Merry Christmas, Baby!

From the back cover: What the kids want for Christmas: The teenagers at the Santiago Center in Brooklyn want their shelter to stay open. Jack Riley, ace reporter, and big-hearted Texan, volunteers at the center. His boss, Madeleine Langston, can grant the kids' wish--and he can grant hers, fairy-tale style. All it's going to take is some faith, hope, and a well-fitted tux! "Cinderfella" by Susan Wiggs Grady's kids want Fiona to marry their dad and live in their house forever. But Grady, stubborn, hard-up rancher that he is, doesn't want to risk disappointing his kids--or himself. Fiona's fallen in love with his family, all right, but that doesn't mean she feels the same way about him... "Grady's Kids" by Bobby Hutchinson Jessica and Jamie Kinsley want their uncle Nathan to get married again--to his ex-wife, Emily. The kids want a real family, and now that Nathan's their guardian, they figure he should get back together with Emily. That's exactly what Nathan wants, too. Only Emily seems to have doubts--but Jess and Jamie are sure they can change her mind! "It Takes A Miracle" by Karen Young. And my review: I normally like books by Susan Wiggs. While they are not often ones that go on my keeper shelf, they are always an entertaining read. But I did not like "Cinderfella". The one-night-stand-under-false-pretenses-that-turns-into-love theme is one that I absolutely hate. I know that not everyone believes in sex only within marriage, but I think most will agree that one-night stands are disgusting, and not the kind of thing you want to read about in a romance. At least, I certainly don't. When I got up to the point where the characters hopped into bed, I skipped to the next story. One star. "Grady's Kids" started off really well. The author had a good balance of plot and character development, which is difficult to do well in just over 100 pages. I liked the "forbidden love" element to this story: she was his parole officer (don't worry - the hero was a good guy who let his temper get the best of him and stopped a train at gunpoint to keep it from killing his cattle. He didn't hurt anyone). Grady's little girl, Belinda, was absolutely adorable, and I would dare any reader to not fall in love her - she was just that sweet. But then this author had the characters, who were just starting to get to know each other (the second day they've been together), having sex on the living room floor - where the kids could have walked in on them! What kind of responsible parent does that? And who sleeps with someone they hardly know? And what kind of parole officer sleeps with one of her cases? Ick. The falling-in-lust rather than falling-in-love element completely ruined the story for me, and once again I skipped the rest of this novella. Also, Christmas was over by the first ten pages, and only makes a very brief appearance in the epilogue (I skimmed). Less than a page of Christmas content does not a Christmas story make! Two stars - I'd give it only one, b