True-Blood.net Reviews ‘A Christmas Carroll’

Leanna Renee Hieber is one of our favorite authors here at True-Blood.net. We were introduced to her with her wonderful paranormal romance novel, The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker, and then The Darkly Luminous Fight for Persephone Parker. Now Leanna is taking us through the holidays with another heartwarming story in the short story, “A Christmas Carroll”, part of the A Midwinter Fantasy anthology.

Readers of Leanna’s Miss Percy books are already familiar with the lonely headmistress, Rebecca Thompson, and the cheerful, lovesick vicar, Michael Carroll. Rebecca has been in love with Alexi Rychman since first meeting him one haunted night on a bridge in 1800’s London. Michael has loved Rebecca from afar for just as long. Can these two find their heart’s desire? In “A Christmas Carroll”, Rebecca takes a journey into heartbreak and guilt that brings her to the very edge of a world she does not yet belong to, but may never let her leave. With the help of some ‘old friends’, Rebecca faces her guilt and her fears, finally letting her see and accept the love that’s been right in front of her.

Michael is taken on a similar journey, but he must face the heavy mantle of his own guilt and self worth before he takes on the strength of his love for Rebecca. These two stricken hearts are helped and protected by Percy and the Old Guard, including one with a very special Christmas gift for her friends.

This story handles love and its heartaches and triumphs with such gifted tenderness. It’s not often that a book can make me cry, but this one did. However, Leanna is so good to her readers that she never leaves us with sad and hopeless feelings. This is the magic of her books. “A Christmas Carroll” is one of three novellas found in the anthology, A Midwinter Fantasy. The two other stories included in this book are “The Worth of a Sylph” by L. J. McDonald and “The Crystal Crib” by Helen Scott Taylor.

A Midwinter Fantasy is available today on eBooks only at Barnes & Noble. This book is not yet available in print.