A Christmas Waltz
Zebra, Oct 1 2010, $6.99
ISBN: 9781420111507
In 1894 Lady Amelia Wellesley arrives in Small Fork, Texas from England. Her first impression is go back home to Meremont immediately as this wild frontier is nothing like that described to her by her fiancé Wild West show performer Carson Kitteridge.
Amelia quickly learns that Carson the charmer is a duplicitous person. He fabricated many things including their marriage. Carson’s older brother Dr. Boone Kitteridge is a stable no nonsense person. He has quickly fallen in love with the Englishwoman and offers to marry her. Although she does not love Boone she accepts his proposal. They travel to England where he becomes the village doctor and she his wife. However, doubts leave their relationship tenuous at best.
The latest Jane Goodger Christmas historical romance (see A Christmas Scandal) is warm late Victorian tale. The support cast is solid, but it is the American doctor and his aristocratic English wife who turn A Christmas Waltz into a poignant story; as he is Running Scared (Roy Orbison tune) of the return of his brother in their lives while she fears she will never love her caring husband.
Harriet Klausner
