From the back cover:
Fa la la la...labor!
Okay, maybe driving solo cross-country in her eighth month wasn't the most brilliant idea Mirabella Waskowitz had ever had. And maybe she should have turned back when she heard the blizzard warnings. But the feisty mom-to-be certainly didn't need advice from that strapping Southern trucker who kept crossing her path...until her water broke.
Here is was Christmas Eve, and single dad Jimmy Joe Starr wanted only to be home with his young son. Instead, he was snowbound with a beautiful "virgin" who was about to give birth. Jimmy Joe had long ago stopped believing in miracles. But Mirabella and her baby were about to change all that...
And my review:
I bought this book because I loved Kathleen Creighton's Christmas novella, THE MYSTERIOUS GIFT found in Silhouette Christmas Stories 1990 collection. Since I love Christmas romance, I figured a full-length novel by the same author would be a sure thing.
But I was a bit disappointed in ONE CHRISTMAS KNIGHT. While I have no problem with an older woman/younger man premise, the author harped on their age difference so much that it started to bug me. The heroine is nearly a decade older than the hero, and the author kept mentioning how young the hero looked, and how he was still in diapers when she was in junior high school, etc, etc. I started picturing a graying woman with a baby-faced teen not yet shaving. It made it a bit icky. And when the heroine started putting herself down, it felt like she was using a plot to get the hero to compliment her.
One thing that also got on my nerves was the heroine. She was very stuck-up. She thinks the world entitles her anything she wants, which made her seem spoiled. The way she was always walking around with her nose in the air (and I never understood what she was so high-and-mighty about) made me want to take her down a peg or two. And her flipping the bird to another driver because he honked at her (when she was blocking traffic) made her seem crass. Frankly, I thought the hero needed someone sweeter and more ladylike.
One other big stumbling block for me: the heroine was about to become a single mother...by choice. She wasn't a woman who'd been widowed, or the victim of a man who refused to take responsibility for his child. No, she had decided that she wanted a child, so she went to a sperm bank to buy herself one. This just didn't sit well with me. I don't believe in anyone actively choosing to deny a child of a father. (If it is out of the mother's control, like the father refuses to be a part of the child's life, that's a different story, and I would never look down on a woman in that situation.) But to choose to deny your child of a dad? That just doesn't seem right to me. Of course, not everyone feels this way, so you might enjoy this story if that plot point isn't a problem for you.
But even if you put that whole issue aside, I still didn't feel like the hero and heroine were a good match. I thought that he was too nice for her, and that if they did end up together, she would walk all over him. I thought that she needed someone who'd be firmer with her, and he needed someone who was nicer.
One last little complaint: this story felt very dated, even though it was published in 1997, so only ten years ago. Mentions of Soupy Sales, Princess Di, and a "newfangled" technology called email. Not really annoying, just kind of funny, in a "I'm only 26 and this makes me feel old" way.
Maybe I just expected too much, since I'd enjoyed this author's work so much before. I don't know. Still, the bottom line is that I don't recommend this book. There are better Christmas romances out there.
