{"id":1575,"date":"2015-12-18T07:11:26","date_gmt":"2015-12-18T12:11:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/silk-serif.com\/?p=1575"},"modified":"2015-12-17T18:12:36","modified_gmt":"2015-12-17T23:12:36","slug":"review-wishes-for-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/silk-serif.com\/?p=1575","title":{"rendered":"Review: Wishes for Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I received this book for free from Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.<\/p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/silk-serif.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/WishesforChristmas.jpg\" alt=\"Review: Wishes for Christmas\" title=\"Review: Wishes for Christmas\" class=\"ubb-cover-image alignleft\"><strong>Wishes for Christmas<\/strong> by <a href=\"http:\/\/silk-serif.com\/?book-author=fern-michaels\">Fern Michaels<\/a> <br><strong>Published by<\/strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/silk-serif.com\/?book-publisher=zebra\">Zebra<\/a> on October 27th 2015 <br><strong>Pages:<\/strong> 384 <br><strong>Format:<\/strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/silk-serif.com\/?book-format=physical-arc\">Physical ARC<\/a> <br><strong>Source:<\/strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/silk-serif.com\/?book-source=publisher\">Publisher<\/a> <br><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/1420136658\/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1420136658&linkCode=as2&tag=sise0c-20&linkId=TQ3237ZQ6F2PUCZT\" target=\"_blank\">Buy on Amazon<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.barnesandnoble.com\/w\/wishes-for-christmas-fern-michaels\/1120745738\" target=\"_blank\">B&N<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/geo.itunes.apple.com\/ca\/book\/wishes-for-christmas\/id965681228?mt=11&at=1000l9EE\" target=\"_blank\">iBooks<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/play.google.com\/store\/search?q=978-142013666-1&c=books\" target=\"_blank\">GooglePlay<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/1TRDLHe\" target=\"_blank\">Kobo<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.booksamillion.com\/p\/Wishes-Christmas\/Fern-Michaels\/9781420136654\" target=\"_blank\">BAM<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/penguinrandomhouse.ca\/books\/250130\/wishes-christmas#9781420136654\" target=\"_blank\">Publisher<\/a> <br><a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/book\/show\/25387671-wishes-for-christmas\" target=\"_blank\">Goodreads<\/a> <br><span class=\"star_rating\"><i class=\"fa-solid fa-star\"><\/i><i class=\"fa-solid fa-star\"><\/i><i class=\"fa-solid fa-star-half-stroke\"><\/i><i class=\"fa-regular fa-star\"><\/i><i class=\"fa-regular fa-star\"><\/i><\/span> <br><blockquote class=\"ubb-synopsis\"><p><em>New York Times<em> <\/em> bestselling author Fern Michaels brings together the beloved heroines from two celebrated series\u2014the Sisterhood and the Godmothers\u2014for a holiday to remember\u2026<\/em>This Christmas, instead of finding and punishing bad guys, all Maggie Spritzer wants is to bring a little more joy to the world\u2014especially to a beloved teacher from her past. And as the Sisterhood unites to find her, they learn that no holiday treat is as fulfilling as giving to others\u2026<br \/>\nMeanwhile, with a little help from the other Godmothers, Toots Loudenberry is preparing for Charleston\u2019s annual holiday showcase of historic homes. But when the Godmothers sense trouble with one of the decorators, they must tackle a mystery and hope for a happy ending\u2026<br \/>\nWhen Sisters and Godmothers unite, the result is a warm and wonderful holiday\u2014with a special touch of magic\u2026<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>        <script type=\"application\/ld+json\">\n            {\n                \"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\n                \"@type\":\"Review\",\n                \"datePublished\": \"2015-12-18T12:11:26+00:00\",\n\t\"description\": \"Wishes for Christmas is a set of three Christmas cheer tales written by the prolific author Fern Michaels. In each tale we meet the cast of Fern's various groups: The Godmothers, The Sisterhood a\",\n\t\"publisher\": {\n\t\t\"@type\": \"Organization\",\n\t\t\"name\": \"Silk &amp; Serif\"            },\n            \"url\": \"http:\\\/\\\/silk-serif.com\\\/?p=1575\",\n\t\"itemReviewed\": {\n\t\t\"@type\": \"Book\",\n\t\t\"name\": \"Wishes for Christmas\",\n\t\t\"author\": {\n\t\t\t\"@type\": \"Person\",\n\t\t\t\"name\": \"Fern Michaels\",\n\t\t\t\"sameAs\": \"http:\\\/\\\/www.fernmichaels.com\\\/\"            },\n            \"isbn\": \"1420136658\"            },\n            \"author\": {\n                \"@type\": \"Person\",\n                \"name\": \"Debbie\",\n\t\t\"sameAs\": \"http:\\\/\\\/silk-serif.com\\\/\"            },\n            \"reviewRating\": {\n                \"@type\": \"Rating\",\n                \"ratingValue\": 2.5,\n\t\t\"bestRating\": \"5\"\n\t}\n}\n\n\n        <\/script>\n        <p><em>Wishes for Christmas<\/em> is a set of three Christmas cheer tales written by the prolific author Fern Michaels. In each tale we meet the cast of Fern&#8217;s various groups: The Godmothers, The Sisterhood and The Vigilantes.