Sunday, October 25, 2009

There's Something About Christmas by Debbie Macomber


There Is Something About Christmas by Debbie Macomber

In Debbie Macomber's 2005 Christmas offering, we find Emma Collins, being assigned her first major assignment for her Puyallup newspaper of interviewing the three Washington State finalists in the Fruitcake contest for Good Homemaking Magazine. Since she hates anything to do with Christmas, this seems to be a daunting task, especially since she detests fruitcake and the pilot, Oliver Hamilton, who just happens to take on the assignment for his air service business he has just started, in lieu of getting advertising. Emma hates flying, so when she has to fly with Oliver and his Terrier, Oscar, who sneezes each time he's around her, due to his being allergic to perfume, things get too much for Emma. Oliver seems to be too much like her estranged father, who left she and her mother years earlier.

The first lady Emma interviews about her Fruitcake is Earleen Williams, who lives in Yakima and who has been married three times. Emma learns more about her love of making Fruitcake than she bargains for and even gets laid over due to a snowstorm. Her next Fruitcake lady is Sophie McKay, eighty year old widow from Colville, who has a love for cats and flowers. Sophie gives Emma some wise lessons about life through Fruitcake recipe, which has a secret ingredient her husband requested of her to use. Earlene also had a secret ingredient as well. Her third and final lady is Peggy Lucas, a young mother of four children, who lives in Friday Harbor in the San Juan Islands. Getting to Peggy is an adventure, as Emma has to fly on a pontoon plane. Emma learns from Peggy that her recipe she'd only been making a short time, as her young kids didn't want to wait for weeks or months to eat her special Fruitcake. You will need to read this wonderfully witty adventure to find out what the secret ingredients for these three Fruitcakes are. What I loved about this offering was there were little snippets from well-known chefs at the beginning of each chapter and the recipes for each Fruitcake. I'm not a Fruitcake person, but these sounded like something I might try.

Forever Friends Rating 5 Stars by Teri
Until Next Time, See You Around The Book Nook.


Mira Books
Pub. Date: November 2005
288pp
Available in eBook$7.20
Buy it Used: 122 copies from $1.99 See All Available

3 comments:

Heather Justesen said...

In the past I've found Debbie Macomber's books to have far too many characters and subplots to keep track of (a major problem if you enter in the middle of some of her series like I did with the lighthouse book)I may have to give this a try, though. Thanks!

Jewel's Gems said...

This sounds like a way fun book. I'll have to look for it. Great review:-)

JoAnn Arnold said...

I'll be checking it out. thank you