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Pages: 63
Goes Well With: A nice hearty stew and a warm glass of mulled wine
In addition to the decorations and ugly sweaters for sale in the stores, authors always seem to pump out a few Christmas-themed stories this time of year. A Warrior for Christmas by Beth Trissel is no different, although in all actuality Christmas is only mentioned in passing.
The year is 1764, and Corwin Whitfield’s life is changing. Eight years earlier his parents had been killed by Indians at their frontier home and Corwin was adopted into a Shawnee family. Now he finds himself ransomed from the Shawnee — Trissel keeps mentioning a treaty, one can only assume she means the end of the French and Indian War — and soon to be the heir of his uncle Whitfield’s vast fortune. Corwin and his uncle travel from Shawnee lands to Whitfield Place, where they meet up with Mr. Whitfield’s ward, Miss Dimity Scott. Dimity’s parents also had died, and she somehow comes under Mr. Whitfield’s protection. A good thing, too — Dimity was left hearing impaired after a near-deadly bout of scarlet fever. Dimity (a name I’ve never heard before and to be honest don’t even know how to properly pronounce) finds her marital prospects slim, since no one in 18th century society wanted to be saddled with an infirm deaf wife. When Dimity and Corwin meet it is naturally love at first sight. But will the call of the wilderness and Corwin’s warrior past lure him away from her? Will Dimity’s disability prove insurmountable?
Like many of the lunch break eBooks I have reviewed, I found this one to be a sweet story but rather flawed. In the span of a mere sixty-three pages you simply can’t go into as much detail with regards to character development and plot as you normally would in an average-length novel. So I found Corwin’s back story — and that of Dimity’s — rather weak. His warrior spirit is mentioned several times but we don’t actually see the savage within. Dimity is perfection herself, all sweetness and light, but lacks depth. And, as I mentioned before, this is supposed to be a Christmas story, but we get literally two mentions of the holiday, and one is in the title. I would be interested to read a more fleshed-out version of this story if Ms. Trissel could expand the story into a full length novel. As it stands, though, A Warrior for Christmas is a sweet enough story — you can’t really go wrong with love at first sight. I’d recommend this book for only the most die-hard romantics, the ones who want a happy ending at all costs.