<\/p>\n<p><span id=\"reviewTextContainer1420869874\" class=\"readable\"><span id=\"freeText9173979557415011724\">In the first story, <strong>And The Angels Sing<\/strong>, Maggie reveals that she once knew a school teacher who was assaulted before disappearing. Since the day she found her teacher bruised and battered, Maggie has blamed herself for the woman&#8217;s disappearance. The Vigilantes decide that they will track down this lost teacher and bring her Christmas cheer, but the task is more difficult than they expected. Will the find this teacher before Christmas? Will Maggie find the closure and forgiveness she so desperately needs?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span id=\"reviewTextContainer1420869874\" class=\"readable\"><span id=\"freeText9173979557415011724\">Our second novel, <strong>Naughty or Nice<\/strong>, is about a psychic named Sophie who picks up worrisome impressions from the mansion&#8217;s Christmas decorator. When Sophie finally tries to track down the decorator to ensure that she is alright she is missing. Sophie fears the worst and in the process of tracking down the woman, she discovers a family secret that makes this Christmas extra special. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Finally, in the third story named<strong> A Golden Tree<\/strong> we see an overlap of Fern&#8217;s worlds with The Sisterhood and The Godmothers coming together to solve a mystery. When the ladies meet at a posh hotel to solidify an alliance between Annie, Myra, Toots and Sophie they catch wind of something shady. Someone is stealing medications at the retirement home in town. The ladies must work together to find the culprit. Meanwhile, Holly and Gannon are dancing around one another and avoiding their obvious attraction.<\/p>\n<p><span id=\"reviewTextContainer1420869874\" class=\"readable\"><span id=\"freeText9173979557415011724\">I have never read any of Fern Michaels&#8217; previous novels and so I found this series of stories a bit difficult to wade through.<strong> The characters all have a history which isn&#8217;t explained (nor would I expect it to be explained in this novel) and there are so many names that I was often confused.<\/strong> I felt lost for the first half of And The Angels Sing and Naughty or Nice mostly because I felt like I was dropped in the middle of a story with too much history missing to really appreciate the going-ons. A Golden Tree was a bit easier to follow since the characters were now familiar. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span id=\"reviewTextContainer1420869874\" class=\"readable\"><span id=\"freeText9173979557415011724\">I don&#8217;t suggest this novel if you aren&#8217;t already a Fern Michaels fan because its far too difficult to follow along.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Although Fern&#8217;s writing is obviously masterful and eloquent, I honestly think that perhaps her series aren&#8217;t for me. I found the sugary goodness and over the top happy endings too much. <strong>I did find that the themes for Christmas held up with plenty of cheer, goodwill and selflessness at the heart of the stories <\/strong>which fits in with the Christmas season and the festive theme. <strong><em>Wishes For Christmas<\/em> is a light-hearted, feel good set of stories meant for readers looking for humor and an easy read made to entertain and uplift rather than focus on real social issues.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In the end, I didn&#8217;t dislike this book, I just didn&#8217;t resonate with the characters or their motivations. I find that characters are a huge part of the novels for me and the missing history only made it more difficult for me to really feel any sort of connection. <strong><em>Wishes For Christmas<\/em> was more of a &#8220;meh&#8221; novel for me because although it features exceptional writing, I tend to enjoy darker, more serious literature and this is not meant to appeal to that kind of audience.<\/strong> <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>I see nothing wrong with this novel and my rating is based solely on my own preferences.<\/strong><\/span> I definitely recommend this to someone who enjoys lighter, fun novels.<\/p>\n<p>This book will definitely appeal to readers who enjoy happy endings, aging women who don&#8217;t let their age slow them down and general feel good endings. Fortunately, Fern&#8217;s writing makes this book pleasant and festive even if you haven&#8217;t read any of her series.\u00a0I really don&#8217;t suggest reading this if you haven&#8217;t sampled Fern&#8217;s work before. though, and suggest selecting a novel closer to the beginning of her series.<\/p>\n<div class=\"ubb-final-rating\"><span class=\"star_rating\"><i class=\"fa-solid fa-star\"><\/i><i class=\"fa-solid fa-star\"><\/i><i class=\"fa-solid fa-star-half-stroke\"><\/i><i class=\"fa-regular fa-star\"><\/i><i class=\"fa-regular fa-star\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"ubb-about-author\">\n<h3>About Fern Michaels<\/h3>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/silk-serif.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/FernMichaels-93x120.