36 Hours: The Christmas That Changed Everything/A Pregnant Pause/Holiday Reunion/Christmas Bonus

Days before Christmas, a storm sweeps a small Colorado town...Shocking secrets are revealed. Couples are united. Families and futures are made. A wealthy rancher delivers the baby of the vulnerable beauty he has always loved. A doctor husband comes to the rescue of his estranged wife - and discovers the secrets that once tore his bride from his loving arms. A sexy CEO pursues his single-and-pregnant secretary all the way to the altar when he learns she is in need of his passionate protection.

From the back cover: Days before Christmas, a storm sweeps a small Colorado town... Shocking secrets are revealed. Couples are united. Families and futures are made. This exciting collection has it all--in three brand-new stories by three beloved authors! "A Pregnant Pause" A wealthy rancher delivers the baby of the vulnerable beauty he has always loved, in a captivating story by Mary Lynn Baxter. "Holiday Reunion" A doctor husband comes to the rescue of his estranged wife--and discovers the secrets that once tore his bride from his loving arms, in an emotional story by Marilyn Pappano. "Christmas Bonus" A sexy CEO pursues his single-and-pregnant secretary all the way to the altar when he learns she is in need of his passionate protection, in an entralling story by Christine Flynn. Let this romance-filled collection change your life this Christmas! And my review: While this book was part of the "36 Hours" miniseries, each of these stories could stand perfectly well on there own. I have not read any of the other books in the miniseries, and I wasn't at all "lost" when reading this novellas. Mary Lynn Baxter's story started out well, then seemed to fizzle out to nothing. The plot quickly went from compelling to cliched. The baby felt like nothing more than a flat plot device. The author didn't even spend a single sentence describing what the baby looked like! I couldn't feel why the characters should fall in love with each other. The "spark" you need in a romance was not there. I kept waiting for it to pick up again, but it didn't. Three stars. Marilyn Pappano's story was my favorite in this book. (Maybe the fact this it was the longest one in the collection had something to do with it.) I love stories of estranged spouses reconciling, and this one was very well done. The reasons they were apart were compelling, not stupid misunderstandings like you so often find with romances. And when the heroine realizes how true her husband's love is, it was so touching that I got tears in my eyes. This one will be re-read in the years to come! Five stars. Christine Flynn's story was just okay. It was a marriage of convenience story, which I enjoy, but it was not a stand-out. From the back cover description, I thought that there was actually something that the hero needed to protect her from. But apart from the struggle of single-motherhood, there was no danger to her, which was a bit of a let-down. I found that there miscommunications got kind of annoying after a while. (Hint: if you're marrying someone, even if it's not in the conventional sense, make sure you sort out the major issues, like say, sex!) This story was marginally better than the first one in the book, but not worth a re-read. Four stars. As usual, one really good story in an anthology is right on par. Marilyn Pappano's was good enough to warrant the price of the book, in my humble opinion. The rest was pretty much padding - okay for a one-time read, but nothing special.