A Fortune's Children Christmas

Hooray for Barbara Boswell! In her short story "A Home For Christmas," in the A FORTUNE'S CHILDREN CHRISTMAS anthology, she completes Joanna Chandler's story of survival after a traumatic accident begun in STAND-IN BRIDE. In a "A Home For Christmas," Joanna finds herself hired as an executive assistant to a reluctanct Ryder Fortune. Joanna's foibles such as her hyperactivity, short attention span, and short term memory deficits (all consequences of the accident that left her brain-injured) drive Ryder crazy, but her warm personality, understanding ear, and sense of humor endear her to him, so that he falls in love with her and she with him. What makes this story wonderful and very rare is that Joanna is clearly a survivor, never a victim of her disabilities. In fact, the word "disabled" is never even printed in the story. Barbara Boswell skillfully interweaves the effects of Joanna's accident into the plot line, so that Ryder's acceptance of Joanna's shortcomings is integral to the resolution of their romance.