REVIEW: Regency Glad Tidings by Carla Kelly
“Holly and Ivy”- The Napoleonic Wars are over. Troops are returning home to a joyous Christmas, except for Surgeon Jake Frost, who must escort a hypochondriac captain, barely wounded at Waterloo. Jake prepares to hate every minute of the ordeal, until he meets the hypochondriac’s fiancé.
“Yours Sincerely” – Madeline and her widowed mother live in genteel poverty, at the mercy of overbearing in-laws. Despite this, they have managed well. Years earlier, they befriended an older gentleman who has since passed away. To their surprise, an American sea captain arrives, summoned for a reading of the will of that quiet gentleman. Kindness triumphs in ways unimaginable, except, perhaps, during the season of glad tidings.
“Picture a Christmas” – To avoid the poorhouse, Mary Cooper finds employment in a notions shop belonging to a grouchy old dame. Coming into her life to upend this pleasant arrangement is Luke Wainwright, nephew of Mary’s employer. He’s a widower and shipbuilder with no time for anything except business. To Luke, Mary is an interloper in his aunt’s affairs, until he sees someone else: a person as determined as he is to improve the hand dealt them. Together, perhaps?
Dear Ms. Kelly,
I can usually count on you for delightful Christmas novellas. These are three nice ones, all set in England during and immediately after the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812. There are plenty of nice people who fall in love and the Christmas season is more a backdrop than a central focus. But for two of the stories, I have to be honest and say that the “villains” were more caricatures than characters.
The hypochondriac who bedevils Surgeon Frost is just a bit too much of a sullen, silly man to be believed. The terrible Tifton in-laws who make life so difficult for Maddie and her mother are more than a teensy bit absurd in their meanness and foot stomping. There is just no shading and depth to these people at all. Of course they do put the kind main characters in a better light although there is little that could show these MCs in a bad light.
“Holly and Ivy”
Frost has been a dedicated surgeon across European battlefields who sees in his heroine a lovely woman who has been denigrated by not only her fiance but also her own family. Frost manages to enlist the aid of several tough judges of character as he attempts to track her down after she’s decided to forge her own path. B
“Yours Sincerely”
I must be honest and say this is my least favorite of the three stories. Amos, Maddie, and her mother – along with the circulating librarian – are all very nice but I found that the little bits of humor that I so often enjoy from you just often landed awkwardly here. C+
“Picture a Christmas”
By far this is my favorite. One thing I do like in your stories is that so often the characters are not aristocracy. Here Mary is the daughter of a crofter while Luke’s people were wainwrights before he switched to shipbuilding. I like that Mary is tough as she quietly makes her way from nothing to finding a place for herself. Luke’s father-in-law is a delight as well. I think Luke will take well to being managed by his competent new wife. B+
~Jayne
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It was very funny to see this post this morning as I’d just spent some time trying to determine in which collection a certain Carla Kelly story was located. And then I ended up reading a different story on the bus while out running errands. (All this because I was out to pick up a library hold of The Unlikely Master Genius. Did you read any of that series, Jayne?)
@Kareni: I read the novella that (I think) starts the series which is part of “Regency Royal Navy Christmas.” Several of my friends have enjoyed the series but no, I haven’t gotten back to it.
I plan to reread the first book, Jayne, since I read the first in 2019 and have forgotten the details. My library now has the following two books so I might indeed continue on.
I’d not read any Carla Kelly in a long time so recently ordered the third Able Six novel. I wasn’t all that fond of the first two as he is a bit too perfect, but the description of the third sounded interesting so I decided to take a chance. It arrived yesterday, along with REGENCY GLAD TIDINGS and another of her Regency romances. Many of her earlier books remain on my keeper shelves, fingers crossed these live up to the very high bar she’s set in the past.