.  Nice departure from my regular fare.

The Christmas List - Richard Paul Evans

Title: The Christmas List
Author: Richard Paul Evans
Published: 2009
Pages: 350
Genre: Fiction, Christmas
Rating: 3/5

Dear Reader,
When I was in seventh grade, my English teacher, Mrs. Johnson, gave our class the intriguing (if somewhat macabre) assignment of writing our own obituaries. Oddly, I don't remember much of what I wrote about my life, but I do remember how I died: in first place on the final lap of the Daytona 500. At the time, I hadn't considered writing as an occupation, a field with a remarkably low on-the-job casualty rate.

What intrigues me most about Mrs. Johnson's assignment is the opportunity she gave us to confront our own legacy. How do we want to be remembered? That question has motivated our species since the beginning of time: from building pyramids to putting our names on skyscrapers.
As I began to write this book, I had two objectives: First, I wanted to explore what could happen if someone read their obituary before they died and saw, firsthand, what the world really thought of them. Their legacy.

Second, I wanted to write a Christmas story of true redemption. One of my family's holiday traditions is to see a local production of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol. I don't know how many times I've seen it (perhaps a dozen), but it still thrills me to see the change that comes over Ebenezer Scrooge as he transforms from a dull, tight-fisted miser into a penitent, "giddy-as-aschoolboy" man with love in his heart. I always leave the show with a smile on my face and a resolve to be a better person. That's what I wanted to share with you, my dear readers, this Christmas -- a holiday tale to warm your season, your homes, and your hearts.

Reason I read this book: Read this book for a Holiday Reading challenge.

Thoughts: Like the other Evans book I read a few days ago, a nice light, Christmas  read.  Especially helps when one is waiting for a Harry Potter film and when the power goes out.  While there is nothing revealing about the book other than a nice, light read, it is nice to read something like this when life gets a bit stressful and you feel like you are going crazy.

Bottom line: Just a nice read for when things are a little crazy.

Promise Me - Richard Paul Evans

Title: Promise Me
Author: Richard Paul Evans
Published: 2010
Pages: 352
Genre: Fiction, Christmas
Rating 3/5

Beth Cardall has a secret. For eighteen years, she has had no choice but to keep it to herself, but on Christmas Eve 2008, all that is about to change. For Beth, 1989 was a year marked by tragedy. Her life was falling apart: her six-year-old daughter, Charlotte, was suffering from an unidentifiable illness; her marriage transformed from a seemingly happy and loving relationship to one full of betrayal and pain; her job at the dry cleaners was increasingly at risk; and she had lost any ability to trust, to hope, or to believe in herself. Then, on Christmas Day, as she rushed through a blizzard to the nearest 7-Eleven, Beth encountered Matthew, a strikingly handsome, mysterious stranger, who would single-handedly change the course of her life. Who is this man, and how does he seem to know so much about her? He pursues her relentlessly, and only after she's fallen deeply in love with him does she learn his incredible secret, changing the world as she knows it, as well as her own destiny.

Reason I read this book:  I read this book for a Holiday Reading challenge.

Thoughts: I had read one of Evan's books a few years ago, so I knew what to expect: a light-hearted romance taking place during the Holiday season.  I honestly didn't have any sort of thoughts in regards to the book, except that it was nice to read something lighter than what I had been reading.


Bottom Line: It was nice light read after reading a couple of books that were weighing on me, both literally and figuratively.