A Victorian Christmas Quilt

Quilts and Christmas themes run through this collection of four romantic novellas. In Palmer's "Lone Star," Texan Star Ellis reluctantly travels to England to wed a nobleman. On the voyage over, she meets her intended husband's black sheep brother and ends up falling in love. Debra White Smith's "The Wedding Ring" sends Rose Brandon to Denver to return a wedding-ring quilt to her recently deceased grandmother's early love. Although the man is unforgiving, she does meet his doctor son. In Ginny Aiken's "Log Cabin Patch," Melissa Barnhart and her surly brother Craig relocate to a logging town where she has a job as a cook. Her rocky meeting with mill owner Cal Stevenson ends happily. "Crosses and Losses" is Peggy Stoks's contribution. Joyce and Samuel Colburn's marriage, strained since the death of their daughter, is healed by the Christmas season. Although these light romantic tales are fairly pedestrian, undemanding readers should find much to enjoy here.