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"alignleft ubb-about-author-photo\"><\/p>\n<p>Fern Michaels isn\u2019t a person. I\u2019m not sure she\u2019s an entity either since an entity is something with separate existence. Fern Michaels\u00ae is what I DO. Me, Mary Ruth Kuczkir. Growing up in Hastings, Pennsylvania, I was called Ruth. I became Mary when I entered the business world where first names were the order of the day. To this day, family and friends call me Dink, a name my father gave me when I was born because according to him I was \u2018a dinky little thing\u2019 weighing in at four and a half pounds. However, I answer to Fern since people are more comfortable with a name they can pronounce.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ubb-author-links\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.fernmichaels.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\">Website<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/author\/show\/2609.Fern_Michaels\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\">Goodreads<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<table class=\"rating-report\">\n<tr>\n<th colspan=\"2\">Rating Report<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td class=\"ubb-rr-section-title\">Plot<\/td>\n<td class=\"ubb-rr-section-rating\">\n<div class=\"rr-rating\"><span class=\"star_rating\"><i class=\"fa-regular fa-star\"><\/i><i class=\"fa-regular fa-star\"><\/i><i class=\"fa-regular fa-star\"><\/i><i class=\"fa-regular fa-star\"><\/i><i class=\"fa-regular fa-star\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td class=\"ubb-rr-section-title\">Characters<\/td>\n<td class=\"ubb-rr-section-rating\">\n<div class=\"rr-rating\"><span class=\"star_rating\"><i class=\"fa-regular fa-star\"><\/i><i class=\"fa-regular fa-star\"><\/i><i class=\"fa-regular fa-star\"><\/i><i class=\"fa-regular fa-star\"><\/i><i class=\"fa-regular fa-star\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td class=\"ubb-rr-section-title\">Writing<\/td>\n<td class=\"ubb-rr-section-rating\">\n<div class=\"rr-rating\"><span class=\"star_rating\"><i class=\"fa-regular fa-star\"><\/i><i class=\"fa-regular fa-star\"><\/i><i class=\"fa-regular fa-star\"><\/i><i class=\"fa-regular fa-star\"><\/i><i class=\"fa-regular fa-star\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td class=\"ubb-rr-section-title\">Pacing<\/td>\n<td class=\"ubb-rr-section-rating\">\n<div class=\"rr-rating\"><span class=\"star_rating\"><i class=\"fa-regular fa-star\"><\/i><i class=\"fa-regular fa-star\"><\/i><i class=\"fa-regular fa-star\"><\/i><i class=\"fa-regular fa-star\"><\/i><i class=\"fa-regular fa-star\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td class=\"ubb-rr-section-title\">Cover<\/td>\n<td class=\"ubb-rr-section-rating\">\n<div class=\"rr-rating\"><span class=\"star_rating\"><i class=\"fa-regular fa-star\"><\/i><i class=\"fa-regular fa-star\"><\/i><i class=\"fa-regular fa-star\"><\/i><i class=\"fa-regular fa-star\"><\/i><i class=\"fa-regular fa-star\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr class=\"ubb-rr-overall\">\n<td class=\"ubb-rr-section-title\">Overall:<\/td>\n<td class=\"ubb-rr-section-rating\"><span class=\"star_rating\"><i class=\"fa-regular fa-star\"><\/i><i class=\"fa-regular fa-star\"><\/i><i class=\"fa-regular fa-star\"><\/i><i class=\"fa-regular fa-star\"><\/i><i class=\"fa-regular fa-star\"><\/i><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wishes for Christmas is a set of three Christmas cheer tales written by the prolific author Fern Michaels. In each tale we meet the cast of Fern&#8217;s various groups: The Godmothers, The Sisterhood and The Vigilantes. In the first story, And The Angels Sing, Maggie reveals that she once knew a school teacher who was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1498,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[109,194,193,56,1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1575","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chick-lit","8":"category-christmas","9":"category-holiday","10":"category-review","11":"category-uncategorized","12":"book-author-fern-michaels","13":"book-publisher-zebra","14":"book-genre-christmas","15":"book-genre-contemporary","16":"book-genre-fiction","17":"book-genre-general","18":"book-genre-holiday","19":"book-genre-mystery","20":"book-source-publisher","21":"book-format-physical-arc","22":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/silk-serif.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/silk-serif.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/silk-serif.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/silk-serif.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/silk-serif.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1575"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/silk-serif.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1618,"href":"http:\/\/silk-serif.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1575\/revisions\/1618"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/silk-serif.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/silk-serif.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/silk-serif.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/silk-serif.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}